Availability - How it Works

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Intended Audience:

Business User

Author:

Fluent Commerce

Changed on:

29 Aug 2025

Overview

Availability Module provides various availability information for different products, taking into account custom attributes defined in a business workflow. Utilising the Fulfillment Options Workflow, the Availability Module generates Fulfillment Plans for the requested items. This process involves interaction with the Inventory module and applying sourcing logic to select plans from a designated Virtual Catalog for the relevant channel.

Key points

Fulfilment Options entity retrieves and identifies the Fulfillment option for the proposed order. A Fulfilment Options call returns multiple plans for how an order might be fulfilled, such as ETA and pricing information.
Fulfilment Plan entity identifies the strategy to be used to fulfil an order. A fulfilment plan may identify multiple fulfillments to complete an order.

How it works

The process below illustrates how the Fulfilment Options workflow works to produce options and plans to present on an eCommerce site.Refer to numbers 1 to 5 in the diagram and the corresponding steps described below: No alt provided

(1) Request for Fulfilment

Availability requests for fulfilment can come from any e-commerce site or external API. The Fulfillment Option is processed upon receiving a request.

(2) Synchronous Request

A synchronous request, the Fulfilment Options API call generates all possible plans before returning to the eCommerce site.

(3) Fulfilment Plan

In response to the Fulfillment Option, a Fulfillment Plan is created and is sent back to the eCommerce site.

(4) Check Location / Items

The Fulfillment Options Workflow checks the relevant Virtual Catalog to find the best locations for the requested items. This action generates a Fulfillment Plan for the response.

(5) Look up ATS

The Fulfilment Options API call is the synchronous request which means that it will generate all possible plans before returning to the eCommerce site.

Availability Recommended Practices

Virtual Catalogue Design
- Limit the number of Virtual Catalogues, for performance reasons.
- For example: create one Virtual Catalogue for store stock checks, and one for aggregated available to sell (ATS) for Home Delivery
Controls
- Use control groups to exclude categories (product ranges) in each Virtual Catalog
- Start with simple buffer rules, and implement more complex rules over time
Recommended eCommerce Integration Patterns
- Cart/Checkout - use createFulfilmentOption API to surface available to promise (ATP) data, potentially including fulfilment/delivery ETAs
- Product Detail Page (PDP) - use createFulfilmentOption API (slower response time) calls to surface ATP data, or virtualPositions query API calls (faster response time) if only available to sell (ATS) quantity is required (for example to surface store stock). For high-volume implementations to optimise performance consider using a cache for ATS data and calling Fluent in case of a cache miss or low ATS quantity.
- Product Listing Page (PLP) & Search - for optimal performance maintain a cache in eCommerce to support Search and PLP sorting by product availability, or to surface ATS data. virtualPositions queries can be used for surfacing ATS in case of a cache miss, or low ATS quantity. createFulfilmentOption API calls not recommended for PLP due to impact on page load times.
- eCommerce Cache - use Fluent Inventory Feeds to push ATS data to populate the eCommerce Cache. Integration via a cloud-based services required.
- Google Shopping Feed - use Fluent Inventory Feeds to push ATS data to populate the Google Shopping feed. Integration via a cloud-based services required.
Estimated Delivery Date (EDD) Calculation Using Carrier Lead Times
- It's generally not recommended to model complex carrier shipping lead times in OMS (by using settings, for example)
- It’s better to leverage a carrier or carrier management system (CMS), which has been designed for this purpose.
- In most cases the recommended integration approach is to call Fluent from the requesting system to calculate the fulfilment locations and lead times, and then call the CMS to calculate the associated shipping lead times. Combine both to calculate the overall EDD.

Availability - How it Works

Overview

Key points

How it works

(1) Request for Fulfilment

(2) Synchronous Request

(3) Fulfilment Plan

(4) Check Location / Items

(5) Look up ATS

Related content

Fulfilment Options - Extension Module

Fluent Commerce

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