Order Workflow Templates Overview
Author:
Fluent Commerce
Changed on:
23 July 2024
Overview
We provide three reference workflows (HD), Click and Collect (CC) and Mixed Baskets. Suppose our reference workflows do not accommodate your business case. In that case, you can create a new to support additional Types that require different processing and timing, with such as marketplace orders and back orders
Learn more about supported reference workflows here.
Key points
- Plan your Workflow
- PreOrder Workflow Example
- Create your workflow
Plan your Workflow
It would be best to create a new when the business logic you need to implement significantly differs from the reference use cases (HD, CC, MB). Otherwise, you would introduce a complexity that would be hard to maintain in those reference workflows.
Before you create a new , you’ll want to plan out the high-level steps and consider the following questions:
Workflow planning questions
- Does the complexity warrant a new workflow? You can keep one workflow instead of two if there is only a small difference between them.
- What types of fulfillment will your workflow support?
- What sourcing rules do you want it to use?
- Should it include split shipment logic and/or order consolidation logic?
- What events/triggers will you need to send? Events can include triggers to external systems like notification and payment providers to fulfillment locations (e.g., drop ship vendors, warehouses, 3PLs.)
- When do you want to trigger payment authorization?
- When do you want to trigger payment capture?
- At what points during the workflow do you want to trigger order status updates to the sales channel? Or to the customer?
Master data planning questions
- Locations and Network(s)
- Will there be more than one fulfillment network?
- What is the priority for each? (which one to check first)
- Virtual Catalogue(s)
- Which virtual catalogue(s) will this workflow use? And which inventory catalogues do they use (e.g. Find in Location)?
- What networks will be associated with the virtual catalogue?
- Prerequisite: Product Catalogue data - Is it coming from PIM, ERP, or Commerce?
- Inventory Catalogue - what virtual catalogues will it serve?
Let’s work through an example of thinking about and designing a new Type.
PreOrder Workflow Example
In this scenario, the is intended to be triggered for from an external system. The new type is .
Entity | Entity Status | Business Logic | Workflow Steps |
CREATED | is received from the sales channel with the type set to | ||
RECEIVED | Items reserved against a virtual until the physical stock arrives | Transition to the Hold state. | |
HOLD | is moved to a Hold state until it is triggered for release | Send email to customer notifying them that the pre-order has been received and held. | |
RELEASED | is released for via an external system | received by Fluent to the . | |
COMPLETE | has completed its life cycle and is at an end state | ||
Fulfilment | CREATED | Reserve the against a virtual | Reserve/allocate quantities in the catalogue by decreasing each SKU-Location-Qty by number of items ordered. |
Fulfilment | RELEASED | is released and physical reserved as the logic will be run | Release reservation and reserve against the with physical stock. |
Fulfilment | ASSIGNED | Send to external systems, if required (e.g., Management System (WMS)) for DC | |
Fulfilment | FULFILLED | staff confirm the items and quantities | WMS sends an to Fluent to update the items and quantities successfully confirmed. |
CREATED | staff confirm the number of boxes the items are packed in | WMS sends an to Fluent to advise the number of packages (articles). | |
AWAITING COLLECTION | Triggered by WMS when carrier is booked | ||
COLLECTED | Courier comes to the and collects the for delivery. This triggers the completion of the | WMS sends an to Fluent to update the status. | |
CREATED | |||
LODGED | staff book the courier and await the courier to collect the | WMS sends an to Fluent to update the courier tracking number and courier booked. | |
Fulfilment | COMPLETE | Courier arrives at the and picks up the for delivery | WMS sends an to Fluent to notify that the carrier has picked up the . This triggers a notification (e.g. email) to the customer to tell them the is on the way and let them know the tracking number. |
Plan the high level flow
Identify what Rules and Rulesets you will need to support your using rule library.
Preorder Workflow Image
Plan your Naming convention
Follow the naming convention for your new type and .
Create your workflow
Follow the workflow creation guide to create a new .
Read how to add a new and type to Fluent Store here.
