Order Workflow Templates Overview

Essential knowledge

Author:

Fluent Commerce staff

Changed on:

13 Dec 2023

Overview

We provide three reference workflows Home Delivery (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 Order Workflow to support additional Order 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 workflow 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 Workflow, 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 Order Type.

PreOrder Workflow Example

In this scenario, the preorder is intended to be triggered for fulfillment from an external system. The new order type is PREORDER.

*Entity*	*Entity Status*	*Business Logic*	*Workflow Steps*
Order	CREATED	Order is received from the sales channel with the order type set to PREORDER
Order	RECEIVED	Items reserved against a virtual location until the physical stock arrives	Transition Order to the Hold state.
Order	HOLD	Order 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.
Order	RELEASED	Order is released for fulfillment via an external system	External event received by Fluent to trigger the workflow.
Order	COMPLETE	Order has completed its life cycle and is at an end state
Fulfilment	CREATED	Reserve the preorder inventory against a virtual location	Reserve/allocate quantities in the inventory catalogue by decreasing each SKU-Location-Qty by number of items ordered.
Fulfilment	RELEASED	Preorder inventory is released and physical inventory reserved as the sourcing logic will be run	Release preorder reservation and reserve against the location with physical stock. Check availability against virtual catalogue using sourcing logic.
Fulfilment	ASSIGNED	Send webhook to external systems, if required (e.g.,Warehouse Management System (WMS)) for DC fulfillment
Fulfilment	FULFILLED	Warehouse staff confirm the items and quantities	WMS sends an event to Fluent to update the items and quantities successfully confirmed.
Article	CREATED	Warehouse staff confirm the number of boxes the items are packed in	WMS sends an event to Fluent to advise the number of packages (articles).
Article	AWAITING COLLECTION	Triggered by WMS event when carrier is booked
Article	COLLECTED	Courier comes to the warehouse and collects the order for delivery. This triggers the completion of the order	WMS sends an event to Fluent to update the Article status.
Consignment	CREATED
Consignment	LODGED	Warehouse staff book the courier and await the courier to collect the order	WMS sends an event to Fluent to update the courier tracking number and courier booked. Corresponding articles are marked as awaiting collection.
Fulfilment	COMPLETE	Courier arrives at the warehouse and picks up the order for delivery	WMS sends an event to Fluent to notify that the carrier has picked up the order. This event triggers a notification (e.g. email) to the customer to tell them the order is on the way and let them know the tracking number. Order is marked as Complete.

Plan the high level flow

Identify what Rules and Rulesets you will need to support your workflow using rule library.

Preorder Workflow Image

Plan your Naming convention

Follow the naming convention for your new order type and workflow.

Create your workflow

Follow the workflow creation guide to create a new workflow.

Read how to add a new order and fulfillment type to Fluent Store here.