Order fulfillment is the set of actions taken by the merchant to deliver the goods or services purchased by the customer. In general, merchandise can be broken up into two groups: Hard Goods and Electronic Goods. Hard Goods are physical goods that are shipped to the customer. Hard Goods include items such as books, CDs, or toys. Electronic Goods are purchases that do not result in a tangible product that requires shipping. Electronic Goods include software downloads, subscriptions, or gift certificates.
ATG Commerce is designed to handle both of these situations. This chapter describes the design of the order fulfillment framework and presents an overview of the basic classes used to build this infrastructure.
This chapter contains information on the following topics:
Overview of Fulfillment Process: Describes the control flow during the fulfillment process and introduces the JMS messages and pipeline chains used during fulfillment.
Running the Fulfillment Server: Describes how to use ATG Commerce with the fulfillment server.
Order Fulfillment Classes: Describes the base classes that make up the fulfillment architecture.
Fulfillment Pipelines: Describes the set of pipeline chains that are used during fulfillment.
Using Locking in Fulfillment: Describes the system that prevents order fulfillment components from handling more than one message per order at any given time.
Using the OrderFulfiller Interface: Describes the
OrderFulfillerinterface, the interface to the fulfillment system through which all other systems communicate.Using the Fulfiller: Describes the tasks the fulfiller performs as part of the fulfillment process.
Creating a New Fulfiller: Describes how to create a new fulfiller if your site requires fulfillment functionality different from that of the fulfillers that ship with ATG Commerce.
Order Fulfillment Events: Describes the order fulfillment events created and sent by the
OrderChangeHandlerin the Order Fulfillment system.Fulfillment Server Fault Tolerance: Describes the fulfillment server is configured to minimize the impact of any downtime.
Replacing the Default Fulfillment System: Describes how to replace the fulfillment system that ships with ATG Commerce with another fulfillment system.
Using Scenarios in the Fulfillment Process: Describes how the fulfillment system uses of the scenario engine to provide features including e-mail notifications to customers.
Questions & Answers: The following section answers some commonly asked questions about the fulfillment framework.
