Sites often require the functionality to create orders to be fulfilled repeatedly on a specific schedule, or to construct and save orders to be placed at a later date. You can use Oracle ATG Web Commerce to support these requirements through the use of scheduled orders.

In Commerce, a scheduled Order object (of type scheduledOrder) maintains the schedule information for the scheduled order, and a template Order object maintains the order information for the scheduled order. The template Order object is a typical Order in the orderRepository, but it has a state of TEMPLATE. When a scheduled order is placed, the template order is cloned, and the cloned order is checked out and sent to Fulfillment. Consequently, the template Order is never processed, but simply serves as a prototype.

Template orders must include enough information, such as all necessary shipping and payment information, to process the cloned Order without further user interaction. A previously processed order or even the user’s shopping cart (once the shipping and payment information has been specified) can be used to create a template order.

This section describes the Commerce framework that supports scheduled orders and includes the following subsections:

For an example implementation of scheduled orders, see the Scheduling Orders section of the My Account chapter in the ATG Business Commerce Reference Application Guide.