Aggregate Requests That Order Management Sends to Your Fulfillment System

Aggregate requests to your fulfillment system to help minimize problems that might happen with the timing of requests.

Use this topic only if you implemented Order Management on Update 23C or earlier. If you implement starting with Update 23D or later, then see the Aggregate Fulfillment Lines subtopic in Set Up Features, Manage Change, and More for Drop Ship.

Use these actions on your routing rule.

Action	Description
Set Maximum Lines to Aggregate	Number of pending requests that must aggregate before calling the fulfillment system.
Set Maximum Time to Wait Before Aggregation	Amount of time to wait before calling the fulfillment system. This time starts when the aggregator receives the first request. Starting with update 21C, use Set Maximum Time to Wait Before Aggregation instead of Set Maximum Time To Wait Before Sending.

Action

Description

Set Maximum Lines to Aggregate

Number of pending requests that must aggregate before calling the fulfillment system.

Set Maximum Time to Wait Before Aggregation

Amount of time to wait before calling the fulfillment system. This time starts when the aggregator receives the first request.

Starting with update 21C, use Set Maximum Time to Wait Before Aggregation instead of Set Maximum Time To Wait Before Sending.

An aggregator collects requests, and then sends them in a single request when a time limit expires or when the aggregator has aggregated a number of fulfillment lines for the sales order. If the sales order includes more than one fulfillment line, and if these lines finish the task before the timeout happens, then it sends all requests when the task finishes.

The aggregator can aggregate only one time for each fulfillment system for each sales order. If Order Management receives more fulfillment lines for the sales order after the aggregator sends a request, then it sends each of these lines individually.
The default timeout is five minutes.
You can use the aggregator only with the Fulfill Order task type or with a task type that you create.

If you specify Set Maximum Lines to Aggregate and also specify Set Maximum Time to Wait Before Aggregation, then Order Management uses the first action that meets the conditions.

For example, assume you set these values.

Action	Value
Set Maximum Lines to Aggregate	50
Set Maximum Time to Wait Before Aggregation	10

At run time, assume 50 lines aggregate before 10 minutes elapse. Order Management will send the lines as soon as 50 lines aggregate. If only 40 lines aggregate after 10 minutes, then Order Management won't send any lines until 10 minutes elapse.

Note

For This Behavior	Do This Set Up
Consider only wait time. Ignore maximum fulfillment lines.	Set the Set Maximum Lines to Aggregate action to 0. This setup is equivalent to the default behavior when you don't specify Set Maximum Lines to Aggregate.
Ignore wait time. Send only one line for each request.	Set the Set Maximum Lines to Aggregate action to 1. This setup is equivalent to the default behavior when you don't specify either action.

For This Behavior

Do This Set Up

Consider only wait time.

Ignore maximum fulfillment lines.

Set the Set Maximum Lines to Aggregate action to 0.

This setup is equivalent to the default behavior when you don't specify Set Maximum Lines to Aggregate.

Ignore wait time.

Send only one line for each request.

Set the Set Maximum Lines to Aggregate action to 1.

This setup is equivalent to the default behavior when you don't specify either action.

For example, assume:

You set the Set Maximum Lines to Aggregate attribute to 10.
You set the Set Maximum Time to Wait Before Aggregation attribute to 5.
An Order Entry Specialist creates a sales order and adds 16 order lines.
Three minutes elapse between the time the aggregator receives the first order line on the template task and the tenth order line.

Set Maximum Lines to Aggregate equals 10 and Order Management will send 10 lines to the fulfillment system in the first request as soon as the aggregator receives the tenth order line.

Next, assume five minutes elapse by the time the aggregator receives the eleventh order line. During this time, the aggregator receives another three order lines. The value of Set Maximum Time to Wait Before Aggregation equals 5, so Order Management will send these four order lines in the second request to the fulfillment system.

For another example, assume:

You set the Set Maximum Lines to Aggregate attribute to 0.
You set the Set Maximum Time to Wait Before Aggregation attribute to 5.
An Order Entry Specialist creates a sales order and adds 16 order lines.
Five minutes elapse by the time the aggregator receives the first order line. During this time, the aggregator receives another eleven order lines.

The value of Set Maximum Time to Wait Before Aggregation is 5, so Order Management will send these 12 lines in the first request to the fulfillment system.