Overview of Connecting Order Management to Your Fulfillment System

Set up a connector so Order Management can communicate with your fulfillment system.

Here's a summary of the set up.

1. Specify how Order Management sends the request to the outbound connector.

   • You specify the URL that locates the outbound connector when you set up the interface.

   • You deploy the outbound connector on a third-party application server.

   • Your information technology group must set up the WSDL for the outbound endpoint.

2. Specify the business conditions that will route the request to the connector.

3. The outbound connector transforms the message into a format that your fulfillment system can understand, then sends the message to your fulfillment system. You can use an integrated development environment, such as Oracle JDeveloper, to specify how to do transformation.

4. The fulfillment system sends a response to the inbound connector.

   Response	Description
   Immediate	The fulfillment system immediately sends the response. A long running task is a task that includes a wait step in the orchestration process. An immediate response doesn't wait to process a fulfillment request that involves a long running task. Instead, it only acknowledges receipt and replies with details that are immediately available. For example, assume the message requests a Boolean value, such as whether the customer is credit worthy or not credit worthy, and the fulfillment system already determined this value. The fulfillment system can respond immediately with the requested details.
   Delayed	The fulfillment system sends the response only after a delay so it can finish the long running task. For example, assume the message requests a status update for the Received Date attribute, which is the date that shipping delivered the item to the customer. Shipping is normally a long running task that includes a pause step because shipping a physical item typically requires one or more days to finish. The fulfillment system can't respond immediately with the requested details. It must delay its response while it waits for the shipping task to finish.

   Note

   • The fulfillment system might also communicate more than one update over time. To process a delayed response, you can add another entry point service in the connector, or you can set up another connector. It isn't necessary to use the interface to set up the connector that receives the message from your fulfillment system and that sends a delayed response.

   • This topic assumes you use the same connector to send the delayed response to Order Management.

   • For examples of immediate and delayed responses, see Convert Shipment Costs to Freight Charges.

5. To send the response, the fulfillment system calls the inbound interface that you set up in Order Management. Order Management uses a single service to accept the response for each task type. You specify the URL that locates the WSDL for the service when you set up the connector.

6. The connector transforms the response into a message that Order Management can understand, then sends it to Order Management.

Here are the task types that the connector uses in Order Management to communicate with your fulfillment system.

Task Type	Description
Reservation	Reserve an item in inventory.
Shipping	Ship the item after you reserve it.
Invoice	Invoice the item after it ships.

For details about the flow you integrate, see How Data Flows Through Order Management.

Road Map to Integrating Order Management with Fulfillment Systems

Do the set ups described in Implementing Order Management. The steps in bold font are particularly important regarding achieving connectivity.

Step	Details	Description
1	Create Your Own Task Type	Specify how to process the sales order and order lines.
2	Order Management Statuses	Do. Set up fulfillment line status. Specify how to split fulfillment line status. Update or close fulfillment lines that remain open.
3	Set Up Orchestration Processes	Set up your orchestration process to determine status conditions, status values, and fulfillment line status.
4	Select Fulfillment Lines for Orchestration Process Steps	Create a business rule that selects fulfillment lines, then specify whether to process them.
5	Connect Order Management to Your Fulfillment System	Set up a connector that enables Order Management to communicate with your fulfillment system.
6	Manage Connector Details Between Order Management and Your Fulfillment System	Specify the web service that enables Order Management to communicate with your fulfillment system.
7	Route Requests from Order Management to Fulfillment Systems	Specify a rule that selects your fulfillment system connector according to sales order, fulfillment line, or orchestration process attribute.
8	Overview of Setting Up Extensible Flexfields in Order Management	Optional. If you implement an extensible flexfield, then you must set it up, deploy it, and publish it.