Determining Whether to Use a Preference in Searches

Overview: Use the Preferences screen to indicate whether to use proximity or probability in locate items searches, under what conditions to use offline inventory, and for settings and search criteria related to the Routing Engine. You can set preferences at the location, location type, or organization level. Order Broker always starts checking at the lowest level first, and works its way up the hierarchy if a setting is blank.

For example, using proximity in searches is a Yes or No setting. At each level, you can set this preference to:

Yes: use the preference in searches.
No: do not use the preference in searches.
Blank: go to the next level in the hierarchy to determine whether to use the preference. For example, if this setting is blank for a location, Order Broker checks the setting at the location type level.

This hierarchy allows you to set the preference at the highest applicable level. For example, if you never want to use proximity logic in your U.S. warehouses, you can set this preference at the location type level. However, if you always want to use probability rules, you set this preference at the organization level.

Illustrates the preference hierarchy: first, use the setting at the location level, if any; otherwise, use the setting at the location type level, if any; otherwise, use the setting for the organization.

Organization level only: There are some preferences that you cannot set at any level below the organization, such as the Use Offline Newer Than time period, which indicates when it is not necessary for Order Broker to send an inventory inquiry request to an online system.