Order Fulfillment through RICS Integration

Overview: Use communication through Oracle Retail Integration Cloud Service (RICS) to manage order fulfillment through the following Oracle Retail applications:

• Inventory reservation and warehouse order communication: Order fulfillment is through Oracle Retail Merchandising Foundation Cloud Service (RMFCS).

• Store order communication: Order fulfillment is through Oracle Retail Store Inventory Management (SIM) or Enterprise Inventory Cloud Service (EICS) and its UX layer Store Operations Cloud Service (SOCS).

Note:

The order fulfillment process described below is available for delivery orders only.

Order creation: The order creation process includes the following steps:

• Submit order: An integrated system, such as Order Management System or Order Management System Cloud Service, submits the order to Order Broker.

• Order routing: Order Broker selects one or more fulfilling locations for the delivery order, as described in the Order Broker Routing Engine Overview.

• Communication through RICS: If the system associated with a fulfilling location is configured for RICS integration, Order Broker posts the order or order line to RICS.

• Successful post? If Order Broker receives a message indicating that the order posting was a success, the order status changes to posted. Order Broker assigns this status only to orders fulfilled through the RICS integration.

• RICS broadcasts the order request to SIM or EICS and RMFCS: If the assigned fulfilling location is a:

  • Warehouse: RMFCS creates the order. RICS sends a status update of accepted to Order Broker. SIM and EICS ignore the request if the fulfilling location is a warehouse.

  • Store location: SIM or EICS creates the order.

    Regardless of whether the assigned fulfilling location is a warehouse or a store location, RMFCS reserves inventory for the order.

Which orders are eligible for posting to RICS?

• Assigned to system configured for RICS? Only orders that are assigned to fulfilling locations in a system configured for RICS are eligible for posting.

• Delivery orders only: Other order types are not submitted.

• Under review? You need to select the Hold Under Review Orders setting for the system to indicate not to submit orders whose Under Review flag is selected, but instead to wait until the flag is cleared.

Additional events that trigger posting an order to RICS: In addition to posting at order creation, Order Broker also submits eligible orders to RICS when:

• Rejection: The currently assigned fulfillment location rejects the order, or you change the status to rejected through the Order screen or the Edit Order Item window, depending on whether you use split orders.

  This type of rejection can also occur if a store associate cannot find inventory for the order, and cancels the order in SIM; or if warehouse staff cannot find inventory, and they cancel the order in RMFCS.

  In either case, Order Broker “reshops” the order to a new fulfilling location.

• Location change: You change the assigned fulfilling location through the Order screen or the Edit Order Item window, depending on whether you use split orders.

Releasing reservation: Release reservation processing takes place if the Send Release Reservation Inventory Message flag is selected at the System screen. When an order or line assigned through RICS is canceled or rejected, Order Broker generates a message to RICS indicating that the reserved inventory for the order can be released. This information enables RMFCS to use the inventory for other orders, and notifies RMFCS, EICS, or SIM to update the status of the order. The status update can occur either through a web service request, or at the Order screen or the Edit Order Item window.

The release reservation message is also generated when you assign a new fulfilling location through the Order screen or the Edit Order Item window.

Order Broker generates the release reservation message immediately. If Order Broker then reshops a rejected order to another enterprise location, it posts the new order information through RICS for fulfillment.

Note:

Order Broker does not send the release reservation message if the order is under review and the system is configured not to send orders that are under review, because in this situation the order was not yet posted through RICS.

Updating order status: RICS sends status update messages when the status of an order or line changes. These messages map to the Order Status Update Request message. When the order or line ships, the information updated can include a carton number and tracking information, as well as the shipping date from the fulfilling location.

If RICS sends a status update message and the order is already in that status, Order Broker does not return an error to RICS; however, the error is noted in the RICS Log tab of the Order screen, for example: Error updating status for request id = XXXXX line number = X - got an exception. Request already at provided status.

Under review change notifications: Order Broker submits an under review message to RICS to notify the fulfilling system when an open order that was previously submitted is now under review, or when a submitted order that was previously under review is no longer under review.

For example, this situation can occur when:

• Order Broker submits an order through RICS for fulfillment.

• A number of days later, the authorization expires; and when the originating system, such as Order Management System, submits a new authorization request, it is declined.

• The originating system sends an order update request to Order Broker to set the Under Review flag to Y.

Order Broker then submits the under review request to RICS, indicating not to fulfill the order at this time.

Similarly, Order Broker submits the under review update message to RICS when an open order that was previously under review is no longer under review, and can be fulfilled.

The under review updates are sent only when:

• The order is a Delivery order, and

• The order status is currently Posted, Polled, Accepted, or Picked, and

• The setting of the Under Review flag changes.

Hold Under Review? The Hold Under Review Orders flag should normally be selected at the System screen. When this flag is selected, an order is not initially sent to RICS when created if it is currently under review; instead, when the Under Review flag is cleared for the order, it is posted automatically as a new order to RICS, and the under review message is not generated. However, if the setting of the Under Review flag changes after the order is posted, the under review message is generated, indicating to hold the order.

If order or release posting fails: Posting orders or release reservation requests through RICS can fail because:

• Communication with RICS did not succeed. For example, this might occur if RICS was temporarily unavailable, the URL specified at the System screen was incorrect, or the request timed out.

  In this case, a background job triggers submission of all of these messages on an hourly basis. The messages are posted in first-in first-out order (oldest first). The RICS Log tab of the Order screen displays these messages with a Retry Status of Failed.

• There an unrecoverable error in the information to be submitted. For example, the location code specified in the request is alphabetical rather than numeric.

  In this case, Order Broker does not reattempt to submit these messages, because they would not succeed. The RICS log records are eligible to be purged through the daily cleanup job based on the RICS Log History retention days, described below. Order Broker changes the status of the order or lines to unfulfillable.

RICS log: The RICS Log tab of the Order screen provides further detail about activity and the messages sent and received. From this tab, you can also open the RICS Log Message window to review request or response messages.

Reviewing order activity and messages: The Transaction Notes at the History tab of the Order screen describe updates for orders fulfilled through the RICS integration. For example, when:

• Order Broker submits the order to RICS: History message is Posted to RICS.

• Order Broker notifies RICS to release the reservation for the order because it has been canceled or rejected: RICS Release Reservation Message Sent.

• Order Broker notifies RICS that the Under Review flag for an open, submitted order has been selected: Under Review: Yes; RICS Under Review Message Sent. The note indicate a setting of No if the Under Review flag has been cleared.

• There is an unrecoverable error in the information to be submitted, such as alphabetical characters in a numeric field: Unable to create RICS message.

Required configuration: To fulfill orders using RICS, complete the following configuration in Order Broker.

• System configuration: Create SIM or EICS and RMFCS as systems in Order Broker.

• Use the RICS Integration tab at the System screen to configure these systems. The information you can specify at this tab includes:

  • Flagging the system as Online for RICS communication. If this flag is not selected, no communication takes place with RICS.

  • Connection and authentication information for communicating with RICS.

    Note:

    The User ID specified at the RICS Integration tab needs to have the Operator or Admin role in RIB in order to support sending stop and start requests at the beginning and end of the Inventory Quantity Export, indicating to pause individual inventory updates while the export runs. See Available-to-Sell Individual Inventory Updates through Oracle Retail Integration Cloud Service (RICS) for more information.

• Settings that control order flow, including selecting the Hold Under Review Orders flag to prevent submitting orders that are currently held for review.

  The Use Requesting System Line Number in Status Update flag at the Orders tab of the System screen should be unselected.

• Web service authorization: Create web service users for the Oracle Retail Integration Cloud Service that will be required for authentication of inbound messages to Order Broker. See Web Service Authorization for more information.

• Preference settings: Note the following settings at the Preferences screen:

  • Delivery orders only: The locations associated with the SIM and RMFCS systems should be configured in Order Broker to support delivery orders only. You cannot use the RICS integration to fulfill any other order types.

  • Cannot use split line or partial status update: The Allow Split Line and Allow Partial Updates preferences should not be selected for your organization. However, you can select Allow Split Order.

  • Split order: If Allow Split Order is selected at the Preferences screen, the Create Fulfillment Order message to RICS has the partial delivery indicator (<partial_delivery_ind> tag set to Y; otherwise, it is set to N.

    Other preference settings, such as Acknowledge Order Before Brokering, do not affect the ability to fulfill orders through RICS.

• Store and warehouse locations: See Importing Data from Merchandising Cloud Services (RMFCS) through the Omnichannel Cloud Data Service (OCDS) for information. Note that location codes must be numeric for integration through RICS.

• RICS Log History retention days: This field at the Tenant-Admin screen specifies the number of days to retain RICS_LOG records before the daily cleanup job automatically deletes them. Can be from 0 to 30 days. Only successful records and records with unrecoverable errors are eligible for deletion.

• Setup in Order Management System: If you use Order Management System, note the following required setup.

  • Orders originating in Order Management System should use an originating location that matches the E-Commerce Virtual Warehouse in RMFCS. The originating location passed from Order Management System is determined by the Originating Location to Pass to OROB (M32) system control value.

  • Order Management System should have the Use OROB for Fulfillment Assignment (M31) system control value selected.

  • See the Order Management System online help, including Brokered Backorders and Enterprise Order Integration, for background on additional setup in Order Management System.

For more information: Contact your Oracle representative for more information on configuration required beyond settings in Order Broker and Order Management System.

Troubleshooting and things to note:

• If any order type besides a delivery order is assigned to a location in a system that uses RICS for order fulfillment, it will not be submitted to RICS. Instead, it will remain in new order status.

• The processing described above takes place only for systems that are configured to use RICS based on the settings at the RICS Integration tab at the System screen.

• RICS order fulfillment does not support fulfilling an order that includes the same item on multiple order lines, such as a ship-alone item.

• Hold under review? If the order is fulfilled through RICS order fulfillment and the Hold Under Review Orders flag for the system is selected, the order is not posted for fulfillment until you clear the Under Review flag. This flag should be selected.

• Require status update? The Require Status Update flag does not control whether the order status is automatically set to polled, since the fulfillment request message is not used.

• Retry status displayed for unrecoverable errors: When the fulfillment request message to RICS has an unrecoverable error, the Retry Status listed at the RICS Integration tab at the System screen is Success. This status indicates that the RICS log record is eligible to be purged, because Order Broker will not attempt to post the message again.

• It is not necessary to configure the hourly job that resubmits failed requests to RICS. This job runs automatically. It is the same job that checks for any orders that are still assigned to the In Process location if you use Acknowledge Order Before Brokering.

• In process orders excluded: Orders that are currently assigned to the IN PROCESS location are not submitted until they are assigned to a location associated with a system flagged for RICS order processing. See Acknowledge Order Before Brokering for a discussion on in process orders.

For more information: See:

• RICS Integration tab at the System screen.

• Web Service Authorization for information on setting up authentication for the Oracle Retail Integration Cloud Service.

• RICS Log tab at the Order screen.

• RICS Log Message window.

• RICS Message Mapping in the Operations Guide for message and mapping details.