Understand punchout orders

Punchout ordering is an account-based commerce flow in which buyers can purchase products directly from merchants; the buyer’s procurement system is integrated with the merchant’s commerce system.

While buyers browse in their own procurement system, they can “punch out” to the merchant’s site where they can receive details about products and account-specific pricing. Buyers add products to their carts from these product catalogs. When a buyer is ready to check out, instead of going through the buyer’s commerce account checkout process, the system sends the product information back to the buyer’s procurement system so the buyer can either continue shopping at other merchants or submit the order through the procurement system for approval.

Once the order has been verified and approved, a purchase order is sent to the merchant. A single purchase order can constitute a collection of multiple buyers going as one or an individual. Depending on the system capabilities, the purchase order can go directly to a merchant’s fulfillment system without the need for the Oracle Commerce system. In other cases (for example, the merchant’s fulfillment system is not set up to receive purchase orders), this may not occur. The Commerce system can then receive the purchase orders, validate them, and send them through the Commerce fulfillment process.

All the main flows (for example, editing or canceling an order, or returning or exchanging products) have been built into the Commerce system for orders.

Currently, only direct punchout orders are supported, which involve direct buying from one buyer’s organization to a single merchant. Third-party networks, also known as marketplaces, are not supported.

Understand punchout orders in the Agent Console

An agent cannot place a punchout order for a buyer because of the way the orders are placed. However, for those punchout orders that enter the Commerce system, you can search for the order as you would any other order:

When a buyer launches the Storefront application and adds items to the cart, the punchout order is created and associated with a pseudo-user. The order is incomplete prior to submission. On the Order Details page, the Origin of Order field is set to Punchout. This is the state you see if you search for and open an incomplete cart of the pseudo-user.
With submission of the punchout order, the Origin of Order field is updated to PurchaseOrder and remains in that state unless you create an exchange order.
If your business has set up a remorse period, you can edit punchout orders that fit the criteria.
Once the punchout order is fulfilled, you can search for the order and complete returns and exchanges as you would with any other order.
With exchanges, because a new order is created from the original order, the new order’s Origin of Order state is updated to contactCenter. The original order’s Origin of Order remains as PurchaseOrder.

Understand account-based commerce approvals

During order creation, the Check for Approval button is displayed so the agent is aware that the order may be sent for approval based on the account level purchase limit. If the order requires approval, the agent may not need to request payment details; only deferred payment is accepted, for example, an invoice.

Order approval and rejection are completed by an account approver, after order approval has been enabled in the administration interface, and orders have been submitted that require approval.

When creating an order for a buyer, once the items have been added to the cart, in the Payment Details section, on the right side of the page, click Check for Approval to see if the order requires an approval. A message is displayed to inform the buyer if approval is required. If the order requires approval, in the Payment Details section, credit/debit card information does not need to be added as the default version of the Agent Console does not retain credit/debit card information during the approval process. Only deferred payments (for example, cash and invoice) are accepted.

To approve or reject orders, the approver can log into his or her account and view a list of orders on the Orders Pending Approval tab. The approver can then view the details of an order and either click Reject or Approve. An email notification is sent to the shopper after an order has been approved or rejected.

Agents can assist approvers and account buyers by:

Approving pending orders on behalf of an approver.
Amending approved orders during the remorse period.

It is solely the approver’s responsibility to approve or reject orders. However, an account buyer can contact an agent to amend an order.

To approve an order on behalf of an approver:

An example might involve an approver who is unable to access his or her Order Approvals tab because of lack of access to the internet.

Complete a customer search to confirm the shopper has the role of approver. On the Customer Profile page, refer to the Storefront Role section to identify if the shopper is a delegated approver.
On the approver’s profile, under Account Name, select the account for the orders for approval.
Click the Order Approvals tab to view pending approvals.
The Order Approvals tab is only displayed if the shopper has the approver role.
From the list of pending orders, click the order link for the appropriate order. The Order page is displayed with the status of Pending Approval.
Optionally, add information in the Approval Comments field.
Click Reject or Approve. On the confirmation dialog, click Approve or Cancel.
Once approved, the status of the order changes to Pending Payment if a credit or debit card was used, or Submitted to Fulfillment if another method, like invoice, was used. The buyer receives an email informing him or her that the order has been approved.

The order can also be set to Pending Payment in cases where no payment has been provided for an order sent for approval.

The buyer can now access the order and add payment information if necessary. If a credit or debit card was used for the original order, in the default version of the Agent Console, the buyer needs to re-enter the credit card information. Once approved, orders created using the invoice payment method are submitted directly to fulfillment and do not require additional buyer intervention. In cases where credit or debit card are used, card data is not saved; the buyer must provide credit or debit card information.

For orders with pending payments, your business can set a price hold period during which the price of the order will not change. After the period passes, the order is cancelled. For more information, see Set the price hold period.

To amend a buyer’s order:

Conduct an order search and open the order to confirm the order is within the remorse period.
Amendments to a buyer’s order can only be made if the order is still within the remorse period.
On the Order page, click Edit Order. A dialog is displayed to inform the buyer that the order may require an approval.
Complete the order amendment process.
The buyer can add an invoice number at this point instead of a credit or debit card. With an invoice, once the order is approved, the order goes immediately to Submitted to Fulfillment. Credit and debit card information is not retained by the system.
Ensure that the credit or debit card information is complete.
If approval is not required, once the order is placed, the order is submitted for fulfillment.
Once the order is completed, click Place Order. If the order requires approval, a dialog is displayed to inform you of that fact. Click OK to proceed with the approval process.

Because a new order requires approval, the new order is generated and the previously placed order is cancelled. If a credit or debit card was used for the order, once the order is approved, the buyer must open the order and re-enter the credit card information as the default version of the Agent Console does not retain this information.

Schedule an order

Schedule automatically recurring orders for items the shopper needs to buy periodically. When the scheduled time is reached, the system automatically creates an order for the product. You can edit the schedule and the quantity later from Scheduled Orders page in the shopper account.

To schedule a recurring order:

Create a new order or open an order already in progress (complete the order) for the shopper.
Add an item or items to the order. In the Order Items section, under the order total, the Schedule Order checkbox appears.
Select the checkbox. The Schedule Instruction section appears.
In the Schedule Instruction section, enter the following information in the fields:
- In the Order Name field, enter a significant name to help identify this particular scheduled order in the future.
- In the Start field, enter the date on which this scheduled order begins. You can also use the date picker icon to select the date.
This date must be later than the current date.
- (Optional) In the End field, enter a date on which this scheduled order ends. You can also use the date picker icon to select the date.
- From the Frequency menu, select how often this scheduled order occurs. Choices span from daily to quarterly.
If the shopper decides to order weekly, an additional set of options appears. Choose the day or days of the week. You can also choose which week of the month the order runs.
- Select the Suspend checkbox if the shopper wants the scheduled order, once scheduled, to be placed on hold.
The total price of the scheduled order may change based on the prices of items in the order at the time it is submitted.
Complete the order per instructions in the Create New Orders section.
Note: There is one exception with scheduled orders concerning payment: Scheduled orders must be paid for using an invoice or purchase order number as the default version of the Agent Console does not retain shopper credit card information.
For scheduled orders, the Place Order button is replaced with the Schedule Order button. Click the button to schedule the order.
Once the order is scheduled, the Customer Profile page for the shopper appears with the Scheduled Orders tab displayed. On this tab, you can review all of the scheduled orders created for this shopper.
On the tab, the table provides information about each order: name, order ID, created date, frequency, next ship date, status, and last order date. Click Delete to permanently stop the scheduled order from recurring.
If in the future you want to find the scheduled orders for a shopper, open the shopper Customer Profile page and click the Scheduled Orders tab.
To view a scheduled order in more details, click the name link. The Scheduled Order page for that order appears.
On this page, you can make changes to the schedule instructions, changing name, dates and frequency, and suspend the order.
Note: You cannot add or remove items from the order. One solution may be to delete the scheduled order and create a new one.
In the Order History section, view the orders that have been fulfilled previously, along with order outcomes and any failure reasons if they occur.

Understand the effect of order approvals on scheduled orders

For account-based scheduled order, the order requires approval if one instance of the scheduled order exceeds the purchase limit. When a scheduled order is approved, the approval applies to every instance of the order created based on the schedule. The approval persists even if the prices of the schedule order change. Conversely, if Oracle Commerce determines that a new scheduled order does not require approval, that determination persists even if the prices change in the schedule order and cause its total value to exceed the purchase limit at some point in the future.

The approval status of a scheduled order affects what the shopper can do with the order. When a scheduled order has been approved, the order is locked down and the only elements that can be edited are the schedule, the active or inactive setting, and the payment method. Note that a scheduled order does not go back for re-approval if the schedule is edited.

When a scheduled order has been rejected, none of the order’s instances are allowed to proceed and the order cannot be edited. When a scheduled order is pending approval, its contents are repriced when the order’s details are viewed. The shopper can modify the schedule and the active/inactive setting of a scheduled order that is pending approval.

Scheduled orders that already exist when the order approval feature is enabled are allowed to proceed without approval.

Complete in-process orders

There may be situations where the customer is having issues with placing an order, so the order is in progress but incomplete.

To assist with an in-process or incomplete customer order:

Conduct a customer search.
Under Customer Results, in the Cart column, click the Complete link. The Order Details page appears.
If the customer does not have an order in progress, the Cart Action is displayed as New.
Add or delete items, add promotion codes, shipping and payment details, and add notes as necessary. At this point, the shopper can use either single or multiple payments options. For more information, see Understand single and multiple payments.
For more information on adding and editing order details, see Create new orders. For information on scheduling an order, see Schedule an order.
Once all item and customer information has been added to the order, click Place Order.

Once you click Place Order, the order data (except for payment information) is immediately saved or persists in the system to avoid situations where order data is lost when a third-party application (for example, a credit card system) is for some reason unsuccessful and the order fails. This functionality eliminates the need to rebuild the entire order from nothing. Because the order data persists, you can recover the order if necessary.

Use the address book

The address book is available to you when creating an order. On the Order page, Shipping Details, under Shipping Address, you can view the current default address. If you want to select a different shipping address for the order, he or she can click the Address Book button. The Address Book dialog is displayed showing the current list of available shipping addresses.

Note: You can only add dynamic properties when creating a new address and not from the address book. You cannot update existing addresses on Checkout page for registered shoppers.

On the Address Book page, you can:

Click Ship to this Address to select an address for the order.
Click New Shipping Address to create an additional address for this account. When creating a new address, the address can be set as the billing address. Go to the Customer Profile page to set an address as the default.

The address book is available to you when amending orders.

For account-based commerce buyers, you cannot edit the shipping or billing address information as it is set for the account associated with the shopper. If you click the Edit button and modify the displayed address, the changes are saved as a new address.

Account-based commerce buyers with the Account Address Manager, Profile Address Manager, or Administrator role can add new, edit, or delete addresses. In addition, the account address manager and administrator can set default addresses for the account. These addresses are then available for account buyers to use.