This resource provides guidance for setting up specific workflow scenarios, including configuration for workflow queues and automatic actions where applicable. The following use cases are included:
The following visual workflow can be referenced as an example for all scenarios:
Backorders
Automatic backorder management involves routing orders with backorder quantities to a specific Backorder queue, then automatically reserving inventory for backordered lines as those items become available, and sending those orders forward in workflow to be fulfilled. This eliminates manual process steps where people must review each pending backorder, check available inventory, apply reservations, and send the order to the fulfillment step.
When orders leave an early workflow queue like New Order, they can be automatically checked for whether they are not fully reserved. This indicates that there are some items needed for the order that are not currently available in inventory, which means it should be routed to the Backorder queue. If needed, additional checks can be included to refine which orders are sent to the Backorder queue, for example if certain priority customers should take items from other orders instead of waiting for backordered items.
If backorders should not hold any reservations while they wait for more inventory, then the “Remove All Inventory Reservations” workflow action can be set to trigger for this alternate path. If backorders are allowed to hold reservations, then no workflow action is needed.
The primary path for the New Order queue should be set to wherever fully reserved orders should go next, such as a Pick Order queue. When an order doesn’t have any lines with missing reservations, it will continue on the primary path for fulfillment instead of rerouting to the Backorder queue.
Orders in the Backorder queue will wait there for new inventory to become available. When they leave the Backorder queue, they can automatically reserve all the inventory they need via the “Reserve inventory for all items” workflow action. This ensures that their items are fully reserved before they go to the warehouse for fulfillment.
The primary path should be set to wherever fully reserved orders should go next, such as a Pick Order queue.
An automatic action will forward orders that are waiting in the Backorder queue once there is enough inventory available to reserve all their items. This should be set to a Periodic trigger so it checks on a routine schedule, which is every 15 minutes in this example. It should only update orders that have all of their line items available; if this condition is left out, then all backorders will be continuously updated and have logs created every time the automatic action runs, even if they don’t actually have their items available yet.
When this automatic action submits backorders through workflow, it will trigger the workflow action on the Backorder queue to reserve all needed inventory for those line items. Then they continue on the primary path to the Pick Order queue to be fulfilled, completing the backorder handling process.
Drop Ships
Drop ships can automatically generate their vendor POs, wait in a designated queue until the vendor has shipped the order, then automatically proceed to invoicing. This eliminates manual process steps where people must create the PO, continuously check on pending drop-ship orders, and send them to invoicing once they have shipped.
Drop-ship handling depends on line items with purchasing codes set to DROP SHIP. When any lines have that purchasing code, orders that leave the New Order queue can automatically route to a Drop Ship queue.
When orders enter the Drop Ship queue, they can trigger the Create Purchase Order workflow action to automatically generate their drop-ship PO. Each line item’s purchasing code determines which vendor and PO type are used. Multiple POs can be generated in this one step if items are assigned to different vendors.
Alternatively, the Create Purchase Order And Reserve workflow action can be used to generate the PO and also automatically reserve the purchased inventory for those linked sales lines in the same step.
Drop-ship orders wait in the Drop Ship queue until they are ready for next steps, such as invoicing. The primary path can be set to “Remain in this queue” to ensure that orders don’t go elsewhere, and an alternate path can specify that orders only leave once they meet your criteria. In this example, if the order has been flagged as Fully Paid, then the drop-ship order can proceed to invoicing; this assumes that the drop-ship vendor sends the payment status back once the order is shipped.
This completes the automated drop-ship process.
Future Order Holds
Orders that have been placed for future ship dates can be kept in a holding queue until they are in a reasonable timeframe to be fulfilled. Instead of people manually reviewing these orders to see if they are ready to be fulfilled, an automation can check and forward them.
In this example, any orders that have a Requested Delivery Date that is beyond 5 days from now will be moved to a Future Order HOLD queue.
Orders that enter the Future Order HOLD queue should remove their reservations via the “Remove All Inventory Reservations” workflow action so they do not hold inventory that could be fulfilled to orders that need to ship earlier.
Future orders should not be allowed to leave their holding queue until they are within the allowed time range for fulfillment. The primary path can be set to “Remain in this queue” to ensure the orders don’t go elsewhere unless they meet that criteria.
An alternate path can specify that once orders are within 5 days of their Requested Delivery Date, they are allowed to continue to the Pick Order queue; this example specifically checks whether the date is on or before 5 days from now so that it allows orders to leave if they are already past their Requested Delivery Date, so orders cannot become stuck in the Future Order HOLD queue.
When orders leave the Future Order HOLD queue, they should also trigger the “Reserve Inventory for All Items” workflow action to reserve their items before they go to the warehouse for fulfillment.
An automatic action can automatically forward future orders in workflow so they can be fulfilled in their window without any manual user intervention. This example automatically forwards orders in the Future Order HOLD queue every 15 minutes. It should only update orders that are within their allowed fulfillment window; if this condition is left out, then all backorders will be continuously updated and have logs created every time the automatic action runs, even if they don’t actually have their items available yet.
This completes the future order hold process.
Reservation Holds with Automatic Reassignments
Reservation hold orders wait with intentionally reserved inventory for specific customers or situations, and only certain flagged orders are allowed to take those reservations. The reservation hold order does not ship; it simply holds items that its individual shipment orders will take as needed, protecting the inventory for those commitments so other unrelated orders can’t accidentally steal those items. Automating this process eliminates the manual effort of checking and juggling these reservations, and ensures that applicable ship orders use the correct reserved items.
Reservation hold orders for a specific customer can be routed to the Reservation Holds queue by checking for the matching customer number. Other fields can be used for this check to handle other scenarios.
Orders in the Reservation Holds queue should remain in that queue. They will not continue on to fulfillment steps directly; they will simply exist with their reserved inventory, which will be used over time by their individual shipment orders.
When individual shipment orders come in for this customer, they should move to a specific workflow queue to trigger taking reservations from their related hold order. In this example, if the Customer Priority field on the order is set to “Buying Group”, then that order is allowed to take inventory from a reservation hold order and should move to the Inventory Reassignment queue.
Individual shipment orders that enter the Inventory Reassignment queue should trigger the “Reassign Sales Order Reservations” workflow action to automatically take reserved items from their associated hold order, which relies on BC’s native Reservation Reassign Policy configuration.
The “Deplete Line Quantity” toggle can be enabled to make the hold order’s line quantity automatically decrease as its reservations are removed for the shipment orders, so it always shows how much quantity is left for that agreement. Alternatively, if a certain amount of stock should always be held in reserve for a priority customer, this toggle can be disabled.
The primary path for individual shipment orders that process through the Inventory Reassignment queue sends them to the next process step, which is shown here as the Pick Order queue.
In order for those individual shipment orders to automatically continue to the Pick Order queue, an automatic action is needed. This should apply to the Inventory Reassignment queue and automatically forward orders that have any reserved quantity. Alternatively, you can make it so that all items must be reserved in order for the shipment order to proceed in workflow.
This automatic action has a Triggered evaluation policy instead of Periodic. This means that as soon as individual shipment orders enter the Inventory Reassignment queue, they will automatically continue to the Pick Order queue as long as they were able to reserve any item quantity from their hold order.
Based on the above configuration, if reservation reassignment failed for any reason and the individual shipment order does not have any reservations, it will become stuck in the Inventory Reassignment queue. To properly handle this problem, these failed orders can be routed to a review queue and immediately notify someone so they can resolve the issue and keep the order moving.
This is accomplished with a business rule that checks if all of the line items on the order have no reservations. (If your Move to Pick automated action requires all line items to be fully fulfilled, then this business rule should instead check if the order is not fully fulfilled.) It should always evaluate instead of only evaluating once, because any time an order goes through this process and does not get reservations, it should be captured. It should only check the Inventory Reassignment queue, so it doesn’t capture orders in other processes.
Whoever is responsible for reviewing and handling these orders should be selected as the approver. They can be automatically emailed when new orders are captured so they can tackle the issue as soon as possible. For this situation, resolving the problem would require reviewing the order’s audit logs to see what prevented the reservation reassignment, and then manually adjusting reservations as needed so that the shipment order can continue to fulfillment.
This completes the reservation reassignment process.
Smart Printing
Smart Printing can automatically print documents and send emails as sales orders progress through workflow. This depends on the global Smart Printing configuration to control which documents are generated, and where they print and/or who they email. Just hook up the Smart Printing workflow action to any workflow queue in order to automatically:
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email order confirmations to the customer when orders leave the New Order queue
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print pick instructions for the warehouse when orders enter the Pick Order queue
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print packing slips for the shipping team when orders enter the Ship Order queue
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email shipment confirmation and tracking information to the customer when orders enter the Create Invoice queue
Note: this functionality requires the Smart Printing add-on for Mission Control.
Advanced Pricing
Advanced Pricing can automatically recalculate line item prices on sales orders as they progress through workflow. This uses the global Advanced Pricing setup so it respects your pricing rules and ensures pricing is applied consistently whether orders are being manually entered or recalculated. Price recalculation is helpful when you have backorders, holds, and future ship orders that can wait a while before fulfillment — if those item costs changed in the meantime, recalculating pricing helps protect your margins. And this action can be applied conditionally so it only affects orders you want, and doesn’t affect hard quotes or customer commitments.
Note: this functionality requires the Advanced Pricing add-on for Mission Control.
Multiple Actions in Sequence
Multiple workflow actions can be set up to trigger in sequence when orders enter or leave workflow queues. In this example, any order entering the Pick Order queue will:
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Recalculate pricing for all sales lines to protect margin (requires Advanced Pricing)
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Reserve inventory for any lines that don’t yet have reservations to make sure they are ready for picking
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Create the pick document based on reserved item quantities
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Print the pick instructions for the warehouse so the warehouse team can immediately start picking (requires Smart Printing)
Note that if any of these actions fail, they will halt all processing for the order, and later-sequenced actions will not trigger. The order will stay in its current queue when this happens, which means it will already be in the new queue even if it has not triggered all the entry actions. To avoid this, you can choose to stack actions when orders leave queues instead of when they enter queues.