Enabling a store to use available-to-promise (ATP) inventory (Business Edition)

During the process of publishing a store, the developer can enable the store to use the available-to-promise (ATP) inventory capabilities. For stores that use standard order processing, the developer can choose to enable ATP or not. However, for stores that use advanced order processing, the developer must enable ATP, because ATP is a prerequisite for advanced order processing.

To enable a store to use ATP:

  1. Edit the ALLOCATIONGOODFOR column in the STORE table. If you specify any integer greater than zero, then the store will be enabled for ATP.
  2. Use the WebSphere Commerce Accelerator to create inventory records in the following inventory fulfillment tables:
    • BASEITEM
    • BASEITMDSC
    • ITEMSPC
  3. Establish the behavior of order capture checks that are made during the order capture process by editing the INVENTORYOPFLAGS column in the FFMCENTER table. Specify one or more of the checks by totaling the numbers associated with the flags of the chosen checks and entering the sum into the column field. For example, enter "3" if you want to specify only flags 1 and 2.
    Flag ID Description
    1 multiItem Operations accept multiple order items.
    2 noCheck Inventory is never checked (the check operation always appears to succeed).
    4 noAllocation The allocate operation checks inventory, but does not actually allocate it (the allocate operation appears to succeed if the check succeeds).
    8 noBackorder Inventory is never backordered (the backorder operation always fails).
  4. Specify allocation offsets to modify the time frames used to determine inventory allocation for backorders and future orders by editing the following columns in the STORE table:
    Column name Description
    MAXBOOFFSET The maximum number of seconds that an item can be backordered. If the estimated availability time for a backordered order item exceeds the number of seconds into the future specified in this column, the availability date will automatically be set to this many seconds into the future. Thus, an item cannot be backordered longer than the interval specified here.
    DEFAULTBOOFFSET When an estimated availability time cannot be determined for a backordered order item, by default, it will be set to the number of seconds into the future that are specified in this column.
    Advanced orders
    ALLOCATIONOFFSET
    Amount of time before the requested ship date when inventory allocation should be performed. This time period provides a buffer for the store to reserve the inventory to the order and also to allow for enough time to obtain inventory should there be an insufficient amount. (See REQUESTEDSHIPDATE column in the ORDERITEMS table.)
    Advanced orders
    MAXFOOFFSET
    The maximum period of time that can be requested for a future ship date after the date when the requested ship date is entered. (See REQUESTEDSHIPDATE column in the ORDERITEMS table.)

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