Configuring the Inventory service

The Inventory service manages the supply, demand, and reservations of items across your inventory network. You get complete visibility of your inventory to manage your customer demand. By defining inventory thresholds and safety stock rules, you can avoid stock shortages and meet customer promises.

Before you begin

Familiarize yourself with the Sterling Intelligent Promising Standard and Premium packages. For more information, see Sterling Intelligent Promising overview.

Ensure that you are familiar with the following concepts:

Supply in supply and demand

The entire quantity that is available for an item at node. For more information, see Supply and demand.

Demand in supply and demand

The desire to use a quantity of an item. For more information, see Supply and demand.

Node availability by date

The availability when inventory is updated at node. For more information, see Node availability by date.

Distribution group availability by date

An aggregate view of the node availability by date for inventory that is available to sell. For more information, see Distribution group availability by date.

Rule-based safety stock

Safety stock rules that are used in the availability calculation. Safety stock is the inventory at a location that is excluded from the available inventory stock. For more information, see Rules-based safety stock.

Segments

For more information, see Inventory segment.

Segment allocation rules

The capability to distribute inventory according to a schedule, a trigger, or a specific action such as supply synchronization. For more information, see Segmentation allocation rules.

Assigning attributes to an item

The association of an attribute to an item to classify that item. The item attributes are published in the availability APIs and events. For more information, see Assigning attributes to an item.

Item thresholds

The availability thresholds for an item. Availability events are published only when the threshold levels are exceeded. For more information, see Item thresholds.

Supply and demand

The quantity of an item in stock, in transit, or planned for replenishment. For more information, see Supply and demand.

1. Configure supply to define the entire quantity for an item by using the Adjust Supply API.
2. Configure demand to define the desire to consume an item by using the Adjust Demand API.
3. Configure node availability by date to define the inventory availability quantity by time period by using the Get Node Availability Product by date V2 API.
4. Configure availability by date for a distribution group to get an aggregate view of all the associated node availability by date by using the Get Network Availability Product by date V2 API.
5. Configure reservations to enable reservation requests for items in real-time by using the Create Reservations V2 API.
6. Configure rule-based safety stock to create rules to manage safety stock values by using an API or the UI:

   Configuration option	Procedure
   API	Create node rule
   Order Hub	Configuring settings

7. Configure endpoints for event publishing by using an API or the UI:.

   Configuration option	Procedure
   Order Hub	Configuring endpoints for publish events

8. Configure segments by using the UI. For more information, see Configuring segments.
9. Configure segmentation allocation and rules to distribute inventory across different segments, such as vendors, or channels by using an API or the UI:

   Configuration option	Procedure
   API	Update settings
   Order Hub	Creating and updating segmentation allocation rules

10. Configure assigning attributes to an item to classify items by using the Set item attributes to publish API.
11. Configure item thresholds to define thresholds to identify the inventory level at stores or warehouses by using the Update the Item level event threshold configuration API.
12. Configure supply and demand to define the entire quality of an item at a node by using the Sync Supply API.
13. Configure the child-parent item relationships by using the Update Item Relationship API. For more information, see Managing child-parent item relationships and availability updates in containers.