Calculate item delivery or pickup date based on infinite capacity windows

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The Calculate item delivery or pickup date using infinite capacity windows API calculates the earliest date that an item can be delivered to a specified destination.

Overview

You can use the Sterling Intelligent Promising Estimated Delivery Date APIs to display estimated delivery dates to shoppers who are browsing your online store on the product details page.

The product detail page is a detail page for a product in an online shopping experience that shows a description of the selected item and its availability. The Calculate item delivery date API lets a seller display an estimated delivery date on the product detail page. For example, when a shopper is viewing a product details page, you can show a message such as Order within the next 1 hour and 13 minutes to get delivery by tomorrow.

The Calculate item delivery date API uses ship node configuration data, carrier configuration data, shipping group configuration data, and availability data to provide an accurate response.
  • Ship node configuration includes providing ship node details, capacity schedules, lead times, and processing times.
  • Carrier configuration includes providing carrier service levels, pickup schedules, and transit times.
Ship node details
The locations and time zones of the ship nodes that can fulfill orders. A ship node represents a location in Sterling Intelligent Promising in which inventory is stored. For example, a ship node can be a store, distribution center (DC), or vendor that is shipping the shipments or products. Configure the ship node details by using the Basic Node Configurations APIs. For more information, see the Sterling Intelligent Promising API documentation.
Delivery methods
Sterling Intelligent Promising supports the ship and pick delivery methods. The EDD for pick up is calculated based on input parameters, such as the geocode of the shopper (latitude and longitude) and the preferred radius within which to search for a store. For the unit of measure (UOM) for the radius, Sterling Intelligent Promising considers the UOM for distance that you configured during onboarding your tenant.

The EDD for the ship delivery method is calculated based on the input parameters, such as the destination country, postal code, and the preferred shipping group.

For either of the delivery methods, the shopper can choose only one method for fulfilling for each order line. The inventory availability is evaluated based on the requested delivery method. For more information on defining the inventory availability based on your delivery method, see Inventory management. For more information about the ship and pick delivery methods, see the Calculate Item Delivery Date API.

Capacity schedules
The working schedules for which a ship node is available to fulfill orders.
Capacity is the ability of a ship node to fulfill orders. Although capacity management systems can define capacity at various levels of detail, the Calculate item delivery date API focuses only on the time periods when the ship node is open to fulfill orders. For example, consider a store that is open from 8:00 AM to 6:00 PM from Monday to Friday. If a store designates a 1-hour lunch break from 12:00 noon to 1:00 PM, the ship node has capacity from 8:00 AM to 12:00 noon and 1:00 PM to 6:00 PM. You can define a repeated ‘weekly schedule’ (Monday to Sunday) and denote the start date and end date to apply the schedule. You can also define different weekly schedules for different start and end dates but ensure that the dates do not overlap. For example, you can define a weekly schedule effective from 1 January to 1 March and then a different weekly schedule effective 2 March.
Configure capacity schedules by using the Capacity APIs. For more information, see Sterling Intelligent Promising API documentation. The Capacity APIs set available time slots on the day or week when the ship node is available for processing.
Lead time
The Calculate item delivery date API uses the lead time configured at the node level. If unconfigured at the node level, the API uses the lead time at the node-type level. You can configure lead time by using the Define node lead time APIs.
Processing time
The time that is needed to prepare an item for shipment (picking and packing) during capacity hours. You can configure processing times at the ship node and node-type level. You can configure processing time based on the shipping and pickup delivery methods. The Calculate item delivery date API uses processing time configured at the ship node level for the delivery method. If unconfigured at the ship node level, the API uses processing time at the node-type level. For more information, see Configuring nodes. To view the default configuration, use the getSettings API.
Carrier pickup schedules
Carriers can provide different service levels such as Ground or Next-day shipping. For the Estimated delivery date feature, carriers and service levels are combined as a carrier service.
The days of the week, and times of the day when a carrier service picks up shipments at a ship node. Like capacity schedule, you can define a repeated weekly schedule, and also define overrides for specific days. Pickup times are specific times of the day; unlike the time range that you define for capacity schedules. For example, Carrier1 Next-day shipping might come Mondays at 4:00 PM and Carrier1 ground shipping might come on Tuesdays at 1:00 PM.
Configure pickup schedules by using the Carrier Pickup Schedule APIs. For more information, see the Sterling Intelligent Promising API documentation.
Transit duration between zones
The transit duration is the amount of time a carrier service, for example, Shipping Company Ground, takes to deliver the package from the source address to the destination address after pickup. Configure this parameter to calculate the earliest estimated delivery date for a single quantity of an item by using parameters, such as your tenant information, item identifiers, destination information, and sourcing criteria. For more information, see the Calculate item delivery date API.
Transit time
The transit time is the amount of time that it takes the carrier service (for example, Shipping Company Ground) to deliver the package from the source address to the destination address after pickup. Configure this parameter by using the Transit Time APIs. For more information, see the Sterling Intelligent Promising API documentation.
Package weight consideration

When determining carriers and carrier services, the default weight configured is used to determine the carrier transit data. If the default weight unit of measure is configured to be Pounds (Lb), a default weight of 2 is used. If the default weight unit of measure is configured to be Kilograms (Kg), a default weight of 1 is used. If no values were set during your tenant's provisioning process, a default weight of 2 and a default unit of measure of Pounds (Lb) is assumed. To configure the default shipping weight, use the putSettings API.

Availability
Availability refers to the inventory availability at the ship node. You can configure item availability, which is the time spans during which a particular item is available at a node for shipment. The item must be available from start of processing until pickup at the node to be considered when availability is calculated. To provide the necessary availability configuration, see the Insert or update availability windows API.
Important: Sterling Intelligent Promising supports both the ProductAvailabilityToSell.ShipNodeBreakupChange and ProductAvailabilityToSell.ShipNodeChange events of the IBM® Sterling Inventory Visibility APIs. To enable the events in Inventory Visibility, see Event subscriptions and follow the steps that are listed.
Using custom attributes to extend fulfillment rules
Use the user interface to add new custom attributes. Then, when you involve the calculate item delivery date API, pass the custom attribute in the API input using the sourcingCriteria parameter. For more information, see Configuring custom attributes.

Estimated delivery date example

Assume a shopper views a product details page on 14 December 2020 at 11:47 AM for SKU 123.
  • Ship node configuration
    • Node1 and Node2 are in the same city and time zone.
  • Availability
    Table 1. Example availability
    Ship node Availability
    Node1 SKU123 is not currently available but new supply is scheduled to be available at 3:30 PM with no expiry date.
    Node2 SKU123 is available with no expiry date.
  • Capacity schedules
    Table 2. Example capacity schedules
    Ship node Capacity schedule
    Node1 Capacity schedule is every day from 7:00 AM to 2:00 PM and 4:00 PM to 9:00 PM.
    Node2 Capacity schedule is every day from 6:00 AM to 11:30 AM, 1:00 PM to 5:00 PM, and 6:00 PM to 9:00 PM.
  • Processing time
    Table 3. Example processing time
    Ship node Processing time
    Node1 1 hour to process an order (pick and pack).
    Node2 1 hour to process an order (pick and pack).
  • Lead time
    Table 4. Example lead time
    Ship node Lead time
    Node1 Needs a lead time of 1 hour before an associate can pick and pack the order.
    Node2 Needs a lead time of 2 hours before an associate can pick and pack the order.
  • Carrier pickup schedules
    Table 5. Example carrier pickup schedules
    Ship node Carrier pickup schedule
    Node1 Carrier X next-day shipping picks up shipments every day at 1 PM. Carrier X Ground shipping picks up shipments every day at 6:30 PM.
    Node2 Carrier Y next-day shipping picks up shipments every day at 1:00 PM and 8:00 PM.
  • Transit time
    • Carrier X next-day shipping transit time is 1 day and Ground shipping transit time is 2 days.
    • Carrier Y next-day shipping transit time is 1 day.
A timeline that illustrates the different capacities, availability, lead times, processing times, and pickup times of two carriers
Node1
  • On 14 January at 11:47 AM, Node1 has capacity but no availability. Therefore, Node1 cannot meet the first Carrier X pickup time at 1 PM.
  • At 4:00 PM, Node1 has capacity and availability. When you factor in lead time and processing time, Node1 can have the SKU ready for shipment and can meet the 6:30 PM Carrier X pickup.
  • Carrier X requires 2 days to delivery. Therefore, the earliest delivery date is 16 December 2020.
Node2
  • On 14 January at 11:47 AM, Node2 has availability but no capacity until 1:00 PM.
  • At 1:00 PM, the node has capacity and availability. When you factor in lead time and processing time, Node2 cannot meet the first Carrier Y pickup time at 3:00 PM but can meet the 8:00 PM pickup.
  • Carrier Y requires 1 day to delivery. Therefore, the earliest delivery date is 15 January.
Comparing these options, the Calculate item delivery date API returns 15 January as the earliest delivery date and fulfilled by Node2. Based on all factors, the Calculate item delivery date API can also calculate an order-by window. This window denotes the cutoff time to place the order to be eligible for delivery by the estimated date. In this case, the shopper has 1 hour and 13 minutes to place the order (before 1:00 PM). If ordered before 1:00 PM, Node2 has enough lead time, processing time, capacity, and availability to meet the Carrier Y pickup time at 8:00 PM and complete the next-day delivery.

To use the Estimated delivery date feature, configure your applications to provide the necessary information. For more information, see Integrating with Sterling Intelligent Promising.