Fulfillment rules

A fulfillment rule is the set of conditions that determines the fulfilling nodes for an order or item. By defining the fulfillment rules, you can improve the accuracy of the estimated delivery or pick up date. In addition, fulfillment rules maintain the fulfillment process according to the business and logistics constraints.

When Sterling Intelligent Promising evaluates a shipping estimate, all the participating ship nodes in the fulfillment network are considered for the earliest delivery. The given fulfillment is bounded by business constraints such as state or provincial regulations, safety and hazardous material handling, insurance, or other business execution strategy where certain locations cannot participate in the fulfillment calculations. The fulfillment rules provide the flexibility for the fulfillment manager to define these constraints so that they take into account for pre-purchase estimates.
Note: The fulfillment rule supports the pre-purchase use cases only.
The fulfillment rules consist of two parts:
Business condition definition
You can enable this to specify one or more conditions.
Fulfillment restrictions
You can define the shipping locations that is considered for fulfillment.
A fulfillment manager can setup the rules such that if the order line total is greater than $200 then the order must be shipped from a node with high value product insurance to minimize product damage or shipment lost impact.
The fulfillment rules support the following conditions with restrictions of nodes and node types:
Order value
For instance, your fulfillment rule can dictate that orders over 10,000 USD to be fulfilled by certain nodes.
Channel
For instance, a fulfillment rule dictates that orders coming from web store should be fulfilled by certain nodes or node types; while another fulfillment rule dictates that orders coming from 3rd party vendor to be fulfilled by a different set of nodes or node types.
Seller organization
For instance, you might want to fulfill some of the global orders to be fulfilled by specific nodes.
Customer type
For instance, you may wish to have orders of premium customer types to be fulfilled by certain nodes or node types, where they have access to better or a faster service.
Line total
For instance, your fulfillment rule can dictate the orders above 100 items to be fulfilled by certain nodes.
Line quantity
For instance, you can create a rule such that when an order quantity of a particular item exceeds over 50 item, then the order is fulfilled by specific nodes or node type.
Delivery method
For instance, you can restrict rules for PICK and SHIP. For example, if the delivery method is PICK, then it must be done from specific nodes or node types and if the command contains SHIP, then it must be fulfilled by specific node or node types.
For more information, see Delivery method.
Item ID
For instance, you can restrict orders for certain item IDs (for example, item ID bleach) to be fulfilled by specific nodes or node types.
Item classification
For instance, your fulfillment rule can dictate the certain item classifications to be fulfilled by certain nodes. For example, you can restrict bulk items to be shipped only from a warehouse.

For more information, see Item classification.

Item attribute
For instance, you can assign attributes to the certain item such as a DisplayType for a television unit.

For more information, see Attribute.

Catalog categories
For instance, you can restrict the shipping of women clothing from a specific node, such as from Globe Washington DC. Then, when a shopper shops any item from the same catalog category, the system evaluates the rule and filters the nodes that can fulfill the order.

For more information, see Catalog.

Custom attributes
For instance, you can restrict some orders based on their data type. You can filter the orders that have a sourcing constraint from a specific channel or business purpose from a specific node. The custom attributes can be considered to fulfill the request.

For more information, see Custom attributes.

Destination-based sourcing rules
Destination-based sourcing rules are used to create a shipping destination-based business condition within defined geographic regions where the fulfillment locations are limited to certain ship nodes.
The destination-based sourcing rules include the following restrictions:
  • Country
    You can restrict your fulfillment rule to include a specific country. Then, any orders placed are just fulfilled by that country only. For instance, all the order destinations of Hawaii must be handled by selected ship nodes that has the capability to handle agricultural labeling requirements mandated by the Hawaii state. You can configure a rule that uses the expression order.destination.state eq Hawaii and the relevant item attributes that selects only the relevant ship-nodes to meet the Hawaii requirement.
  • State
    You can restrict your fulfillment rule to include a specific state. Then, any orders placed are just fulfilled by that state only. For instance, all hazmat products shipping to California can only come from locations that can attach or provide recyclable packaging for those products to be sent back in the future. You can configure a rule that uses the expression order.destination.state eq CA and the relevant item attributes that select only relevant ship-nodes to meet the California requirement.
  • City
    You can restrict your fulfillment rule to include a specific city. Then, any orders placed are fulfilled by that city only. For instance, all glassware items that cannot shipped to Ireland from any of the UK nodes. However, if you are from Ireland, you can go and PICK the items from stores in the UK. You can configure a rule that uses the expression order.destination.country eq Ireland and the relevant item attributes that includes setting deliveryMethod eq SHP and locationRestriction distributionGroup notin UK_DG. For instance, certain items are not available to be PICKED up in the US stores for the shopper with a destination address of Canada due to customs controls.

Restrictions in the fulfillment rules

The restrictions in the fulfillment rules helps the higher degree of customization for fulfillment and manage delivery strategies.

  • Carrier service restrictions
    For instance, Carrier1 is not equipped to handle certain products when servicing in Ireland. You can configure a rule with item attributes to identify relevant products that use the expressions order.destination.country eq Ireland and set carrierServiceRestrictions not eq DHL.
  • Location restrictions
    For instance, Carrier1 cannot ship some vendor products from Germany to Denmark. However, Carrier1 can deliver to Spain. You can configure a rule with relevant item attributes and expressions.

What to do next

Create, view, edit, or delete fulfillment rules. For more information, see Managing fulfillment rules.