Integrating with IBM Sterling Intelligent Promising Optimization Service

You can seamlessly integrate IBM® Sterling™ Order Management System Software with the IBM Sterling Intelligent Promising Optimization Service by using an inbuilt adapter, thus eliminating the need for custom implementations.

Overview

The Sterling Order Management System Software integrates with the Sterling Intelligent Promising Optimization Service to enhance fulfillment decisions through cost-based optimization. By using the Rank API and Optimization API, this integration refines the node selection and helps in deriving most cost-efficient sourcing solutions. As a result, enterprises can improve customer experience and operational efficiency by selecting fulfillment choices that balances cost and service levels.

Sterling Order Management System Software continues to manage core functions such as order processing, scheduling, and fulfillment. It calls the Sterling Intelligent Promising Optimization Service to improve fulfillment by evaluating shipping nodes and fulfillment options based on cost, constraints, and operational parameters.

Scope

The integration works for the delivery type as SHIP and the document type as sales order – 0001. , For other delivery and document types, the integration does not work as they are not supported by the Sterling Intelligent Promising Optimization Service.

Also, the Procurement, Substitute, and GTIN use cases are not supported because the Sterling Intelligent Promising Optimization Service does not support these use cases.

The following Sterling Order Management System Software APIs are supported to call the Optimization APIs as part of this integration.

findInventory
scheduleOrder
reserveAvailableInventory

Optimization APIs

The integration uses the following Optimization APIs to integrate with the Sterling Intelligent Promising Optimization Service.

Idle API: The Idle API enables asynchronous order optimization. It is called as the idle mode in the integration.; It does not return any response to Sterling Order Management System Software. The Sterling Order Management System Software generated best solution is used for the transaction. For more information, see Idle API.
Rank API: Returns Ship Nodes ranked in increasing order of Cost and limited to the rank nodes limit passed. Based on inventory availability of the item given at promise line, the Rank API filters ship nodes before ranking. For more information, see Rank API.
Optimizer API: The Optimizer API enables synchronous order optimization. This is called as the live mode in the integration.; The Optimizer API returns the choices based on cost-based optimization to Sterling Order Management System Software. Sterling Order Management System Software generates the new best solution based on these choices. For more information, see Optimizer API.

Error handling

The errors are handled in the following manner based on the mode of integration.

When the integration is set up in the idle mode, if any error occurs while calling the Optimization APIs, those errors are printed in the error log. The transaction continues according to the default Sterling Order Management System Software flow.
When the integration is set up in the live mode, if any error occurs while calling the Optimization APIs, an error is displayed and the transaction ends.

Enabling inbuilt integration

To enable the integration, see Enabling integration with IBM Sterling Intelligent Promising Optimization Service.

Note: The integration with Sterling Intelligent Promising Optimization Service is not enabled by default.

Disabling inbuilt integration

If you want to disable the inbuilt integration with the Sterling Intelligent Promising Optimization Service, set the sip_integration.optimizer.integration.enable property to N. For more information, see sip_integration.properties.

Migrating from custom integration to inbuilt integration

If you have implemented custom integration by using the Sterling Order Management System Software user exits, you can seamlessly migrate to the inbuilt integration. For more information, see Migrating to inbuilt integration.

After migration, you can continue to use OMPGetSourcingCorrectionsUE and OMPGetExternalCostForOptionsUE user exits to override ship nodes and to filter out the carrier services, override per-unit costs for product choices, or reject the product choice.

Order processing during reschedule

For orders that cannot be optimized by the Sterling Intelligent Promising Optimization Service, Rank and Optimization APIs are not called for those orders. In schedule, all orders are sent so that the Optimization service can capture all orders for audits. For unsupported scenarios such as PICK or DEL method, the Optimization service sends the eligibleForOptimizer attribute in the response as N to Sterling Order Management System Software and the order details are updated in Sterling Order Management System Software. If such orders are rescheduled, Sterling Order Management System Software does not resend the same orders to the Sterling Intelligent Promising Optimization Service.

Additional information

For the scheduleOrder API, the OrderNo attribute is passed to Optimization APIs.
For the findInventory and reserveAvailableInventory APIs, since there is no order number, a unique identifier is generated as {tenantId}-{uniqueId} and passed to Optimization APIs. For example, us-f9aeb8a7-7b0ca9e3.