Defining an organization's advanced inventory attributes

You can determine if an organization's inventory is maintained within IBM Sterling® Order Management System. You can also determine if the organization you are configuring is an inventory organization or the inventory organization it belongs to.

About this task

Note:
  • If you are using IBM® Sterling™ Intelligent Promising Inventory Visibility for inventory management, see the IBM Sterling Intelligent Promising Inventory Visibility documentation.
  • This is an installation level configuration only. Do not attempt to reconfigure the parameters on this tab mid-implementation.
  • When creating an organization through the save as operation, the new organization's inventory organization is the inventory organization of the source organization. If the source organization is its own inventory organization, the source organization is set as the inventory organization of the new organization.

Procedure

To define an organization's advanced inventory attributes:

  1. Open the Applications Manager and select the application that you want.
  2. From the Roles & Participation tab in the Organization Details window, choose Advanced Attributes.
  3. Choose the Inventory tab.
  4. Choose the Save icon.
    Table 1. Inventory tab
    Field Description
    Inventory Information Is Not Available Select this option if the organization uses an inventory application other than Sterling Order Management System to track supply and demand.

    If this option is selected, Sterling Order Management System does not have access to the inventory picture for this organization, and do not attempt to do any inventory availability checks. Orders can still be placed using this organization as a seller, but the orders are scheduled without any inventory availability checks.

    Inventory Information Is Available Select this if the organization tracks inventory supply and demand using either Sterling Order Management System or another inventory application. The organization's supply and demand picture can be used in Sterling Order Management System for availability calculation, inventory tracking, and distribution.

    If you are configuring a node, this field determines if inventory is tracked or infinite at the node.

    Legacy platformThis Organization Is An Inventory Organization Select this if you selected Inventory Is Maintained Within Sterling Order Management System and you want to specify this organization as an inventory consolidator.

    An inventory organization:

    • Provides inventory identification for a product. For example, different organizations can have different product identification IDs for the same inventory item. The inventory organization provides a mechanism to rationalize these product IDs into a single nomenclature across multiple organizations.
    • Establishes ownership of inventory when a single physical location is shared across multiple organizations without having to create multiple logical locations to establish the inventory ownership.
    • Provides inventory separation, allowing all organizations that are part of the inventory organization to have visibility to the inventory of all of the other organizations that are part of the inventory organization.
    Get External Inventory Real Time Select this field if the inventory is available to Sterling Order Management System, but comes from an external system instead of being maintained internally. The inventory picture is then obtained by calling the getExternalInventory user exit.
    Legacy platformSupply And Demand Kept Externally This field determines whether inventory updates are done internally or externally for an inventory organization. When you select this field, inventory supply and demand updates do not happen in the system. Instead, updates are published to an external system using the EXTERNAL_DEMAND_CHANGE and EXTERNAL_SUPPLY_CHANGE events.

    Notes:

    • Select this field only for organizations that are inventory organizations; do not select it for organizations that are defined as nodes.
    • Do not use any inventory APIs, such as adjustInventory, or run inventory agents, such as Real-time Availability Monitor or syncLoadedInventory, on a system when this field is selected.
    Inventory Organization Is Select this and the applicable inventory organization if you selected Inventory Is Made Available To Sterling Order Management System and you want to associate this organization as part of the applicable inventory organization.
    Note: If you are using IBM Sterling Intelligent Promising Inventory Visibility for inventory management, use DEFAULT as the inventory organization.

    Important: The organization should have the same catalog organization as the inventory organization you are associating with.

    Legacy platformGet External Supply Real Time Select this field if the supply is available to Sterling Order Management System, but comes from an external system instead of being maintained internally. The supply picture is then obtained by calling the getExternalSupply user exit.
    Note: This checkbox is only available when the organization has been defined only as a node.
    Physical Count
    Allow Other Inventory Operations While Physical Count Is On Check this box to allow other inventory operations to be performed during the physical count process.

    This check box is enabled only if the organization is a node.

    Inventory Organization Relationship
    Legacy platformInventory Organization Relationship Choose the Create New icon to select an inventory organization from the drop-down list. It displays Consumable Inventory Organization and Organization Name.
    • This panel is visible only if This Organization Is An Inventory Organization is selected.
    • For an organization that has availability maintained externally, configure this field in the Promising server and not the Order server.