Archived what's new on Cloud in previous years

October 2024

• General enhancements
• On-premises containers enhancements

General enhancements

Enablement of node location aggregate for a network safety stock rule

A new node location aggregate can be enabled for a network safety stock rule, allowing it to consider the aggregation of the safety stock at the node level. As a result, you can withhold inventory from network availability and also customize the levels of safety stock across nodes for different scenarios.

For more information, see Node location aggregation.

Define inventory segments and segmentation allocation plans for B2B and B2C

As part of your business-to-business (B2B) or business-to-customer (B2C) plans, you can now use this new capability to define segments in your inventory workflow. Inventory segmentation allocation is used to distribute availability across segments as defined in an allocation plan, saving you effort and costs. Use this advanced capability to manage your inventory by redistributing inventory to high demand segments automatically, thereby reducing holding costs and risks that are associated with older inventory. For more information, see Inventory segment.

You can create, list, and delete the segments by using Segment management APIs. You can create segmentation rules to define how the inventory is distributed. For more information, see Segmentation allocation rules and Managing inventory segmentation allocation rules.

Define shipping notification time

As a fulfillment manager, you can define the minimum shipping notification time by using the Order Hub UI. The Shipping notifications tab is introduced under node configurations. You can now set the minimum time for a delivery or a pickup to be initiated.

For more information about how to define the shipping notification time, see Configuring shipping notification time.

Monitor node performance

A new optimization objective node performance is introduced for Sterling Intelligent Promising Premium users. As a fulfillment manager, you can now monitor the node performance with the help of the Node performance feature. You can use AI-powered models to predict node cancellation rates and node reschedule rates, which can help you to optimize order fulfillment.

For more information, see Node performance.

A new optimization objective called Risk reduction cost is added to the optimization profile. To enable the node performance feature, you need to assign weight to the Risk reduction cost optimization objective while creating or editing an optimization profile. For more information, see Managing optimization profiles.

Data ingestion and endpoints for ingest rules

A new process is available to set up the data ingest endpoints to connect to Sterling Intelligent Promising. For more information, see Configuring endpoints for file ingest rules. Then, you can use the file transfer adapter or your own custom upload implementation for IBM Cloud® Object Storage to upload the data file for each mandated data feed type. For more information, see Starting the file ingestion process.

Shipping commitment days for estimated delivery

As part of the pre-purchase scenario, Sterling Intelligent Promising provides the maxFutureAvailabilityLookahead attribute to consider on-hand and future availability to estimate delivery dates for orders. You can configure this attribute at the tenant and API level. For more information, see Shipping commitment days.

Zone component surcharges

You can configure carrier surcharges at the zone component level. For example, these surcharges are used to apply an extended delivery area surcharge on a specific route. For more information, see Surcharges and Configuring zone component surcharges.

Self Service monitoring dashboards

There are new dashboards and charts available to view the API and the application usage and performance metrics. For more information, see Monitoring dashboards.

On-premises containers enhancements (10.0.2409.1)

Operator and image updates

• IBM Sterling Intelligent Promising Operator version: V1.0.11
• IBM OMS Gateway Operator: cp.icr.io/cpopen/ibm-oms-gateway-operator-catalog:v1.0
• IBM Sterling Intelligent Promising Operator: cp.icr.io/cpopen/ibm-oms-sip-operator-catalog:v1.0
• Application image tag: 10.0.2409.1-amd64

Enhanced Logstash server configuration management

You can now dynamically manage Logstash pipeline configurations for search services across development, production, and flexible modes. This enhancement allows you to merge pipelines based on environment or custom preferences. By using an init container to handle the merging process as needed, this enables flexible and dynamic deployments across services. For more information, see Logstash pipeline configuration management.

Upgrade steps to reindex supply and demand Elasticsearch indexes

To enable querying for empty values in the Search and Aggregation APIs, you must reindex the supply and demand Elasticsearch indexes. For more information, see Post-upgrade to 10.2409.1.

Added new Kafka topic for Optimization

• {topicPrefix}-{environment}-optimizer-request-org-woo-hold-orders-changelog

September 2024

• General enhancements
• On-premises containers enhancements

General enhancements

Customize dimension weight selection criteria based on package volume threshold

You can configure the dimension volume threshold as a constraint to determine shipping weight based on physical weight or dimension weight. When this field is configured, it also contributes to the cost optimization.

For more information, see Configuring carrier services.

Activated watson.ai augmented search

The IBM Sterling Intelligent Promising documentation site provides watson.ai search, which uses machine learning and natural language processing. The augmented search capabilities of watson.ai provide intuitive, targeted, and exact responses to questions by identifying patterns and trends across documentation. When you search in the library, watson.ai augmented search runs automatically and provides targeted information for your search. To try it out, use the Search field in the header of any page.

On-premises containers enhancements (10.0.2409.0)

Operator and image updates

• IBM Sterling Intelligent Promising Operator version: V1.0.10-1
• IBM OMS Gateway Operator version: V1.0.10
• IBM OMS Gateway Operator: cp.icr.io/cpopen/ibm-oms-gateway-operator-catalog:v1.0
• IBM Sterling Intelligent Promising Operator: cp.icr.io/cpopen/ibm-oms-sip-operator-catalog:v1.0
• Application image tag: 10.0.2409.0-amd64

Promising backend server connection to Cassandra over SSL resolved

The issue preventing the Promising backend servers from connecting to the Cassandra middleware over secured mode (SSL) is successfully resolved. All connections are now functioning as expected.

New versioning scheme for major releases and fix packs

Starting September 2024, a new version scheme is introduced for effective channel and fix pack management. For more information, see Versioning scheme for major releases and fix packs.

Secure ingress configuration with Operator root certificate extraction

Extract the Sterling Intelligent Promising Operator root certificate from a Kubernetes secret and use it to configure the ingress resource to help ensure secure connection. For more information, see Extracting Operator root certificate and adding it to ingress.

Enhanced image configuration for individual servers

You can now configure the image tag and pull policy for an individual server instance. This feature provides flexibility in managing image versions and pull policies on a per-server basis. For more information, see image tag and pull policy.

New annotations to validate external service connections

Use the following annotations to validate or skip checking connectivity of external services before deployment.

• apps.sip.ibm.com/validate-external-services-connections
• apps.sip.ibm.com/skip-external-services-connection-validation

If any connection fails, the process stops. Error handling helps ensure that the errors are logged in the pod logs, which enables accurate debugging. For more information, see Annotations used to validate external service connections.

Flexibility to configure custom TLS certificate in OMS Gateway

You can now enhance security and meet internal policies and industry standards by providing your own TLS certificate for secure communication between the ingress layer and the OMS Gateway. For more information, see Custom TLS certificate configuration in OMS Gateway.

Upgrade steps for feature utilization

Certain enhancements published in the release, require additional steps to be completed after the upgrade process. For more information, see Post-upgrade to 10.2409.0.

New Kafka topics for Inventory, Promising, and Optimization

• {topicPrefix}-{environment}-iv-migrate-accumulation
• {topicPrefix}-{environment}-iv-migrate-requests
• {topicPrefix}-{environment}-iv-product-available-supply-events-v2
• {topicPrefix}-{environment}-iv-product-available-supply-snapshot-container-events
• {topicPrefix}-{environment}-iv-product-available-supply-snapshot-events-v2
• {topicPrefix}-{environment}-iv-pub-available-supply-snapshot
• {topicPrefix}-{environment}-iv-segment-reallocation
• {topicPrefix}-{environment}-iv-demand-snapshot-container-events
• {topicPrefix}-{environment}-iv-pub-demand-snapshot
• {topicPrefix}-{environment}-prm-iv-supply-breakup-sink-stream
• {topicPrefix}-{environment}-optimizer-dataupdate-configuration
• {topicPrefix}-{environment}-optimizer-dataupdate-prov-serv
• {topicPrefix}-{environment}-optimizer-es-persist-failure
• {topicPrefix}-{environment}-prm-carrier-service-schedule-overrides-events
• {topicPrefix}-{environment}-prm-carrier-service-schedule-events

August 2024

• General enhancements
• On-premises containers enhancements

General enhancements

Get up-to-date data on the Benefits report

The date picker on the Benefits report is updated to support selection of a date range including the current date. You can now pick an up-to-date range to get the latest data for the inventory KPIs.

For more information, see Benefits report.

Introduced the shipping notification time for Sterling Intelligent Promising

Sterling Intelligent Promising offers the Define or update a notification calendar API to configure the shipping notification time. The shipping notification time represents the minimum time that allows the delivery service to initiate the delivery or pickup process.

For more information, see and Define or update a notification calendar API.

Filtering orders by status

You can revisit the order optimization decisions that are made by the Optimization service, specifically for prepurchase order scenarios or calls made for Calculate checkout assignments using costs API.

You can create an optimization profile with order status conditions. For more information, see Managing optimization profiles.

You can filter the orders by order status from the Optimization dashboard and Optimization explainer. For more information, see Viewing the optimization dashboard and Order list page.

Carrier service surcharges

Surcharges are applied by carrier service providers to compensate for additional costs, such as fuel across certain shipping routes. There are fixed type and percentage type surcharges available. For more information, see Surcharges. You can configure surcharges by using APIs. For more information, see Configuring the carrier service surcharges.

On-premises containers enhancements (10.0.2406.2)

Operator and image updates

• Operator version: V1.0.9
• IBM OMS Gateway Operator: cp.icr.io/cpopen/ibm-oms-gateway-operator-catalog:v1.0
• IBM Sterling Intelligent Promising Operator: cp.icr.io/cpopen/ibm-oms-sip-operator-catalog:v1.0
• Application image tag: 10.0.2406.2-amd64

Availability of new image to perform truststore jobs

Use the newly introduced sip-utils image to do all the truststore related operations such as create truststore, get truststore, which are performed by Sterling Intelligent Promising Operator and OMS Gateway Operator. It is mandatory to push sip-utils image for deploying Sterling Intelligent Promising.

From August 10.0.2406.2 release, you no longer need to pull ubi-minimal, openjdk-11, or openssl images, as these images are replaced by the sip-utils image. For more information, see sipUtils parameter.

Flexibility to configure log levels for individual servers

You can now configure log levels for each individual server instance. This feature provides precise control over logging behavior on a per-server basis, enabling tailored and detailed logging as needed. For more information, see logLevel property.

July 2024

• General enhancements
• On-premises containers enhancements

General enhancements

Optimize orders based on the preferred carrier services

As a fulfillment manager, you can now optimize orders based on the preferred carrier services. This helps in ensuring that optimization options are evaluated only for the specified shipping locations. For more information, see Optimizer API and Idle API.

Inventory- Reservation ID customization enhancement

Inventory - Reservation ID customization enhancement. The user-defined reservation ID is now supported in the reservation API. For more information, see Creating reservations with custom reservation ID.

Inventory - Extending reservation expiry

You can extend the reservation expiry to the user-defined date by ID or by the reference that is returned in the response output.
The existing reservation quantity can be increased, and the reservation has a maximum retention of 30 days from the date when the reservation was first created.

For more information, see Extending reservations for a cart or by reference.

On-premises containers enhancements (10.0.2406.1)

Operator and image updates

• Operator version: V1.0.8
• IBM OMS Gateway Operator: cp.icr.io/cpopen/ibm-oms-gateway-operator-catalog:v1.0
• IBM Sterling Intelligent Promising Operator: cp.icr.io/cpopen/ibm-oms-sip-operator-catalog:v1.0
• Application image: 10.0.2406.1-amd64

Support to add environment prefix to Kafka topics

You can now add environment name as a prefix to Kafka topics along with topic prefix. For more information, see Kafka topic list for the services.

New properties added to omsGateway and common parameters

• Property named sslEnabled introduced to enable or disable SSL in omsGateway. For more information, see sslEnabled.
• Following two properties introduced in common ingress.
  • customDomains property to specify a list of custom domains with one or more Fully Qualified Domain Names (FQDNs) over which your application is exposed. For more information, see customDomains.
  • skipDefaultAnnotations property to skip all the annotations that the Operator adds by default. For more information, see skipDefaultAnnotations.

New configuration to define Horizontal Pod Autoscalers (HPAs)

Use this feature to define a list of Horizontal Pod Autoscalers (HPAs) to automatically manage the number of pods in the deployment. For more information, see horizontalPodAutoscalers parameter.

Resolved issues

To view the list of resolved issues in on-premises containers, see Resolved issues in on-premises containers.

June 2024

• General enhancements
• On-premises containers enhancements

General enhancements

Inventory - Enhanced the calculation for the fields - shortageQuantity and consumedSafetyQuantity in new event formats

New parameters - shortageQuantity, consumedSafetyQuantity, and fulfillmentAllowed are added for calculations.

For more information, see availableSupplyChange.v2 event.

Inventory - Extending reservation expiry

You can extend the reservation expiry to the user-defined date by ID or by the reference that is returned in the response output.
The existing reservation quantity can be increased, and the reservation has a maximum retention of 30 days from the date when the reservation was first created.

For more information, see Extending reservations for a cart or by reference.

Inventory - Reservation ID customization enhancement

The user-defined reservation ID is now supported in the Reservation API.

For more information, see Creating reservations with custom reservation ID.

Inventory - Extending reservation expiry

You can extend the reservation expiry to the user-defined date by ID or by the reference that is returned in the response output. The
existing reservation quantity can be increased, and the reservation has a maximum retention of 30 days from the date when the reservation was first created.

For more information, see Extending reservations for a cart or by reference.

Inventory - Increasing reservation quantity

The reservation module is now capable of increasing the reservation quantity after its creation depending on the enough availability.

For more information, see Updating reservation quantity.

New fields - demandShortage, reservationShortage, and safetyShortage are introduced in new event formats

For more information, see New event formats and Get Detailed Node Availability by date V2.

Introduced a tenant-based rule that allows you to publish the productAvailability.v2 and availableSupplyChange.v2 events whether fulfillment is enabled or disabled

For more information, see Tenant-based rule in productAvailability.v2 and Tenant-based rule in availableSupplyChange.v2.

Inventory- Reservation ID customization enhancement

Inventory - Reservation ID customization enhancement. The user-defined reservation ID is now supported in the reservation API. For more information, see Creating reservations with custom reservation ID.

On-premises containers enhancements (10.0.2406.0)

Note:

• If you are upgrading the IBM Sterling Intelligent Promising to 10.0.2406.0-amd64 or future versions, you must create a job column in inv_upgrade table. For more information, see Upgrading the Operators.
• For this release, it is mandatory to define the webClient parameter. For more information, see webClient parameter.

Operator and image updates

• Operator version: V1.0.7
• IBM OMS Gateway Operator: cp.icr.io/cpopen/ibm-oms-gateway-operator-catalog:v1.0
• IBM Sterling Intelligent Promising Operator: cp.icr.io/cpopen/ibm-oms-sip-operator-catalog:v1.0
• Application image: 10.0.2406.0-amd64

Availability of Optimization services for production mode

Optimization services are now available in production mode.

For more information about configuring Optimization in SIPEnvironment, see optimizerService group parameter.

For more information about configuring Optimization in independent mode, see Configuring OptimizerServiceGroup custom resource (independent mode).

Capability to support role based configuration to access APIs

You can now configure roles based on the specific nature of the job functions within your business, such as administrator or operations roles. This enables you to access only those APIs for which you are authorized, thus enhancing both security and operational efficiency. For more information, see Role based access for accessing APIs.

Added new Kafka topics to Rules and Inventory

• {topicPrefix}-rules-data-rep
• {topicPrefix}-iv-upgrade-accumulation

For more information, see Kafka topic list for the services.

Resolved issues

To view the list of resolved issues in on-premises containers, see Resolved issues in on-premises containers.

May 2024

• General enhancements
• SaaS enhancements
• On-premises containers enhancements

General enhancements

Promising - Introduced cost-based promising

Sterling Intelligent Promising offers the Calculate checkout assignments using costs API that enables you to calculate prepurchase shipment assignments and minimize the overall cost-to-serve.

For more information, see Scenario: Calculate prepurchase shipment assignments and minimize the cost-to-serve.

If you are a Sterling Intelligent Promising Premium customer, you can benefit from cost-based promising with additional capabilities, such as avoiding stockouts and avoiding markdowns, that are powered by predictive AI.

Introduced Inventory considerations on Tenant configurations page

Tenant configurations page on Order Hub UI now offers details about inventory considerations. For more information, see Tenant settings.

Introduced additional node properties

Three new fields are introduced on the Create node page. You can add Lead time for outbound transfers, Processing time for intbound transfers, and Cut off time while configuring nodes.

For more information, see Configuring nodes.

Introduced new event - availableSupplyChange.v2

The availableSupplyChange.v2 event provides the availability picture based on supply dates when changes happen in supply, demand, reservation, or safety stock. For more information, see availableSupplyChange.v2.

Self Service

Self Service is a new web-based user interface that provides the administrators with complete visibility of their application environment to manage users, receive system notifications, and monitor metrics. Once your organization is provisioned, you receive an email to get started with Self Service.
For more information, see Self service.

SaaS enhancements

Introduced Sterling Intelligent Promising Premium

The Sterling Intelligent Promising Premium package extends the capabilities of the essential and standard packages with predictive artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML). The predictive AI-powered features offer cost-based promising, markdown avoidance, and stockout avoidance for prepurchase and post-purchase optimization. For more information, see Sterling Intelligent Promising Premium.

To get started with Sterling Intelligent Promising Premium, see Getting started for system integrators.

File transfer adapter

The file transfer adapter is available to help you manage your data integration. You can transfer various data types from other systems to a cloud storage bucket to harmonize data into different formats to help with operational decisions.
For more information, see Using the IBM Sterling Intelligent Promising file transfer adapter for data ingestion.

On-premises containers enhancements (10.0.2403.2)

Operator and image updates

• Operator version: V1.0.6
• IBM OMS Gateway Operator: cp.icr.io/cpopen/ibm-oms-gateway-operator-catalog:v1.0
• IBM Sterling Intelligent Promising Operator: cp.icr.io/cpopen/ibm-oms-sip-operator-catalog:v1.0
• Application image: 10.0.2403.2-amd64

Availability of Optimization services

Optimization services are now available in development mode, including the following services. These services use advanced algorithms for post-purchase fulfillment to meet your commitments at the lowest possible cost and enhance your sales process.

• provisioningService
• kpiProcessorService
• optimizationService
• configurationService
• requestOrganizerService
• dataCaptureService
• elasticSearchDataProcessor
• errorProcessorService

For more information about configuring Optimization in SIPEnvironment, see optimizerService group parameter.

For more information about configuring Optimization in independent mode, see Configuring OptimizerServiceGroup custom resource (independent mode).

Support to bypass the Authentication layer in the IBM OMS Gateway Operator

You can now optionally skip the Authentication layer within the OMS Gateway. Enable the newly introduced skipAuthentication parameter for the OMS Gateway to configure it in Bring Your Own Auth (BYOA) mode. In this mode, OMS Gateway omits the authentication layer, with the assumption that the authentication process is handled externally. For more information, see skip Authentication property.

Support to publish supplySnapshot event to Kafka

You can now publish the supplySnapshot event to a Kafka topic. For more information, see Events and Kafka topics.

Added new Kafka topics to Promising, Inventory, and Catalog services

The following new topics are added:

• {topicPrefix}-iv-product-availability-snapshot-events-v2
• {topicPrefix}-iv-pub-shipnode-avl-breakup-snapshot
• {topicPrefix}-iv-supply-snapshot-container-events
• {topicPrefix}-prm-item-deleted
• {topicPrefix}-prm-item-upserted
• {topicprefix}-catalog-full-sync
• {topicPrefix}-catalog-item-events

For more information, see Kafka topic list for the services.

Added UID range adherence for restricted security context constraint

If you are already using restricted security context constraint for the service account that is used to deploy IBM Sterling Intelligent Promising on Red Hat® OpenShift® Container Platform, ensure that the UID range in the namespace is within the specified range that is 1000/100. For more information about changing range for a namespace, see Enabling security context constraint.

Resolved issues

To view the list of resolved issues in On-premises containers, see Resolved issues in on-premises containers.

April 2024

• General enhancements
• On-premises containers enhancements

General enhancements

Viewing carrier transit details added

View the carrier transit details to ensure that the lowest costs are maintained for your orders. For more information, see Viewing carrier transit details.

Promising - Introduced destination-based Promising rules

Sterling Intelligent Promising allows configuring the Promising rules by applying the Country, State, and City and restrictions based on location and carrier service.

For more information, see Promising rules.

Promising - New carrier service restrictions available

You can restrict specific carrier service selection as part of Promising rules. For more information, see Managing Promising rules.

Inventory - Introduced new event formats - supplyChange.v2, demandSnapshot and supplySnapshot

When the supply or demand changes for an item, new events - demandSnapshot and supplySnapshot is triggered that helps system integrator to publish a snapshot of the supply and demand system for analysis by the fulfillment manager.
For more information, see demandSnapshot and supplySnapshot.

When the supply changes for an item, the supplyChange.v2 event is triggered.
For more information, see supplyChange.V2.

Inventory - Introduced the new event of supplyChange.v2

Inventory - demandQuantity and supplyQuantity attributes are included in the productAvailability.v2 and productAvailabilitySnapshot.v2 events

For more information, see New event formats.

On-premises containers enhancements (10.0.2403.1)

Operator and image updates

• Operator version: V1.0.5
• IBM OMS Gateway Operator: cp.icr.io/cpopen/ibm-oms-gateway-operator-catalog:v1.0
• IBM Sterling Intelligent Promising Operator: cp.icr.io/cpopen/ibm-oms-sip-operator-catalog:v1.0
• Application image: 10.0.2403.1-amd64

Introduced UsePublicImageRegistry to use public image registry for downloading images

Use the newly introduced UsePublicImageRegistry spec in SIPEnvironment to specify whether to use a public image registry for downloading images. Set it to true if you want to download images from a public registry such as Docker Hub, Red Hat.
For more information, see UsePublicImageRegistry spec.

Introduced podAnnotations for SIPEnvironment, Promising, Inventory Visibility, and Utility services

You can now specify additional annotations for your pods or deployments as key-value pair. For more information, see pod annotations.

Removed keyspace property

The keyspace property for Cassandra is removed. Ensure that you use iv_keyspace in place of keyspace to prevent errors.

Changes due to enhancements in event publishing mechanism for container events

As a result of enhancements made in the event publishing mechanism for this release, messages from transactional events might be temporarily duplicated after you upgrade to new images.

• If you are upgrading IBM Sterling Intelligent Promising, then to prevent the generation of duplicate messages in topics that are listed in the Table 1: Events and Kafka topics, set the apps.sip.ibm.com/disable-duplicate-event-delivery annotation to true in the existing SIPEnvironment custom resource.

  Duplication of events occurs to prevent any loss of inflight events before the upgrade begins. This process of event publishing is not time consuming. However, it is advisable to let the system run for a few hours, after which you can set the annotation to stop any duplicate event delivery. Following this, the event publishing happens through the new mechanism.

• If you are doing a fresh deployment of IBM Sterling Intelligent Promising, directly set the apps.sip.ibm.com/disable-duplicate-event-delivery annotation to true to prevent generating duplicate messages.

Resolved issues

To view the list of resolved issues in on-premises containers, see Resolved issues in on-premises containers.

March 2024

• General enhancements
• On-premises containers enhancements

General enhancements

Documentation navigation updates

• A new Getting started section is available to help fulfillment managers, tenant administrators, and system integrators. For more information, see Getting started.
• New Configuring, Administering, and Developing sections are available.
• The navigation of the documentation set is enhanced to make it easier to find content.

On-premises containers enhancements (10.0.2403.0)

Operator and image updates

• Operator version: V1.0.4
• IBM OMS Gateway Operator: cp.icr.io/cpopen/ibm-oms-gateway-operator-catalog:v1.0
• IBM Sterling Intelligent Promising Operator: cp.icr.io/cpopen/ibm-oms-sip-operator-catalog:v1.0
• Application image: 10.0.2403.0-amd64
  Note: For this release, if you are using the IBM Operator catalog image, ensure that you use IBM OMS Gateway Operator and IBM Sterling Intelligent Promising Operator catalog images.

Support to add keyspace names for Carrier and Promising services

You can now specify keyspace names for Carrier and Promising services by using the newly introduced cas_keyspace and promising_keyspace properties. Also, the existing keyspace property is deprecated and is replaced with the Inventory Visibility keyspace, iv_keyspace. For more information, see Keyspaces.

Option to define datacenter in SIPEnvironment

In the SIPEnvironment custom resource, you can now define the datacenter name. This parameter is optional and its default value is set to local. For more information, see datacenter in general parameters.

Enhanced logging utilities

The logging utilities are upgraded to include custom attributes - DATACENTER, APP_NAME, COMPONENT_NAME, NODE_NAME, POD_NAME, POD_IP, for both Console and Kafka logging. These additional attributes in the logs enhance debugging capabilities. For more information, see Custom attributes in log metadata.

zookeeperContactPoints deprecated

The zookeeperContactPoints property for Kafka is now deprecated.

February 2024

• General enhancements
• SaaS enhancements

SaaS enhancements

Introduced Optimization considerations on Tenant configurations page

Tenant configurations page on Order Hub UI now offers details about Optimization considerations. For more information, see Tenant settings.

January 2024

On-premises containers enhancements (10.0.2309.2)

Important:

• If you are upgrading from any previous release to 10.0.2309.2, to avail the new features delivered in this release, after upgrading the IBM Sterling Intelligent Promising Operator and IBM OMS Gateway Operator, you must create the custom resources again. Also, if a service group is created outside of IBM Sterling Intelligent Promising custom resource, then you must create those service group custom resources again. For more information, see Configuring custom resources.
• For Promising, use the following image and do not use the image that is delivered out-of-the box.

  Image name: cp.icr.io/ibm-oms-enterprise/sip-promising:10.0.2309.2-amd64
  Digest: sha256:b1a3139d6b2c36205b572689d211c32d7bc83fa3de36cd8dcba75b4a381d8743

Operator and image updates

• Operator version: V1.0.3
• Application image: 10.0.2309.0-amd64

New property to activate application and backend servers

You can now choose to run the application or backend servers for individual service groups. Use the newly introduced active flag at each application server and backend server in the service groups. For more information, see Common server properties for Inventory and Promising service groups.

October 2023

Enhanced the delay penalty that is applied during delayed order optimization

The Optimization service in Sterling Intelligent Promising applies a delay penalty proportional to the delay days. This enhanced optimization logic recommends the ship nodes with the cheapest and fastest option to fulfill an order. For more information, see Optimization penalties.

September 2023

Promising - Enhanced promising calculation APIs

The Sterling Intelligent Promising calculation APIs now recognize the rules based on item classification to limit the fulfillment of specific nodes.

Inventory - Node Availability APIs do not support blank or null ship nodes

The application is enhanced such that when you pass a blank or null ship node to the V1 and V2 getNodeAvailability API request, a status 400 shipNodes array contains blank or null value error message occurs.

August 2023

Promising - Introduced Diagnostics APIs

The Ship and Pick Diagnostics APIs are newly introduced. You can use these APIs to understand the logic behind results returned by Estimated Delivery Date API and troubleshoot the promising calculations. For more information about Diagnostics APIs, see Scenario: Troubleshooting promising calculations.

July 2023

Inventory - Advanced inventory search capability for supply and demand

Inventory Visibility provides an advanced inventory search capability, which enables the retrieval of a list or an aggregated quantity for supply and demand data by using a flexible query. For more information, see Inventory search.

Promising - Catalog service introduces item classification

Sterling Intelligent Promising is introducing the item classification in catalog service to handle the inventory for each classification and manage the item classification configuration. The item classification helps the business model to achieve inventory management efficiency. For more information, see Item classification.

June 2023

Inventory - Extended inventory audit data retention period

The retention period for the inventory audit data is extended to 30 days from the time when audit data is created.

May 2023

Promising - Delete shipping zone components by using API

Delete shipping zone components API is newly introduced to enable deletion of shipping zone components. Use this API to delete multiple shipping zone components to correct carrier zone configuration data and ensure that no anomalies exist during promising or optimization. For more information, see Configuring carrier zones and transit durations by using APIs.

Promising - Rank API looks for inventory availability before ranking

The Rank API is now enhanced witsh the inventory lookup ability to filter the ship nodes based on inventory availability before ranking. For more information, see Inventory availability lookup.

April 2023

Create SKU data by using Catalog APIs

Optimization service is integrated with catalog service so that Optimization service can use the SKU data internally. Now, you can manage SKUs by using the Catalog APIs for Optimization purposes. For more information, see Catalog service.

Select preferred carrier services

The Estimated Delivery Date and Calculate Checkout Assignments APIs are enhanced to support selection of one or more preferred carrier services. For more information, see Estimated Delivery Date API and Calculate Checkout Assignments API.

Control whether items in a cart are to be shipped independently

The Calculate pre-purchase shipment assignments API is enhanced to support the constraint where an item in an order needs to be shipped independently. For more information, see Ship independently.

Introduced ship to store (STS)

Fulfill buy-online-and-pick-up-in-store (BOPIS) orders from a local store even if the store does not have that inventory in stock. Leverage the larger fulfillment network and define transfer rules to ship products to stores. For more information, see Ship to store (STS).

March 2023

Specify transit delay in transit duration calculations

You can now specify transit delay at the carrier zones or carrier zone components. This enables consideration of transit delay during transit duration calculations, which results into accurate promising of transit durations. For more information, see Specifying transit durations for zones and Specifying transit durations for zone components or routes.

Transit duration configuration available for an individual origin-destination postal code combination

Transit durations can now be configured not only for shipping zones, but also for an origin-and-destination postal codes combination. For more information, see Specifying transit durations for zones and Specifying transit durations for zone components or routes.

February 2023

Manage capacity for optimization in either RELEASES or Units

By default, the capacity unit of measure (UOM) is defined in Units. If you manage capacity in RELEASES in the Optimization service, you can configure average number of units per release conversion factor to account for capacity in RELEASES. For more information, see Setting the capacity unit of measure.

Calculate order fulfillment dates for predetermined nodes

Now you can use the Calculate item delivery or pickup date and Calculate pre-purchase shipment assignments APIs to make fulfillment decisions for preselected nodes. With the introduction of the overrideNodeList attribute, you can predefine a node or list of nodes to make promising calculations. For more information about the impact on the Calculate item delivery date API, see Override node list. For more information about the impact on the Calculate pre-purchase shipment assignments API, see Override node list.

Introduced requested fulfillment dates for delivery and pick up

The Calculate item delivery date and Calculate pre-purchase shipment assignment APIs are now enhanced to support requested fulfillment dates for delivery and pick up.

Introduced the Calculate item delivery date API, version 2

Provide reliable dates based on capacity availability and capacity category tags for product details pages

Previously, when making promising calculations, infinite capacity was assumed in the Calculate item delivery date and Calculate pre-purchase shipment assignments APIs. Now, with the introduction of version 2 of the Calculate item delivery date API, you can provide reliable dates for the pick delivery method.

January 2023

Inventory - Update to V2 availability APIs

The requestedEndTs has a maximum limit of 6 months for all V2 availability APIs. If the requestedEndTs that is passed in V2 availability API goes beyond 6 months, then a bad request exception is thrown. If you need availability request for more than 6 months, you can contact IBM Support to set this value according to your requirement.
For more information, see Availability by date.

October 2022

Create custom attributes to extend the capability of Promising rules

Sterling Intelligent Promising introduces the feature to create custom attributes to extend the capability provided by Promising rules and optimization. For more information about custom attributes, see What's changed.

Configure distribution groups for enlisting or restricting nodes during promising calculations

As the fulfillment manager, you can now create distribution groups to configure and restrict nodes during promising calculations. You can use these distribution groups to determine order fulfillment options. For more information, see Distribution groups. Additionally, the Promising rules are enhanced to consider distribution groups. For more information, see Archived what's changed on Cloud.

Fulfillment optimization

To modernize the capability portfolio of Sterling Intelligent Promising by using micro-service architecture, the services now include Optimization service. The Optimization service applies rules, configurations, and constraints to determine best fulfillment options that optimize cost. For more information, see Optimization. To get started, see Scenario: Implementing post-purchase fulfillment.

Introducing the Calculate pre-purchase shipment assignments API version 2

Provide reliable dates based on capacity availability and capacity category tags for the Checkout page

Previously, when making promising calculations, infinite capacity was assumed in the Calculate item delivery date and Calculate pre-purchase shipment assignments APIs. Now, with the introduction of version 2 of the Calculate pre-purchase shipment assignments using finite capacity windows API, you can categorize capacity by tags and define availability. For example, you might want to tag the capacity as capacity for pickup or capacity for shipping. Therefore, you can tag the capacity based on the delivery method. After it is configured, the Calculate pre-purchase shipment assignments using finite capacity windows API, the version 2 of the API, considers the configured capacity for a slot while making promising decisions. For more information, see Capacity.

Minimize shipments to optimize costs

The Calculate pre-purchase shipment assignments API is introduced to minimize shipments and optimize the shipping cost. For this purpose, Sterling Intelligent Promising considers all possible scenarios that the earliest estimated delivery date for all items within cart or order. It also considers numerous combinations of other parameters, such as inventory and node availability, shipping groups, carriers, carrier services, and transit durations. By minimizing the number of shipments, the cost to serve an order is reduced, which optimizes costs and boosts profits. For more information, see Scenario: Optimizing Promising.

September 2022

Provide reliable dates for pickup orders on Product Details page

With this capability, you can offer pickup as a delivery method in addition to the ship method. Sterling Intelligent Promising can be used to support buy-online-and-pick-up-in-a-store capability, called BOPIS. BOPIS helps a shopper to view the estimated dates to place an order for pickup when they select the pickup delivery method. The Calculate item delivery date API provides estimated dates based on the pickup delivery method.

Manage the distinct shipping and pickup processing times for nodes to improve your BOPIS and shipping estimates. For more information, see Processing time. For more information about delivery methods, see Delivery method.

Sterling Intelligent Promising is enhanced to calculate and track the inventory availability by the shipping and pickup delivery method. For more information, see Integrating with inventory management.

August 2022

Provide reliable promise dates based on global postal codes

Manage your carriers, carrier services, zones, and transit durations for global postal codes and make reliable promise dates based on these configurations. For more information, see Scenario: Calculate pre-purchase shipment assignments using infinite capacity windows. For more information about the modified behavior of managing transit durations, see Manage carrier transit duration by using zones. To introduce a new carrier service zone, see Configuring carrier zones and transit durations by using APIs.

July 2022

Addition of EOF sample events

You can find the EOF sample events for ProductAvailabilityToSell.ShipNodeSnapshot and ProductAvailabilityToSell.DistributionGroupSnapshot in the documentation. For more information, see Event formats.

Demand audit service

In addition to supply audit service, Inventory Visibility now also provides the demand audit service. The demand audit service receives audit-related data from demand services through change events, allowing external request such as OrderHub to query a specific set of demand audit records. For more information, see Inventory audit.

Manage nodes

Manage nodes from the Sterling Intelligent Promising user interface to ensure that the system is aware of all possible fulfillment locations that can fulfill an order. Ship nodes can be created, edited, and deleted. Sellers can also view a list of all ship nodes.

For more information, see Nodes.

Create and delete custom node types

Manage node types from the Sterling Intelligent Promising user interface. This feature includes creating and deleting custom node types, and viewing a list of all node types. For more information, see Node and node types.

Disable a carrier service for a shipping group

Temporarily or permanently disable a carrier service for a shipping group on a specific node through the Sterling Intelligent Promising user interface. When a carrier service is disabled for a shipping group on a node, the service is not considered for that node if the ship date falls in one of the effective dates.

This feature can be used to reserve carrier services with limited capacity for orders that need a faster shipping service. When a carrier service is disabled, it ensures that a ship node does not handle the carrier service during estimated delivery date calculations when the disabled carrier service originates from a targeted shipping group. A carrier service can be disabled indefinitely or for specified dates for one shipping group without affecting its use in other shipping groups. For more information, see Disabling a carrier service for a shipping group and Shipping groups.

Use the Disable carrier service API to disable a carrier service in a shipping group.

Create Promising rules

Use Promising rules to determine a set of nodes or node types that can be considered to fulfill orders with specific characteristics. Promising rules provide a way to improve estimated delivery date accuracy and to help comply with business logistics constraints. For more information, see Promising rules.

June 2022

Introduced a new property enableFulfillmentOptionOnlyWhenQtyChanges

A new property enableFulfillmentOptionOnlyWhenQtyChanges is introduced. This property is similar to enableFulfillmentOption and used for sync supply.
For more information, see Reenabling SKU fulfillment options.

May 2022

Node reservation by date

You can now place reservations for future dates by passing requestedReservationTs as future date. Supplies that are valid on requestedReservationTs will be applicable to fulfill the future reservation request. For more information, see Node availability by date.

January 2022

New APIs available

APIs to fetch, create and update node types have been provided.

For more information, see Insert or update a node type.

APIs to fetch settings specified at the time of onboarding your account have been provided.

For more information, see Get encoding settings and Get tenant settings.

December 2021

October 2021

September 2021 (Inventory Visibility)

August 2021

April 2023 (Inventory Visibility)

Custom attributes for supply adjustment and sync requests

You can pass the custom attribute as part of supply adjustment and sync, which ensures that the custom attribute value is recorded in the supply audit screen. You can map these attributes for supply purposes. For more information, see Inventory audit.

Signature change

The item, item fulfillment, safety stock, and item event threshold API has a change in signature. For more information about configurations that are no longer supported in the API URL signature, see the Resiliency announcement.

January 2023 (Inventory Visibility)

API transparency for supply actions

Supply sync transaction tracking

You get a transaction ID on a successful supply sync request submission. With this transaction ID, you can verify the overall sync status and track the individual details of the supply line changes.

Supply history

The supply history API provides the supply detail, which includes the last source timestamp and last updated timestamp that is created or changed in the last 12 hours.

Batch support

One or more supply sync requests can be added to a single batch to improve traceability of all running process. You can use the transaction search API to locate all records that are related to specific batch.
For more information, see Supply sync transparency.

Item republishing

You can republish item availability snapshot for one item or a list of items at both ship node and distribution group level. For more information, see Inventory snapshots.

New route for the Distribution group APIs

The Inventory Visibility Distribution group APIs are replaced by the new Distribution group APIs. The existing Inventory Visibility distribution group APIs continue to work. However, to use V2 availability by date feature set, you must re-create the distribution group through Order Hub or the new APIs.

October 2022 (Inventory Visibility)

Enhanced availability API by date with inventory feature

The availability by date feature is now available in a full public release. With the continuous flux in inventory flow, fulfillment managers continue to strike for greater inventory accuracy for their fulfillment network. To assist this goal, Inventory Visibility is providing a new set of features, which includes.

• Inventory availability expiration consideration - The ability to exclude inventory that is no longer available to sell at a location.
• Availability window by date - A greater visibility of the inventory count per time period.
• Customizable rule-based safety stock - Creating a dynamic safety stock withholding at the individual node and network level with business driven rules.
• Scalable lightweight catalog - For regular catalog use cases and responsive item information retrieval.
• Next-generation configuration UI - Order Hub being the central place to configure your tenant's preferences and fulfillment network setup.
• Sterling Order Management System Software ready - Seamless availability by date calculation between Sterling Order Management System Software and Inventory Visibility.

As part of revamping the Inventory Visibility availability calculation framework, the following features are made available to you:

• Bundle availability consideration - Configure complex item bundle and component relationship and achieve a single available picture for e-commerce showcase.
• Inclusion of item attributes information in availability and events - To reduce downstream latency and dependency, Inventory Visibility can automatically include item attributes such as color, size, material as part of availability query and event publish.
• Event improvements - Through an improved event compaction and consolidation, event consumer receives fewer event files through their IBM Cloud Object Storage or webhook endpoint thus reducing overall resource expenditure.
• Event threshold consideration for snapshot type events - Event threshold can limit the number of events that are received for a downstream system, with consideration of event threshold for snapshot level events the number of events are greatly reduced, therefore allowing downstream to pay attention to low stock inventory.
• Availability by date in event form - In addition to the existing productAvailability and dgAvailabilityChange events, the availability window by date is available in event format. And it is consumable in configured event endpoints.
• Searchable audits - Enhanced traceability of inventory adjustment and sync actions carried out by warehouse staff with searchable audits.
• Network reservation with ship node prioritization consideration - Deduce the floating reservation by enforcing inventory reservation at node level, based on location priorities.

Inventory Visibility continues to add more features toward the availability by date feature set, which is also known as "V2" APIs. By using V2 availability APIs, you can reduce the effort that is required to integrate with order management and e-commerce systems.

Learn more about the Migrating to V2 availability API feature set and contact IBM support for activation details.

• The V2 availability API provides the following features:
  • Rules-based safety stock
  • Bundle
  • Node availability by date
  • Distribution group availability by date
  • Node reservation by date
  • Distribution group reservation by date
  • Item attributes
• To view all the APIs that are available to you, refer to V2 availability API.

Migrating to V2 availability API

If you are using the V1 availability APIs and want to move to V2 to use its benefits, you can get started by raising an operation ticket through IBM support to migrate from V1 to V2. For more information, refer to Migrating to V2 availability API.

Additional details on V2 availability API features:

Rules-based safety stock

Inventory Visibility has a new rules-based method for managing safety stock. You can maintain extra stock and mitigate the risk of shortfall of items that are caused by uncertainties in supply and demand by enabling safety stock rules.

• For more information on configuring rules-based safety stock in Order Hub UI, refer to Configuring rules-based safety stock.
• For more information on creating, editing, deleting, or duplicating a safety stock rule in Order Hub UI, refer to Safety stock rules.
• For more information on the Inventory Visibility safety stock, refer to Item-based safety stock.
• For more information on Inventory Visibility rules-based safety stock, refer to Rules-based safety stock.

Bundle

A bundle is an item that consists of multiple components. A bundle item is determined by the availability of its components.
For more information, see Bundle.

Node availability by date

Inventory Visibility always publishes the availability picture when the inventory is updated at a node. The availability by date uses inventory timestamps to calculate the date range.
For more information, see Node availability by date.

Distribution group availability by date

Distribution group availability by date provides availability by the date range. The distribution group availability picture is an aggregate view of all the associated node availability by date for inventory that is available to sell.
For more information, see Distribution group availability by date.

Node reservation by date

You can now place reservations for future dates. By passing requestedReservationTs as future date, reservations can be placed for future dates.
For more information, see Node reservation by date.

Distribution group reservation by date

The distribution group level reservation is always placed by using node priority feature.
For more information, see Distribution group reservation by date.

Item attributes

Attributes are item characteristics that are defined in catalog. Integrating catalog service and Inventory Visibility provides more information about the item in API calls and events.
For more information, see Item attributes.

Other features

Ship node management

Ship node data is managed in Inventory Visibility using the Order Hub UI. The existing ship node APIs in Inventory Visibility is deprecated. For more information, see Configuring nodes in Sterling Intelligent Promising.

July 2022 (Inventory Visibility)

Addition of EOF sample events

You can find the EOF sample events for ProductAvailabilityToSell.ShipNodeSnapshot and ProductAvailabilityToSell.DistributionGroupSnapshot in the documentation. For more information, see Event formats.

Demand audit service

In addition to supply audit service, Inventory Visibility now also provides the demand audit service. The demand audit service receives audit-related data from demand services through change events, allowing external request such as OrderHub to query a specific set of demand audit records. For more information, see Inventory audit.

June 2022 (Inventory Visibility)

Introduced a new property enableFulfillmentOptionOnlyWhenQtyChanges

A new property enableFulfillmentOptionOnlyWhenQtyChanges is introduced. This property is similar to enableFulfillmentOption and used for sync supply. For more information, see Reenabling SKU fulfillment options.

May 2022 (Inventory Visibility)

Node reservation by date

You can now place reservations for future dates by passing requestedReservationTs as future date. Supplies that are valid on requestedReservationTs will be applicable to fulfill the future reservation request. For more information, see Availability by date.

February 2022 (Inventory Visibility)

January 2022 (Inventory Visibility)

November 2021 (Inventory Visibility)

August 2021 (Inventory Visibility)

Event thresholds

Event thresholds are used to control the frequency of generation of availability events by providing configuration at different levels. Event threshold can be configured at global, item, node, or distribution group level. The threshold configuration is used to validate availability quantity so that events are only published when it falls less than or more than threshold. The event is published when quantity crosses any of the threshold levels regardless of threshold settings. For more information, see Event thresholds.

July 2021 (Inventory Visibility)

May 2021 (Inventory Visibility)

April 2021 (Inventory Visibility)

February 2021 (Inventory Visibility)

January 2021 (Inventory Visibility)

October 2020 (Inventory Visibility)

July 2020 (Inventory Visibility)

May 2020 (Inventory Visibility)

March 2020 (Inventory Visibility)

January 2020 (Inventory Visibility)

Fulfillment options

Order fulfillment process involves all the steps from point of sales inquiry to delivery of an item to the customer. Inventory Visibility provides an accurate inventory availability picture at various levels that enables to expand the sales channels to include marketplaces. For more information, see Item fulfillment options.

October 2019 (Inventory Visibility)

September 2019 (Inventory Visibility)

July 2019 (Inventory Visibility)

June 2019 (Inventory Visibility)

May 2019 (Inventory Visibility)

April 2019 (Inventory Visibility)

March 2019 (Inventory Visibility)