Service category

The Service category translates to a specific operational task or fulfillment activity that requires capacity tracking within your network. By categorizing the type of work to be completed, the Capacity service can accurately measure and govern distinct operational workflows independently.

Out-of-the-box fulfillment categories

By default, the system provides two read only, out of the box values designed to track standard fulfillment tasks:
  • PRODUCT_SHIP
    Tracks ship to home fulfillment tasks.
  • PRODUCT_PICK
    Tracks store pickup fulfillment tasks.
These predefined values enable seamless automatic discovery during the promising estimated delivery calculations. When the system processes a shipment order, it automatically discovers the corresponding resource pool associated with the PRODUCT_SHIP service category and verifies its availability. Similarly, for a store pickup order, the system automatically routes the availability check to the resource pool linked with the PRODUCT_PICK category. This auto discovery eliminates the need to explicitly supply a category during the promising estimated delivery request, as the system intelligently seeks out the specific required category.

While these default service categories are read only to ensure systemic integrity, fulfillment managers are provided the flexibility to create and manage custom service categories. These custom categories can then be mapped to their own dedicated resource pools to track specialized operational workflows.

Carrier service integration

The system also provides out of the box capabilities to support carrier service capacity use cases. For every carrier service configured within Sterling Intelligent Promising, the system automatically generates a corresponding service category utilizing the identical value as the carrier service identifier.

For example, if the carrier service identifier is UPS_2Day, the automatically generated service category ID shares that exact value. This native synchronization provides fulfillment managers an immediate pathway to create resource pools dedicated to specific carrier service pickup limits. Most importantly, the system leverages its auto discovery ability, allowing the promising engine to automatically locate the correct carrier resource pool without explicit category mapping during API requests.

For additional details on carrier configuration, see refer to the Carriers and carrier services.

Service category types

The ServiceCategoryType attribute is an integral part of the service category definition. It is intended to classify the underlying operational purpose of the task. The currently supported types include:

  • PRODUCT
    Tracks all standard fulfillment capacity for both ship to home and store pickup orders.
  • CARRIER_SERVICE
    Tracks capacity operations specifically related to carrier pickup tasks.

As the platform evolves to encompass additional operational constraints, new category types will be introduced to support extended fulfillment and processing use cases.