What's new
Learn more about what’s new and changed in IBM® Sterling Intelligent Promising. Unless otherwise specified, the general enhancements are applicable to both Software as a Service (SaaS) and on-premises containers offerings.
October 2025
- General enhancements
-
- Optimizing delivery speed lever factors in the delivery speed when ranking or optimizing nodes
- This enhancement allows you to factor in the delivery speed when evaluating fulfillment options. When ranking or optimizing fulfillment nodes, this lever allows fulfillment managers to tune the importance of delivery speed relative to other costs, such as shipping and processing. For example, you might want to reduce the transit time cost by prioritizing a fast delivery speed, thereby minimizing shipping expenses. For more information, see Optimizing for delivery speed.
- Estimated Delivery Dates (EDD) calculations support caching
- To improve performance and customer experience on the Product List Page (PLP) and the Product
Details Page (PDP), IBM Sterling Intelligent
Promising now supports caching for Estimated Delivery Dates
(EDD). The
getCachedEDDsAPI enables quick access to previously computed delivery dates for multiple items. Shoppers have instant visibility into how quickly they can receive their items leading to reduced customer inquiries. For more information, see Estimated Delivery Dates. - Calendar constraints configuration is available in the UI
- A new UI is available to configure calendar constraints to calculate accurate promising dates for customers. After you define a calendar, you apply these constraints to a carrier service to determine when shipping, delivery, or pickup can't occur. For more information, see Configuring calendar constraints.
- Better promising accuracy with unplanned and unsegmented inventory
- The Promising service now supports unplanned inventory and unsegmented consumption rules in the estimated delivery dates (EDD) and CheckoutAssignment calculations. Additional inventory sources are considered, beyond physical and segmented stock. This results in more accurate delivery and sourcing estimates that reflect elevated availability levels and maximize order capture. For more information, see Estimated delivery dates and Scenario: Availability and fulfillment with unplanned inventory and unsegmented consumption.
- On-premises containers enhancements (10.0.2509.1)
-
Attention: The IBM Sterling Intelligent Promising Operator v1.4.0 is fixed to address a known issue, and the fix is available in v1.4.1. It is recommended that you use the latest Operator v1.4.1. For more information, see 5 November 2025 and 23 October 2025.
September 2025
- General enhancements
-
- Unplanned inventory
- Leverage unplanned inventory to maximize order capture in fluctuating markets. Unplanned inventory management enables selling beyond current stock through oversell strategies and supplier lead contracts. For more information, see Unplanned inventory.
- New node consideration parameters in the Order summary
- The Order Summary page now includes additional pricing parameters including the online, markdown, and selling price in the Nodes Considered section to support more granular and strategic sourcing decisions. For more information, see Nodes considered.
- Benefits report provides an insight into processing costs
- The Benefits report provides enhanced visibility into processing costs across fulfillment nodes. By displaying processing cost as a distinct benefit metric, the report helps you to make smarter, cost-conscious decisions during order handling. For more information, see Benefits report.
- Optimizing delivery speed lever factors in the delivery speed when ranking or optimizing nodes
- This enhancement allows you to factor in the delivery speed or the total cost when evaluating fulfillment options. Whether you're optimizing for speed or cost, you now have more control and flexibility in how promises are made. You can define cost values that consider a weighted transit cost as well as the base shipping and processing costs. For more information, see Optimizing for delivery speed.
- Calendar constraints align delivery expectations with customer promises
- Define non-transit and non-delivery days for nodes, carriers, and services to ensure promises reflect actual operational availability. For more information, see Calendar constraints.
- Estimated delivery dates (Edd) API supports calendar constraints
- The Edd API provides calendar constraint parameters to calculate accurate promising dates for customers. The benefits include reduced delays and more alignment with customer delivery calendars. For more information, see Estimated delivery dates.
- On-premises containers enhancements (10.0.2509.0)
-
- Updated Operator versions and images
-
- IBM Sterling Intelligent Promising Operator version: v1.3.0
- IBM OMS Gateway Operator version: v1.3.0
- Case version: 3.0.33
- Application image tag: 10.0.2509.0-amd64
- IBM OMS Gateway Operator image: cp.icr.io/cpopen/ibm-oms-gateway-operator-catalog:v1.0
- IBM Sterling Intelligent Promising Operator image: cp.icr.io/cpopen/ibm-oms-sip-operator-catalog:v1.0
- The v1.0 catalog images will be deprecated soon and the users are encouraged to subscribe to the
following new catalog images.
icr.io/cpopen/ibm-oms-sip-operator-catalog:stable icr.io/cpopen/ibm-oms-gateway-operator-catalog:stable
- Improved API documentation user interface
- The API documentation now presents a more organized and user-friendly interface. Instead of displaying all endpoints in a single list, the APIs are grouped by purpose - Admin, Operations, and Public. This categorization helps users quickly locate the relevant APIs and improves overall navigation.
- New parameters to define Topology Spread Constraints
- Use the new
topologySpreadConstraintsandtopologyparameters to ensure that the pods are spread across the nodes or zones evenly. These parameters helps improve workload resilience and availability. With this enhancement, the Operator integrates Topology Spread Constraints into workloads based on configurations defined at the server level. - New Kafka topics for Inventory and Optimizer
- Ensure that you create the following new topics before upgrading to 10.0.2509.0.
- Inventory
{topicPrefix}-{environment}-iv-aggregate-reservation- Optimizer
-
{topicPrefix}-{environment}-optimizer-dataupdate-prov-serv{topicPrefix}-{environment}-optimizer-es-dataupdate-configuration
- Post-upgrade steps
- Complete the necessary steps after the upgrade to ensure smooth transition and fully utilize the release updates. For more information, see Post-upgrade to 10.2509.0.
August 2025
- On-premises containers enhancements (10.0.2506.2)
-
Attention: The IBM Sterling Intelligent Promising Operator v1.2.0 is fixed to address a known issue, and the fix is available in v1.2.1. It is recommended that you use the latest Operator v1.2.1. For more information, see 20 August 2025 and 14 August 2025.
July 2025
- General enhancements
-
- New transit rates API
- Remove transit rates for a specific carrier service or a shipping zone by using the New transit rates API. For more information, see Deleting transit rates.
- Recompute Network Availability API is updated
- The Recompute Network Availability API includes a new option to sync for specific items.
- For the Inventory and the Catalog services, replacement APIs are available
- For the Inventory service, the ship node, distribution group, event threshold, and item V1 APIs are removed and replacement V2 APIs are available. For the Catalog service, the attributes, category, classification, and items APIs are deprecated and replacement APIs are available. For more information, see What's deprecated.
- FAQ is updated to help avoid Rules APIs validation errors
- To avoid validation errors in the Rules APIs, ensure that the Description field has a maximum of 1024 characters. For more information, see Frequently asked questions (FAQs) about Sterling Intelligent Promising.
- V2 Inventory snapshots are enhanced
- You can request node and network availability snapshots for a set of delivery methods.
- Optimizing new performance objective is provided as a preview
- A preview of the Optimizing node performance objective is available. For more information, see Optimization objectives.
- Fulfillment constraints are available to optimize how inventory is fulfilled
- Use the new Fulfillment options modal to add fulfillment constraints to limit the items that are picked up or shipped from nodes. For more information, see Adding a fulfillment constraint.
- Inventory search is updated for inventory items and bundles
- View the inventory search details for regular items, items with variations, and bundle components. For more information, see Searching inventory availability.
- On-premises containers enhancements (10.0.2506.1)
-
- Updated Operator versions and images
-
- IBM Sterling Intelligent Promising Operator version: v1.1.0
- IBM OMS Gateway Operator version: v1.1.0
- Case version: 3.0.31
- IBM OMS Gateway Operator image: cp.icr.io/cpopen/ibm-oms-gateway-operator-catalog:v1.0
- IBM Sterling Intelligent Promising Operator image: cp.icr.io/cpopen/ibm-oms-sip-operator-catalog:v1.0
- Application image tag: 10.0.2506.1-amd64
- Introduced v1 channel and updated Operator versioning
- Effective with the 10.0.2506.1 release, the Sterling™ Order Management System channel changes from v1.0 to v1. Users are encouraged to subscribe to the new v1 channel.
- Availability of new stable catalog images
- The v1.0 catalog images will be deprecated soon and the users are encouraged to subscribe to the
new catalog images according to the following
mapping.
icr.io/cpopen/ibm-oms-sip-operator-catalog:v1.0 changes to icr.io/cpopen/ibm-oms-sip-operator-catalog:stable icr.io/cpopen/ibm-oms-gateway-operator-catalog:v1.0 changes to icr.io/cpopen/ibm-oms-gateway-operator-catalog:stable
- Enhanced logging framework
- New property
logExtraFieldsadded to support customizable key-value metadata in logs. - New property
console.layoutto enhance console layout configuration. This property supports bothGELFandPATTERNformats. - Other internal enhancements to improve log structure, consistency, and downstream observability.
- New property
- Support for Cassandra 4.1.0
- IBM Sterling Intelligent Promising now supports Cassandra version 4.1.0, which is recommended for improved performance and ensure future compatibility. Support for Cassandra 4.0.10 continues in the 10.0.2506.1 release to help ensure a smooth transition. However, you are encouraged to begin planning your upgrade to Cassandra 4.1.0 in preparation for future releases, where the older version 4.0.10 might no longer be supported.
- Optimizer service no longer requires MongoDB
- Elasticsearch now serves as the primary data store for the Optimizer service, fully replacing MongoDB. Hence, MongoDB is no longer required and is therefore not supported.
June 2025
- General enhancements
-
- Enhanced IBM Sterling Intelligent Promising to consider unassigned demands in distribution group availability
- The distribution group availability calculation has been enhanced in Sterling Intelligent Promising to consider the unassigned demand.
- Configure and use the unsegmented inventory availability for B2B and B2C
- As part of your business-to-business (B2B) or business-to-customer (B2C) plans, you can now use
the unsegmented inventory that allows to expand the available inventory to eliminate the risk of
stockout and unavailability of inventory to fulfill the orders.
For more information on enabling utilizing the unsegmented inventory consumption, see Enabling unsegmented consumption rules.
For more information on defining the utilization of unsegmented inventory for segments, see Managing unsegmented inventory for segments. To understand the business use case for using unsegmented inventory for segments, see Scenario: Utilizing unsegmented inventory for segments.
- Inventory - Supply audit captures additional records with segmentation allocation
- When the segment allocation feature is enabled and an unsegmented supply sync request is
triggered, the system allocates inventory to the appropriate segments according to the defined
allocation plan. The supply audit is enhanced to capture these supply changes for
traceability.
For more information, see Supply audits due to segmentation rules.
- Optimization explainer - Failed orders and error code filtering added
- A failed order label is now added to orders that fail the optimization process. Also, an Error codes list is provided for you to investigate the errors further, making it possible for you to filter the list of errors to troubleshoot some more. For more information, see Optimization explainer.
- Carrier service surcharges and charge tiers configuration provided
- As you configure carrier services, you can configure different types of surcharges, such as Carrier service and Zone component. Now, you can also configure charge tiers to define the order in which to apply these surcharges. For more information, see Surcharges and Configuring carrier services.
- Shipping cutoff times are available to meet customer deliveries and promises
- The node cutoff time and the shipping cutoff times are provided to define deadlines to meet shipping and delivery requirements. You can define multiple shipping cutoff times for different fulfillment methods to provide the optimal customer delivery times to customers. For more information, see Shipping cutoff times, Configuring shipping cutoff times, and Scenario: Defining shipping cutoff times.
- Inbuilt integration adapter is added for the Optimization service
- To integrate the Optimization service with the Optimization service, you can use the inbuilt adapter that automates the process. For more information, see Integrating the Optimization service with Sterling Order Management System.
- Capacity is enhanced with new features
- To reduce the risk of overselling, the Inventory service now factors in
node capacity. When full capacity is reached at each node, real-time availability updates are
provided by APIs and event publishing.
- Capacity-aware availability
- The Availability API and events now account for node capacity. When capacity is fully consumed at a node, the availability for that day is set to zero. This enables you to promise new orders that are based on future dates with available capacity. For more information, see Capacity-based availability.
- RELEASE capacity Unit of Measure (UOM)
- Capacity can now be consumed based on shipment count by using the RELEASE UOM, in addition to existing UNIT-based measurements. For more information, see Capacity service.
- Capacity workflow
- Greater precision is obtained in fulfillment operations by defining capacity categories for individual tasks, such as pick, pack, and ship and sequential task workflows to reflect your fulfillment pipeline. For more information, see Capacity workflow.
- Capacity consumption days
- You can limit the capacity queue at your store by defining the maximum number of days to consider for fulfillment. For more information, see Tenant settings.
- Inbuilt adapter
- An inbuilt adapter is available to integrate capacity transactional data from Sterling Order Management System. This adapter simplifies the integration process by synchronizing capacity category availability with default workflow configurations, eliminating the need for custom implementations. For more information about the implementation, see Integrating capacity data from Sterling Order Management System by using the adapter.
- On-premises containers enhancements (10.0.2506.0)
-
- Updated Operator versions and images
-
- IBM Sterling Intelligent Promising Operator version: V1.0.16
- IBM OMS Gateway Operator version: V1.0.16
- IBM OMS Gateway Operator image: cp.icr.io/cpopen/ibm-oms-gateway-operator-catalog:v1.0
- IBM Sterling Intelligent Promising Operator image: cp.icr.io/cpopen/ibm-oms-sip-operator-catalog:v1.0
- Application image tag: 10.0.2506.0-amd64
- Enhanced deployment consistency with image digest support
- You can now install Sterling Intelligent Promising by using image digests in addition to the image tags. This enhancement ensures consistent deployments by using exact image versions based on content hash, improving security and reproducibility in CI/CD pipelines. For more information, see image parameter.
- Enabled change tracking for custom resource updates
- The Operator controller now automatically logs all changes made to the custom resources. These logs highlight which fields were added, removed, or modified during updates, giving you visibility into configuration changes over time.
- Enhanced container documentation with frequently asked questions
- A dedicated page to provide answers to common queries and frequently asked questions about containers and Operators is now available. For more information, see Frequently asked questions (FAQs) about on-premises containers.
- Post-upgrade steps
- Complete the necessary upgrade steps to ensure smooth transition and fully utilize the release updates. For more information, see Post-upgrade to 10.2506.0.
May 2025
- On-premises containers enhancements (10.0.2503.2)
-
- Updated Operator versions and images
-
- IBM Sterling Intelligent Promising Operator version: V1.0.15
- 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: 10.0.2503.2-amd64
- Enhanced support to configure service-specific properties for deployments and jobs
- You can now define configurations for service-specific workloads such as deployments and jobs
through custom resources. This enhancement help ensure flexibility and consistency by allowing
workload-specific settings to be defined in a standardized manner across services. By enabling this
level of configuration, the Operator simplifies customization, improves manageability, and
streamlines deployment workflows for different workload scenarios.
- Added new Kafka topic for Promising
- Ensure to create the following newly added topic before upgrading to 10.0.2503.2.
{topicPrefix}-{environment}-prm-node-day-capacity-available-events
- Added three new backend servers
- Following three new servers are added for Inventory and Promising services.
- Inventory Visibility:
- Scheduler
- PromisingNodeCapacitySync
- Promising:
prm-node-day-capacity-availability-publisher
Note: Theprm-node-day-capacity-availability-publisherandSchedulerservers can run only in single replica and single thread. - Inventory Visibility:
- Post-upgrade steps
- Complete the necessary upgrade steps to ensure smooth transition and fully utilized the release updates. For more information, see Post-upgrade to 10.2503.2
Attention: When upgrading from 10.2503.1 to 10.2503.2, if you encounter the following
apiDocs error in the SIPEnvironment, you must delete the
apiDocs deployment to resolve the error and upgrade successfully. message: 'Deployment.apps "sip-apidocs" is invalid: spec.selector: Invalid value: v1.LabelSelector{MatchLabels:map[string]string{"app":"sip-apidocs", "internal.sip.ibm.com/apps":"SIPEnvironment-sip", "type":""}, MatchExpressions:[]v1.LabelSelectorRequirement(nil)}: field is immutable'April 2025
- On-premises containers enhancements (10.0.2503.1)
-
- Updated Operator versions and images
-
- IBM Sterling Intelligent Promising Operator version: V1.0.14
- 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: 10.0.2503.1-amd64
- Dynamic resource mounting based on label matches
- Pods can now dynamically mount configMaps, secrets, and Persistent Volume Claims based on label
matching by using
additionalMounts. This enhancement simplifies configuration management, ensuring that application configurations, sensitive data, and storage resources are accessible to the containers. For more information, see additionalMounts parameter and Use cases to define additionalMounts. - Added new Kafka topic for Inventory
- {topicPrefix}-{environment}-iv-reservation-expiry-trigger
March 2025
- General enhancements
-
- Optimization explainer and enhanced filtering
- In the Optimization explainer, a basic and more advanced filter is introduced to help to filter the optimized orders according to your business objectives more efficiently. This filtered search provides more detailed and focused results. You can customize the items to display leading to greater visibility into your optimized orders. For more information, see Optimization explainer and Using the optimization explainer.
- On-premises containers enhancements (10.0.2503.0)
-
- Updated Operator versions and images
-
- IBM Sterling Intelligent Promising Operator version: V1.0.13
- 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: 10.0.2503.0-amd64
- Enabled automated deployment with the Operator Utility script
- The newly introduced Operator Utility is a command-line script that provides tools to manage installation, uninstallation, and image mirroring processes for the Operators. This utility is designed to streamline the deployment of IBM Sterling Order Management System Operator, IBM Sterling Intelligent Promising Operator, and IBM OMS Gateway Operator. It automates tasks such as pulling and mirroring images from the entitled IBM registry or a custom registry. The script streamlines the installation and uninstallation processes, supporting both online and airgap (offline) environments.
- Availability of troubleshooting guide
- You can now access documentation on the corrective actions to take for common issues that may arise during SIPEnvironment setup. For more information, see Troubleshooting issues in containers.
February 2025
- On-premises containers enhancements (10.0.2409.2)
-
- Updated Operator versions and images
-
- IBM Sterling Intelligent Promising Operator version: V1.0.12-1
- 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: 10.0.2409.2-amd64
- Inventory Visibility service image tag: 10.0.2409.2-patch1-amd64
- Enhanced certificate management to automate renewals, regeneration, and more
- The enhanced CertificateManager focuses on automating certificate regeneration, improving the management of ownership and expiry tracking to ensure smooth and uninterrupted operation. The new features include automated certificate renewal, regeneration of the certificates ensuring zero downtime, centralized CA secret, timely status tracking, and more. For more information, see CertificateManager custom resource.
- Enhanced event publishing in containers
- With the new event publishing behavior, you must add a publisher for the events of interest to get the events published. The default behavior, which is publishing of all the supported events without any additional configuration is deprecated and will be removed in a future release. For more information, see Event publishing in container environments.
- Added new Kafka topic for Inventory
-
- {topicPrefix}-{environment}-iv-product-available-supply-v2-container-events
- {topicPrefix}-{environment}-iv-product-availability-snapshot-v2-container-events
- {topicPrefix}-{environment}-iv-dg-availability-snapshot-v2-container-events
- {topicPrefix}-{environment}-iv-pub-dg-avl-breakup-snapshot
- Pre-upgrade and post-upgrade steps
- Complete the necessary before and after upgrade steps to ensure smooth transition and fully utilized the release updates. For more information, see Pre-upgrade to 10.2409.2 and Post-upgrade to 10.2409.2
- Resolved issues
- To view the list of resolved issues in on-premises containers, see Resolved issues in on-premises containers.
January 2025
- General enhancements
-
- Inventory - Enablement of node type location aggregate for a network safety stock rule
- A new node type location aggregate can be enabled for a network safety stock rule, allowing it
to consider the aggregation of the safety stock at the node type level. As a result, you can
withhold inventory from network availability for specific node types and the customize the safety
stock level for particular node types in various scenarios.
For more information, see Node type override location aggregation.
- Ability to activate the event publishing from Order Hub
- You can use Order Hub to provide Webhook or IBM Cloud® Object Storage bucket
details for a given event that allows the event publish to the desired endpoint.
For more information, see Configuring the endpoints for publishing events. - Location priority rules
- New location priority rules are available for you to assign priorities to certain locations to fulfill an order. The promising and checkout calculations use these rules to determine estimated delivery dates (EDD) and to prioritize locations during order fulfillment. For more information, see Location priority rules.
- Tenant settings
- During the onboarding process, certain tenant settings are applied to your account. New tenant setting preferences are available for inventory availability lookup and reservations. You can activate these settings to ensure that orders are fulfilled optimally. For more information, see Tenant settings.