OM Release R12 Futures - Item Orderability

Item Orderability

Businesses need to be able to order specific products depending on specific customers. Instead of being able to view and select all items for all customers in the sales orders window, you can now restrict the item list based on customer and other related criteria. For example, you may want to take an order only for a set of products for Customer A, which may not be applicable to Customer B. In addition, orderable products are useful for business flows such as private labeling, franchises, licensing / certification, product suitability etc. Orderable Products functionality is required in different industries such as entertainment and media, manufacturing, wholesale distribution, retail and high-tech.

The Ordered Item List of Values (LOV) is populated by listing all the items available in the item validation organization of the current operating unit. Item Orderability rules are defined at Operating Unit Level. The Item Category and Items LOV are always displayed based on the Master Organization or the Item Validation Organization attached to the operating unit. However, the Ordered Items LOV will not display all items; the list is populated depending on the Item Orderability Rules you have set up. If you have not set up the Item Orderability Rules, it means that the Item Orderability functionality is disabled or the functionality cannot be used.

If the value of the profile option OM: Use Materialized View for Items LoV (Honours Item Orderability Rules) is set to No, then the Ordered Items LOV lists all the items of the item validation organization of the current operating unit. This doesn't consider the defined item orderability rules, however if there is a defined rule that prevents the item from being ordered, then an error message is displayed during the saving of the order. You will not be able to save the order.

If the value of the profile option OM: Use Materialized View for Items LOV (Honours Item Orderability Rules) is set to Yes, then the Ordered Item LOV displays only those items which are based on the rules defined. The Ordered Item LOV is then dynamically populated based on Item Orderability Rules and the current attribute values on the line.

Searching for Item Orderability Rules

Use the F11 Ctrl F11 key combination to enter search criteria to retrieve item orderability rules. If you enter the operating unit in the Operating Unit field or select an operating unit from the LOV, and then search for the rules by pressing Ctrl F11, records will be retrieved for the item and operating unit combination.

If you do not enter anything in the Operating Unit field, or enter a partial search criteria (eg: Vision) or enter an invalid operating unit, the Operating Unit LOV displays and you need to select an operating unit to continue with the search.

This is required as the Item field is flexfield enabled and will display an error if the organization is not selected.

This search is applicable to searches based on the Item field only. Searches based on any other field will not invoke the Operating Unit LOV. The following section describes how to set up Item Orderability Rules.

Setting Up Item Orderability Rules

The above window shows the Item Orderability Rules that you can set up. Depending on the value of your security profile, the relevant operating unit will be displayed in the window. If you need this rule in another operating unit, you need to repeat the setup for the rule in the other operating unit. Navigate to Setup > Rules > Item Orderability.

When in Enter query mode, you need to enter an operating unit and then enter the Item Category or Item or other criteria. If you manually enter the operating unit, for example, Vision Ope%, in enter query mode, the query will not fetch any data, and will raise an error message. This is because Items are based upon Inventory Organizations, and this setup is based upon Operating Unit. So once the Operating Unit is chosen, we use the Item Validation Organization defined under Order Management System Parameters form for the selected Operating Unit to query the Item details. You can set up rules based on either Item or Item Category. If you set up a rule for an item, which belongs to a category that has a rule already defined, you will not be allowed to set up a rule and the following error message displays:

The rules state that an item or item category will be generally available (if the Generally Available box is selected) except for the conditions set up at the Rule Level. The conditions are based on the following line attributes:

• Customer

• Customer Class

• Customer Category

• Region

• Order Type

• Ship To

• Bill To

• Deliver To

• Sales Channel

• Sales Representative

• End Customer

For example, you can set up a rule that says Item Category COMPUTER.MISC is generally available except for Order Type = Order Only or Customer = AC Networks.

Note: The OR condition is applicable when evaluating multiple conditions. In the example above, either the order type or the customer is taken into consideration. Similarly, you can set up rules to define when an item or item category is generally not available (the Generally Available box is unselected) with the conditions available for that rule. For example, Item X is generally not available, however, since you have set up conditions at the Rule Level, it is available for a particular customer, or region or customer class. This is illustrated in the figure below:

Using Item Orderability in the Sales Orders window

1. Enter an order with a customer that you have specified an item orderability rule for.

2. Click the Ordered Items LOV and see if the item you specified in the rule is displayed. The visibility of the item in the LOV depends on the value of the profile option OM: Use Materialized View for Items LoV (Honours Item Orderability Rules). If the value of the profile option is set to No, then the Ordered Items LOV lists all the items of the item validation organization of the current operating unit. If the value of the profile option is set to Yes, then only those items or item categories to which the rules apply will be displayed.

3. In the above figure, the item (ASO0005) for which you created a rule in the section Setting Up Item Orderability Rules, is not displayed as the profile option is set to Yes. If the profile option were set to No, an error message would have been displayed.

4. Run the concurrent program Refresh OM Materialized Views periodically to refresh the materialized view OE_ITEMS_MV. If you have changed any data in Inventory, it is advisable to run this concurrent program so that the data in Inventory and Order Management stay synchronized.

Note: The Item Orderability Rules Listing Report lists item orderability rules based on different user inputs like Item Level, Item, Item category and enabled flag. Item Orderability rules are effective when orders are created from Order Import, Process Order and HVOP also. The public API OE_ITORD_PUB. Import_Item_orderability_rules allows creation of Item Orderability rules from PL/SQLi, rather than entering data in the Item Orderability Rules window.

Note: Item Orderability Rules in Order Management are applicable to all orders accepted in Order Management. Hence, orders coming from other order capturing applications such as Quoting, iStore or third party applications will not be accepted in Order Management if the incoming orders do not comply with item orderability rules.