Order Management

Order management refers to the process of handling orders, and it includes various stages, from order creation to delivery of the purchased products.

Here's a breakdown of the key phases of order flow management:

Placement: the order is created by a buyer during the cart checkout.
Approval: the provider review the order and verify if it can be fulfilled.
Acceptance: optional step involving the buyer having to revise the order in case of an update by the provider.
Shipping: the provider prepares all purchased products and ships them through a carrier.

Below you will find a detailed description of each step in the order management flow.

Order Placement

The buyer user (customer or partner) from the catalog page adds some items (e.g. Spare Parts) to purchase to the cart. When the cart contains all the desired items, the user can perform the checkout, which will create the order instance.

By pressing the checkout button, the user should:

Select the shipping location by selecting one of its locations in case of Customer user.
In case of Partner user the shipping location is the partner itself.
Review the order items, and optionally select whether the Technical Assistance is needed.
This flag is available only in case the provider (Organization or Partner) offers such a service.
For more details refer to the DPS Entities Configuration paragraph in the Buyers and Providers article.
By clicking Place Order, the order is created and assigned to the provider according to the logic described in the Buyers and Providers article.
Both the user who created the order and the provider's users (who have permission to read the orders) will receive an e-mail with the details of the newly created order (see Order Notifications below).
The buyer, at any time, can view the created order in the Store / Orders page.
Within the order row accordion, the Go to Order button allows the user to open the order details page and view all order information and history.

Order Approval

The back-office user of the provider, by entering the Store page, can view the orders that must be processed. Within the order details page, the user can Approve or Reject the order, and optionally it is possible to add some notes.

If needed, the provider can modify the order, for instance:

the quantity of a purchased item is not available (e.g. 3 units instead of 5);
the price of an item is wrong or can be discounted;
the buyer has requested the Technical Assistance, that must be priced or removed from the order.

In case the order is modified, by pressing the Confirm and Proceed button, the order is updated to Pending Acceptance, and now it is up to the buyer to decide whether to Accept or Reject the order.

In case the order is not changed, by pressing the Confirm and Proceed button, the order will change to Pending Shipping status.

At this stage, the supplier prepares the purchased items and prepares them for shipment.

Into the order Summary section the supplier can also export all the ordered items in a CSV file.

Order Acceptance

The provider has modified the order, so the buyer has to decide whether the order can be accepted or rejected. The buyer will need to access the order detail, check the changes made by the provider, and if ok, accept the new version of the order.

By accepting, the order will change to Pending Shipping status.

Order Shipping

Orders in this state are accepted by both buyer and provider and are in preparation before being shipped.

When the order is ready to be shipped the provider can enter the tracking information as a note.

By pressing the Confirm Shipping button, the order will change to Shipped status.

Order Completion

An order can be considered completed when the purchased products have been delivered to the buyer or the order has been rejected.

Delivered

Finally, when the buyer receives the order, the provider can mark the order as Delivered.

This step allows you to keep track of when the user has received the requested products. The supplier can use this time information to verify performance in order fulfillment.

Rejected

For various reasons, both the provider and the buyer may reject an order. For example, the requested items are not available or have been incorrectly selected, or the modified order does not fit the buyer.

When this happens, the order is moved to the Rejected status, and the flow terminates.

Order Notifications

When the order is placed (created), the buyer receives an email with the recap of the purchased products.

The same email is also sent to the provider's users having the permission to Read Orders, and that in the User Profile page, under the Notification tab, the Receive order notifications option has been selected.

Buyer users, by default, will receive an email every time they create an order, or one of their orders is updated by the provider.

Third-party Systems Integrations

You can integrate the order processing flow by using:

Orders API that the external system can invoke on the DPS to read and update orders.
Automations: you can invoke external API each time an order is created or updated.