Exploring the Functionality of SAP Auto Management for Sourcing and Availability

Welcome to the fascinating world of transportation aspects in OMSA, a key concept that shapes how products move from one place to another.

Let's embark on this journey, unraveling the three main transportation aspects that play a pivotal role in this intricate system.

Transportation lanes (TL) connect TZs to each other, creating a "route".

Each TL has a fromTransportationZoneID attribute and a toTransportationZoneID attribute which represent the route an order can take.

Additionally, a TL includes a service code and an average cost to ship (cost) and an average delivery time (durationInSeconds).

Inventory import in OMSA is a crucial function offering users the power to import diverse data types, including time series and cross-sectional data. Imagine having the ability to foresee upcoming inventory batches and observe snapshots from various backend systems such as point of sale, warehouse management, and e-commerce platforms. This functionality empowers retailers to create a centralized view of their inventory seamlessly.

The inventory import functionality gives inventory data users the ability to:

Import different types of data such as time series (ATP Snapshot) and cross sectional (Inventory Snapshot) from various backend systems, such as point-of-sale (POS), warehouse management, and e-commerce platforms.

Let's demystify how distribution center availability flows within OMSA. Initially, a snapshot from an ERP, like a wave of information, is persisted in OMSA, forming the foundation of consumers' initial inventory visibility. Periodically, at a frequency chosen by users, a Delta update is generated, enriching the availability data within OMSA. This, coupled with reservation management, ensures a dynamic and up-to-date inventory overview.

The story of store availability mirrors the distribution center narrative. A snapshot of store inventory sets the stage, creating the initial availability crucial for services like pick-up in-store and shipped from store. Throughout the day, as products fly off the shelves, unprocessed sales data, originating from POS system registers, keeps OMSA informed. At the day's end, the unprocessed sales are reconciled, ensuring the store's availability remains accurate and aligned with consumer demand.

Let's explore the key steps one by one in configuring a sourcing strategy for Order Management. We'll start with the critical aspect of goal selection. The interface provides options for configuring the sourcing strategy, and you'll find five goals: Utilize capacity, delivery time, cost to ship, shipments per order, and cost to pick and pack. Depending on your business targets, you can selectively enable or disable these goals. For instance, if labor constraints are not a focus, you might untoggle "Utilize Capacity."

Now that we've delved into each goal, the next steps involve configuring goal values, constraints, and weights to fine-tune the strategy based on business preferences. This includes specifying the level of importance for each goal and defining constraints that ensure the system operates within acceptable limits. Weightage allows companies to prioritize certain goals over others.

When using the availability calculation end-point, the system will restrict the availability of products to only the sites assigned to the strategy indicated in the request https://api.sap.com/api/availabilityCalculation_API/overview

When requesting sourcing, products will only be sourced from sites assigned to the strategy included in the request

Introducing a valuable functionality - simulation! This recently unveiled feature empowers users to simulate order sourcing based on specific strategies. The concept behind simulation is to provide business users with a testing ground before implementing strategies in a live environment. It allows users to comprehend the workings of the sourcing algorithm, confirming if selected parameters lead to anticipated outcomes. During simulation, the strategy configuration, including goals, values, and constraints, is replicated. Additionally, users can configure test orders with shipping destinations, products, quantities, and unit measures. The simulation yields the best option, showcasing the outcome an actual sourcing call would produce. This transparency builds user trust in the system, aiding in understanding the algorithm's decision-making process.

Exploring the Essentials: Sourcing Availability and Integration

In Order Management , understanding sourcing availability is pivotal. This involves configuring the sourcing process, conducting simulations, and inquiring about product availability through APIs. Three key APIs play a role: Availability to Sell, Availability to Sell by Site, and Availability Calculation. The first provides the overall product availability, considering reservations and safety stock across all sites. The second narrows it down to a specific site or list of sites. The third, Availability Calculation, goes a step further by incorporating a strategy ID, giving aggregated availability specific to the associated strategy.

The system will accept three types of availability requests, all available as open APIs:

1. Availability to Sell

   The system will return the availability to sell for each of the products included in the request across all sites

2. Availability to Sell by Site

   The system will return the availability of each product included in the request at each of the sites included in the request and from when each will be available

3. Availability Calculation

   The system will return the availability to sell for each of the products included in the request across all sites associated to the sourcing strategy ID included in the request

Dive deeper into availability queries with open APIs. Uncover the intricacies of Availability to Sell requests, allowing you to specify quantities and receive real-time responses on product availability. Explore optional features like requesting a required quantity and defining specific contexts for product-site combinations. The context field acts as a protective layer on inventory, ensuring tailored visibility based on channels or regional webshops. These optional fields add flexibility to your sourcing inquiries.

Availability to sell is defined as the inventory at hand minus the reservations and minus the safety stock, if any.

Optionally, the request, independently of the type, can include:

• A specific required quantity of a certain product, in which case the system will respond on whether they have that required quantity or not
• A context. The context field can be used as stock segmentation. If it is used, then the response will only include the subset of available products labelled with such context

There are two ways to call the API for click to ship and click and collect.

The distinction between them lies in the sourcing optimization. With click to ship, OMSA doesn't perform sourcing optimization; instead, the consumer specifies where to pick up items.

In click and collect, sourcing determination occurs, including optional service level preferences like express shipping and latest delivery date. OMSA automatically determines the best service level and delivery date if not specified. Regardless of the consumer's choice, the system manages reservations to ensure promised products aren't mistakenly shown as available to others and updates strategy statistics.

The application offers an open API to calculate sourcing of an order based on a specific sourcing strategy.
There are two types of ways the API can be called:
Click to ship The system will determine the optimized site(s) from where the order will be shipped from and return the expected delivery time and, optionally, the expected cost to ship.	Click and collect The request will contain the location where the order will be picked up at. The system will then determine the expected time within which the product will be available for pick up and, optionally, the cost, if it applies.
Optionally, the request can include:
A desired service level. The system will optimize results using only the transportation lanes for that service level.	The latest possible delivery date. The system will return a solution for which the expected delivery date is within now and the latest delivery date.

The benefits of sourcing include easier integration with the API, seamless integration into sales channels, flexibility with supported fulfillment models, and increased customer satisfaction due to varied consumer options. Statistics update with each confirmed order, showing the trailing average of utilized capacity compared to the set goal value for a specific strategy on OMSA's main page. Warnings or green check marks indicate if the average is above or below the goal, aiding immediate strategy assessment for improvement.

Both for click to ship and click and collect, the system will:
Take reservations so that the products promised to a consumer will not continue to appear available to other consumers.	Update the strategy statistics: The business user will be able to check how well each strategy is performing vs the goal values. If the current trailing average is above the corresponding value, a warning symbol will be shown.

Pending reservations are set to confirmed by the sales channel once the back-end has been notified of the order.

A confirmed reservation is deleted automatically once the system receives an inventory update which includes the product/site combination related to a confirmed.

In the realm of Order Management Foundation, the fate of confirmed reservations unfolds intriguingly. When a new Delta snapshot arrives, carrying the weight of product-side combinations linked to confirmed reservations, a pivotal decision emerges - deletion. However, if the Delta bears connections to pending or temporary reservations, a different narrative unfolds; these reservations endure. This intricacy stems from the meticulous consideration that, after dispatching an order to the ERP, the subsequent update accounts for the order, influencing availability. With confidence, we embrace the deletion of reservations, concluding this segment and offering a glimpse into our roadmap.

Our current focus revolves around the nuanced task of resourcing orders. This involves addressing rejected orders, ensuring that the subsequent resourcing yields diverse outcomes. Peering into the future, our roadmap unfolds with promising features. Detailed transportation lanes take center stage, accompanied by a commitment to sustainability in sales velocity. Moreover, our sights are set on providing strategic recommendations based on data, ushering in an era of extensibility with custom attributes and KPIs.

	Now	Next	Later
Configuration and cross-themes	API to retrieve available transportation aspects API to retrieve available sites Single Order Sourcing Simulation Configuration	Ability to temporarily disable sites from being considered in sourcing decisions Visibility of Availability Dynamic Strategy Determination	Advanced Simulation configuration Analytics configuration Trial Extensibility concept (custom attributes and goals)
Sourcing	Sourcing based on latest delivery date Sourcing allowing split quantities Sourcing allowing partial quantities, and partial line items Sourcing based on cost to pick and pack Single order sourcing simulation	Re-sourcing of full orders Sourcing based on Transportation lanes on more granular level (postal codes) Immediate release of reservation for cancelled or modified orders	Sourcing based on additional business goals (Sustainability, Sales velocity, Carrier capacity) Strategy settings recommendations Sourcing based on calendars and slots Re-sourcing of partial orders Best sourcing for each service level
Availability	Reservation management for click and ship and click and collect Safety stock Availability by Sourcing Strategy Availability blockers for resourcing	Support for Plants Stock indicators: availability updates	Product availability for simulation: snapshot and upload Support for Marketplaces Contextual Availability
Integrations	Integration to SAP Order Management foundation for sourcing by line ID	Integration to SAP Order Management foundation for order resourcing Integration to SAP Commerce Cloud	Integration to SAP Omnichannel Sales Transfer and Audit for Store Inventory Integration to Marketplaces Integration to SAP Intelligent Returns Management for exchanges

Learn more: SAP Road Map Explorer