Routes are the configurations for assigning and fulfilling shipments in your location groups. They are usually organized as the fulfillment paths that are possible for orders and contain location groups that support that shipment type.
For example, a Ship to Home route would be configured with groups of locations that support Ship to Home fulfillment. The route can then be disabled or enabled as needed – if disabled, orders will not be able to be routed by the logic within that route.
Note that changes to Order Routing settings may not immediately take effect when processing orders. It may take up to 15 minutes for updates to be reflected in the system while the cache refreshes.
Viewing Routes
The Routes page of the Order Routing interface displays a summary for each route that has been configured. Clicking the status toggle (Route active in this example) in a summary will activate and deactivate that route as needed.
You can also click the Import/Export groups options in the top right of the Routes page to update all locations, location groups, and routes via .CSV files.
Single vs. Multiple Assignment
You can also select your preference for either single assignment or multiple assignment in the route summary. If single assignment is selected, then all of the items will be assigned to a single group that can fulfill the entire order (though it may be different locations within that group). If multiple assignment is selected, the items can be assigned between locations across different groups.
Single assignment is the default option and may be preferred in cases such as where Group 1 is warehouses and Group 2 is retail stores, and orders should only be fulfilled by one type of fulfiller or the other.
Routing Assignment Logic
To better understand assignment, know that Order Routing looks at various criteria to determine which location group(s) an order should be assigned to. When a group is being considered, Order Routing looks at:
- What locations are assigned to that group
- The available inventory in each of those locations assigned in that group
- Any filters set in that group
After getting that information, it will determine whether the group is a match (can fulfill entire order), a partial match (can fulfill some of the order items), or no match (cannot fulfill any items in the order).
If it turns out that the group is not a complete match and single assignment is preferred, then Order Routing will not assign any items to the locations in that group. If multiple assignment was preferred and the group was a partial match, then the available items may be assigned to that group and Order Routing will move on to the next group to find where the remaining items can be fulfilled from.
For more details about the options that you can configure for assignment logic, see the Order Routing locations documentation.