Order Routing

Order Routing

The Order Routing tab under Fulfillment will help you configure the Fulfiller Order
visibility settings to dictate the Fulfillers' access to fulfill orders within Quivers.  

Auto-Assignment

If enabled, this feature will assign order items to a fulfiller as soon as the order is placed if a fulfiller has sufficient inventory. If items can be assigned, they will be assigned immediately at order creation. The fulfiller who gets assigned the items is based on how soon they would have been notified of the order, the amount of stock they have for those items, and the auto-assignment rule being used (Locality, Most Inventory, Least Inventory, or Round Robin).

• Once auto-assignment is turned on, the auto-assignment type option will display. You can then select if you want auto-assignment to work based on which fulfillers are most local to the order shipping address, have the most inventory, least inventory, or round robin.

*Helpful Tip:  It is recommended to announce to your fulfillers that inventory will need to be added to Quivers BEFORE this feature is turned on. If none of the fulfillers have populated their inventory into Quivers, the feature will not work as expected

• Merchant Auto Assignment: If “Merchant First” is selected, the order will be
  available for the merchant to be fulfilled first.

• Maximum Fulfillers Inventory Age: A fulfiller’s inventory must have been updated within this timeframe for it to be considered for order auto-assignment. This field is optional. If you do not enter a value, we will not consider any time frame for the fulfillers to import inventory.

Beaconing

The "Beaconing" feature is specifically for those Merchants that do not utilize Auto-assignment. By enabling the Beaconing feature, the order timers (seen on the Order Routing page) will be enabled

*Note: even if Auto-Assignment is enabled if an order cannot be automatically assigned, Quivers would then utilize the timers under 'Beaconing' to try and find a fulfilled to fulfill the order.

• Automatic Order Resend: When enabled, this feature will automatically resend any non-claimed orders back through the Beaconing Timers for a second time. This is to give your fulfillers a second chance at an order that was potentially missed.
  
  

         Timer Availability

The "Timer Availability" section allows you to control when the timers start and end. This ensures that fulfillers would not be alerted of an order placed at 2 am. Instead, the timer would start after the start time set-up in the admin panel has been reached. The timers will then pause once the end time has been reached and restart the following day again.

*Helpful Tip: the timer hours are set based on your current time zone. For example, if you are located in the Pacific time zone and set the start time to "8 am," it would be 8 am PST and 11 am EST. To be inclusive of all fulfillers, try to set the start and end times to encompass as much time as possible (e.g., 7 am PST - 7 pm PST or 10 am EST to 10 pm EST).

Let's break down each timer:

• Merchant First Timer Duration (hours) - This timer allows for Merchants to have every order be presented to them before sending the order out to fulfillers. Input the desired timer amount here in hourly increments.
• Favored Fulfillers Timer Duration (hours) - this timer allows for favored fulfillers to be presented with order prior to any other fulfillers. This is set at the "Claiming Policy" level, where the merchant adds a fulfiller to a Claiming Policy where the "Favored" option has been checked. Input the desired timer amount here in hourly increments
• Local Timer - This timer utilizes the location of the consumer (shipping address) and the location of connected fulfillers to calculate which fulfiller is closest to the consumer. Based on a mile radius from the Consumer's shipping address, the Fulfillers located closest will be notified first. This allows for shorter shipping times and an improved consumer experience. To configure this timer, first set a "Radius.” A 5000-mile radius is typically what is recommended in order to capture all connected fulfillers), then input the "Duration" in hours. Finally, you will set how many "Stages" of fulfilled notification there should be and how many fulfillers should be notified per stage.

For example, If you have 12 connected fulfillers, and you would like 1 fulfiller to be notified every half hour, set the Duration to 6 hours and Fulfillers per Stage to 1. The "Duration" will then be divided by your number of fulfillers (12), and every half hour, 1 fulfiller will be notified.

• Territory Timer Duration (hours) - This timer utilizes the Territories set-up within the "Settings" of the admin panel to notify fulfillers assigned to these territories. These customized groupings, states, or countries are applied to individually connected fulfillers within the "Fulfillers" section of the admin panel. Input the desired timer amount here in hour increments.
• Last Chance Timer Duration (hours) - This timer notifies any remaining fulfillers who have yet to be notified in any of the other previous levels. It is recommended to input at least 1 hour within this timer to ensure no connected fulfillers are missed. Input the desired timer amount here in hourly increments.
• Total - This setting shows the total amount of hours allotted for the timers to cycle. Often the order is claimed long before this total is met; however, this is a good metric to ensure that the order is not sitting unclaimed for an extended period.

Fulfillers Claiming Restriction

This portion of fulfillment permissions regulates how fulfillers can claim items within orders. There are three available configurations.

• No Restriction - If this configuration is selected, each item within an order will be treated as a unique claiming opportunity. For example, if an order is placed by 1 Consumer, which includes three items, the no restriction setting would allow three different Fulfillers to fulfill the order (each fulfiller claiming 1 item of the order.)

• Single Claimer - If this configuration is chosen, only 1 Fulfiller will be able to fulfill the order. That Fulfiller must be able to fulfill each item included in the order, or they will not be able to claim the order. 

  There is another new feature, “Applies to Self.” If this is toggled on, the Merchant will be applicable to be the single claimer for the orders.

• Custom - The custom configuration is flexible and customizable. Using the screenshot above, for orders with “5” or more items, only “2” Fulfillers can claim the total order, and the first Fulfiller to claim a part of the order must claim “50%” (3 or more items). This enables a Merchant to control how many various Fulfillers can fulfill larger orders and preserve the consumer experience (to prevent many boxes from being received for one order)

Shipping Timer

The Shipping Timer indicates to the Quivers system when the "Shipment Overdue" badge should be added to an order. The timer can be set to any length of time in hours. At least 24 hours is recommended; however, 36 or 48 can be used to account for weekends as this timer does function seven days a week

*Note: when the timer "runs out," the order will still be claimed by the fulfiller. This is simply a way to mark orders that have been sitting for some time and are still not shipped.

Hold Status Settings

Item statuses can be configured on a per-item basis to either indicate pre-order, back-order, or on-hold. Each status has the ability to configure if the fulfiller's availability should be put on hold until the item is out of "pre-order" or "back-order." If toggled on (blue), then the fulfillers will not be notified of the on-hold, pre-order, or back-order items immediately.

You can also select if the customer should be notified of any item status changes. For example, if an item was originally purchased in the "pre-order" status and that item is then removed from pre-order for processing, the customer will receive an email informing them if the toggle is toggled on as shown above.

How to send an Exclusive Merchant item directly to a partner.

To fulfilling label functionality:

1. Select any fresh order from the order list.

    2. Send its line items to any connected fulfilled.

    3. If an order is available to 1 fulfiller -> Available - [Fulfiller Name] (Timer)

4. If an order is available to multiple fulfillers -> Fulfiller Available (Timer)
   
   
5. If an order is available to multiple fulfillers -> Fulfiller Available (Timer). Note:If an order is available to multiple or one fulfillers & “*Available during specific hours*” is active in order routing -> Fulfiller Available in (Timer)
6. a) If the order has multiple items (i.e., three items), 2 of which are sent to separate fulfillers, and one is available(merchant), it should have three labels, I.e., Available - R1 (Timer), Available - R2 (Timer), and Merchant Available.

b).  If two items were normally available to several fulfillers (not sent directly) and one available to the merchant only, it should show two labels as mentioned: Fulfiller Available (Timer) and Merchant Available.

*Note* If you have store open hours set in your order routing, any order placed outside of those hours will now have a timer that counts down until they are made available for fulfillers.