Order and quote capture integration flows

This section describes the message flows involved in the Order and quote capture integration framework when customers browse the catalog, create a shopping cart and submit an order or a quote to the external system, or view the details for orders and quotes submitted by them in the external system.

The following diagram describes the consolidated shopping flow when the Order and Quote Capture Integration has been enabled for the WebSphere Commerce storefront. The subsections break down this flow to smaller flows to list the outbound web services involved in the Order and Quote Capture Integration.

1. Master data for members and products is batch loaded from the external system into the WebSphere Commerce database using offline processes.
2. Customer logs in to the WebSphere Commerce storefront.
3. Customer browses the catalog and requests details for the products of interest to them. Real time calls are made to the external system to get the inventory availability and offer prices for these products, if these are not available in the WebSphere Commerce cache. The retrieved information is displayed to the user and updated in the cache.
4. Customer adds items to the shopping cart. Both the offer price and inventory availability values are displayed from the WebSphere Commerce cache. If these values are not available in the cache, external calls are made.
5. Customer prepares the shopping cart for submission by specifying the required shipping and billing information. Outbound web service calls are made to the external system to retrieve and display the latest offer price values, reserve inventory, and calculate the order value.
6. Customer submits the order to the external system. WebSphere Commerce transfers the order to the external system for subsequent processing. Order once submitted to the external system, cannot be edited.
7. Customer can also submit a quote from a shopping cart with enough information, such as shipping address, shipping mode. WebSphere Commerce transfers the quote to the external system. Quote once submitted to the external system, cannot be edited.
8. Customer can view a listing and details of the orders they submit.
9. Customer can view a listing and details of the quotes they submit.