Simplifying Order Management and Orchestration

A key component of viax.io’s commerce solutions is our Order Management & Orchestration module, which operates as a simple to manage, yet sophisticated, central hub for all order activity. This allows viax to orchestrate complex orders with multiple sources and destinations (internal and external to viax) without custom development. Our easy out-of-the box integrations give manufacturers a complete view of their entire ecosystem of orders.

In this blog post we’ll take a look at how clients can accept orders from anywhere and manage order life cycles across all channels, utilizing the easy integration viax offers. Then we’ll get into some real world examples using Salesforce and SAP. These are two common integration points we come across (and ones we have pre-built integrations for), but viax enables this type of communication between a multitude of systems.

The Big Picture

viax Order Management & Orchestration allows clients to accept orders from any source and route them to various destinations, whether within or outside their enterprise. By leveraging existing integration mechanisms like REST APIs and EDI, orders can be routed into viax from ecommerce front ends, EDI or other supplier networks, or any other system in your landscape.

Our easy to use mapping tools allow you to pass only the data required from those sources, and translate them into formats required for further processing in other backend systems in your landscape. This works in reverse as well; any updates to the order from a warehouse management system or other processing system can be passed through viax to front-ends or other partners to notify them of such updates. This mapping can happen at runtime, eliminating the need to bring down the system every time a new business requirement calls for new field mappings in source and destination systems.

viax Order Management & Orchestration benefits organizations that utilize disparate systems to process an order, by giving such organizations one central point to view statuses of all orders and the ability to act upon orders that require any intervention for error resolution or additional processing.

Example Review

In the example case of a CRM tool, like Salesforce, capturing orders and passing them along to SAP ERP for further processing, viax can integrate the two disparate systems together and be the single view into all order data.

Based on Salesforce events related to an order object, viax can retrieve the order data, pass it through our Workflow Engine for validation, build an SAP IDOC, and then pass it on to SAP ERP. SAP ERP can then generate an order response IDOC to viax, thereby confirming the order was created in ERP.

Validation and error handling is also easy to track within viax. Our audit logs provide full history into any errors or changes made to the orders. Having a central management point for all orders also provides a simple way to make any necessary corrections right within viax for incorrect or incomplete data coming from Salesforce that triggered an error before the order could be processed within SAP.

Further updates from ERP can be consumed by viax through order change, delivery, shipment, and invoice IDOCs. Various rules in workflow can determine which of these changes need to be passed on to other systems, like Salesforce, for order updates.

viax Order Management & Orchestration utilizes our Workflow Engine to establish the order flow, including any validations or transformations, and can utilize out-of-the-box workflow actions or client-defined actions to assist in processing orders. Orders can step through workflow status transitions automatically using defined rules in the workflow. Status transitions can also be manual, to enforce a user to review the data in an order before further processing.