Product Availability: To Export Product Availability Data

In this activity, you will specify the default availability settings for the Shopify store, specify item-specific availability settings for particular stock items, export product availability data to the Shopify store, and review the results of the export.

Story

Suppose that the SweetLife Fruits & Jams company sells several kinds of jams in its online store. By default, items should be available for purchase in the store only if they are in stock. Some of the jams, however, need to be available for purchase all the time, regardless of their stock levels. The jams can be ordered in the online store as follows:

• Banana jams (BANJAM96 and BANJAM08) should be available for purchase only if there is enough stock.
• Plum jams (PLUMJAM96 and PLUMJAM08) should be available for purchase when there is sufficient quantity in stock. If there is no quantity in stock, the availability to purchase the item should be determined by the settings specified for the item on the product management page in the BigCommerce store.

Acting as an implementation consultant helping SweetLife to set up the integration of MYOB Advanced with the Shopify store, you need to configure the system so that the items' availability will be tracked according to the business needs..

Configuration Overview

In the U100 dataset, the following tasks have been performed for the purposes of this activity:

• For the purposes of this activity, the following features have been enabled on the Enable/Disable Features (CS100000) form:
  • Multiple Warehouses, which provides the functionality of working with several warehouses (including virtual warehouses)
  • Multiple Warehouse Locations, which supports multiple locations for each warehouse
• On the Warehouses (IN204000) form, the RETAIL warehouse and the JS1 warehouse location have been configured.
• On the Stock Items (IN202500) form, the stock items have been created in the system and assigned the availability settings as listed in the following table.

  Stock Item	Availability	When Qty. Unavailable
  BANJAM96	Store Default	Store Default
  BANJAM08	Store Default	Store Default
  PLUMJAM96	Set as Available (Track Qty.)	Do Nothing
  PLUMJAM08	Set as Available (Track Qty.)	Do Nothing

Process Overview

In this activity, you will do the following:

1. On the Shopify Stores form, update the default availability settings for the Shopify store.
2. On the Stock Items (IN202500) form, review and update the availability settings specific to particular stock items.
3. On the Storage Details by Item Warehouse Location (IN408055) form, review the quantities of stock items available in the RETAIL warehouse.
4. On the Prepare Data (BC501000) form, prepare the product availability data for synchronization, and on the Process Data (BC501500) form, process the prepared product availability data.
5. In the Shopify store, review the availability settings and quantities of the exported stock items.

System Preparation

Before you complete the instructions in this activity, do the following:

1. Make sure that the following prerequisites have been met:
   • The Shopify store has been created and configured, as described in Initial Configuration: To Set Up a Shopify Store.
   • The connection to the Shopify store has been established and the initial configuration has been performed, as described in Initial Configuration: To Configure the Store Connection.
2. Launch the MYOB Advanced website with the U100 dataset preloaded, and sign in with the following credentials:
   • Username: gibbs
   • Password: 123
3. Sign in to the admin area of the Shopify store as the store administrator in the same browser.
4. Open the Shopify Stores (BC201010) form.
5. In the Store Name box of the Summary area, select SweetStore - SP.
6. On the Entity Settings tab, select the Active check box in the row of the Product Availability entity.
7. On the form toolbar, click Save.

Step 1: Updating the Default Availability Settings

Now you need to specify the availability settings that the system will apply by default to stock items and non-stock items exported from MYOB Advanced to the Shopify store. While you are still viewing the Shopify Stores (BC201010) form for the SweetStore - SP store, do the following:

1. On the Inventory Settings tab, specify the following settings:
   • Default Availability: Set as Available (Track Qty.)

     With this setting, by default, a stock item exported to the Shopify store will be available for purchase through the storefront (from the specified Shopify location), and its quantity will be tracked.

   • When Qty. Unavailable: Set as Unavailable

     With this setting, if the stock item's quantity becomes zero, the stock item will no longer be available for purchase in the Shopify store.

   • Availability Mode: Available for Shipping
   • Warehouse Mode: Specific Warehouses
2. In the Warehouse Mapping for Inventory Export table, specify the following settings:
   • Warehouse: RETAIL
   • Location ID: JS1
   • Shopify Location: Shop location (which is the only location in the Shopify that was created when you registered the SweetStore - SP store)

   For each item, only its quantity available for shipping at the JS1 location in the RETAIL warehouse is synchronized with the Shopify store's location.

3. On the form toolbar, click Save to save the settings.

Step 2: Reviewing the Available Quantities of Items

To review the item quantities available from the RETAIL warehouse, do the following:

1. Open the Storage Details by Item Warehouse Location (IN408055) form.
2. Click the header of the Location ID column, and in the dialog box that opens, select Equals, type JS1 in the text box, and click OK.

   The system now displays only the items that are stored in the JS1 warehouse location. Because in Step 1 you have set the Availability Mode setting to Available for Shipping, the quantities of the items displayed in the Qty. Available for Shipping in Location column (which is shown in the following screenshot) will be synchronized with the Shopify store. Notice that the BANJAM96 and PLUMJAM96 stock items are available at the JS1 location (a nonzero quantity is displayed for each of these items in the Qty. Available for Shipping in Location column), whereas the BANJAM08 and PLUMJAM08 stock items have zero quantities.

   
   
   

Step 3: Synchronizing the Product Availability Entity

To synchronize the availability settings and the quantities of the stock items you reviewed in the previous step, do the following:

1. Open the Prepare Data (BC501000) form.
2. In the Summary area, make sure the following settings are specified:
   • Store: SweetStore - SP
   • Prepare Mode: Incremental
3. In the table, select the Selected check box in the rows of the Stock Item entity and the Product Availability entity.

   Before the quantity of a stock item and its availability settings can be exported, the stock item itself must be synchronized. Quantities of items that have been prepared but not processed will not be updated in the Shopify store.

4. On the form toolbar, click Prepare.
5. In the Processing dialog box, which opens, click Close to close the dialog box.
6. Open the Process Data (BC501500) form.
7. In the Summary area of the form, specify the following settings:
   • Store: SweetStore - SP
   • Entity: Stock Item
8. On the form toolbar, click Process All to process the prepared synchronization records of the stock items you updated in the previous steps.
9. In the Processing dialog box, which opens, click Close to close the dialog box.
10. In the Entity box, select Product Availability.
11. On the form toolbar, click Process All to process the prepared synchronization records of product availability.
12. In the Processing dialog box, which opens, click Close to close the dialog box.

Step 4: Reviewing the Synchronized Data

To review the synchronized availability data, in the admin area of the Shopify store, do the following:

1. In the left menu, click Products.
2. On the Products page, click the row of Banana jam 96 oz..

   On the product management page for the Banana jam 96 oz. stock item, which opens, in the Inventory section, notice that the Track quantity check box is selected and the Continue selling when out of stock check box is cleared. In the only line in the Quantity table, notice that the quantity in the Available column is 40.

3. In the left menu, click Products to return to the list of products.
4. On the Products page, click the row of Banana jam 8 oz..

   On the product management page for the Banana jam 8 oz. stock item, which opens, in the Inventory section, notice that the Track quantity check box is selected, the Continue selling when out of stock check box is cleared. In the only line in the Quantity table, notice that the quantity in the Available column is zero.

5. At the top of the page, click Preview.
6. On the product page, notice that the Sold out message is displayed for the Banana jam 8 oz item and this item is not available for purchase.
7. Return to the admin area of the Shopify store.
8. On the Products page, click the row of Plum jam 8 oz..

   On the product management page for the Plum jam 8 oz. stock item, which opens, in the Inventory section, notice that the Track quantity check box and the Continue selling when out of stock check box are selected. In the only line in the Quantity table, notice that the quantity in the Available column is zero, which means that Plum jam 8 oz. is still available for purchase despite that this item is not in stock.