Business Rules

Business Rules simplify the process for holding orders out of fulfillment. Each Business Rule has an effective and expiration date and is powered by a Smart Filter.

You can turn the rules on and off in the Business Rules Table and you can manage the rule with your Smart Filter.

Examples of how Business Rules can be used:

• Hold orders out of fulfillment due to inclement weather or natural disasters by city, state or zip.
• Hold orders out of fulfillment based on license or carrier rules.
• Hold orders out of fulfillment with invalid address that are tagged with ‘ipsys-address-unverified’
• Customer requested holds
• Hold orders for a rapid response to changing environments
• Hold orders for non-payment

Here is what a Business Rule record looks like:

Depicted here are the essential fields: the Business Rule has a Name, an LOB that it's set for, a Smart Filter that it's operating from, the owner of that Smart Filter is listed, and there is an Effective Date and an Expiration Date.

The Effective Date is when you want the Business Rule to be implemented. A Business Rule cannot be active without an Effective Date. In other words, if the Effective Date is blank, the Business Rule will not have any effect.

The Expiration Date is when you want the Business Rule to cease. The Expiration Date is the date on which the Rule becomes inactive. For example, if the Expiration Date is 11/11/2030, the Rule will become inactive on that date rather than after.

Setting Up a Business Rule

Setting up Business Rules is a straightforward and simple process that contains two core steps.

Step 1: Smart Filter

Since Business Rules are driven by Smart Filters, users will want to determine what Smart Filter they want to use. This can be a new filter or one that has already been made.

Business Rules are set at the Line of Business level, so the Smart Filter being used should take that into account. For example, if a user wants to set a Business Rule for LOB 'A', the Smart Filter should not be looking at Orders for LOB 'B'.

Step 2: Create Business Rule

Navigate to the Business Rule table and click 'Create New'. From there, you will enter the criteria as needed. Note that Rules apply at the LOB level, so users will want to set the LOB this Rule will be active for.

The Name can be any value desired but it's recommended to enter something that describes the business rule or makes it easily identifiable to users. In this example, the Rule is called Do Not Ship BASIC 12 because in this example, any Orders that contain the SKU BASIC 12 are Orders that want to withhold from being fulfilled.

The Webhook URL field is unused and can be disregarded.

Disable / Turn Off Business Rule

Business Rules be deactivated two ways: first, by removing the Effective Date, and second, by setting the Expiration Date for the desired date.

For example, if you want to turn off the Business Rule effective immediately, you would simply set the Expiration Date for the current date since the expiration occurs on the date rather than after.

Permissions (Editing / Deleting) for Business Rules

By default, Business Rules are disabled for all users. Users with an Admin role will be able to turn these permissions on for themselves and other users.

If a user wants to edit or delete a Business Rule, they will need to have an Admin Role or the same Role as the user that created the Business Rule.

Business Rules in Action

When running Fulfillment with a Business Rule that will prevent Orders from being included, users will see the projected results of Fulfillment with an explanation of which Orders were affected by a Business Rule (if any) and what Business Rule was active, like so:

Users can also get similar information output when running Preview Fulfillment on Orders.

If Fulfillment is attempted on Orders where a Business Rule prevents it, an entry will also be created on that Order's Audit: