Routing Priorities

What Are Routing Priorities?

They are the prioritized list of rules that are evaluated (from top to bottom) after each order is imported and is being routed to a fulfillment source.

They can be found in Settings → Orders → Routing → selected routing group.

How Do Routing Priorities Work?

After an order is imported and is set to be routed to a fulfillment source, Flxpoint will evaluate each routing rule starting from the top of the list. If there are multiple remaining options after evaluating a rule, it will continue to the next rule below it.

Routing Priorities

Below you will find a description of each priority and an explanation of how they work.

Single Fulfillment Request

  • This rule will search across all available fulfillment sources to determine which, if any, source can fulfill the entire order

    • Note: Orders with multiple shipping addresses could have more than 1 fulfillment request generated for the same source
  • If there is no way to fulfill the entire order using a single fulfillment request and this rule is set to Required, the order will be placed on hold and a notification is sent to the email provided requesting manual intervention

  • If there is no "single fulfillment request" solution and this rule is set to Preferred, Flxpoint will continue to the next rule

  • If there is only one "single fulfillment request" solution available, Flxpoint will select that fulfillment solution and complete

  • If there are multiple "single fulfillment request" solutions available, Flxpoint will continue to the next rule for those solutions only

Lowest Cost

  • This rule will search across all available fulfillment solutions and factor in the item cost, estimated dropship fee, and estimated shipping cost.
  • The item cost will be equal to the inventory SKU cost.
  • The estimated dropship fee will be calculated per the workflow rules set on each source (Source → FR/FOs → Estimated Dropship Fee).
  • The estimated shipping cost will also be calculated by the workflow rules set at each source, unless you have enabled rate shopping for that source, in which case it will then pull in real time rates from shipping carriers.
  • If a margin is not set with a value, the lowest cost fulfillment solution will be selected, no additional rules will be considered, and the order will be routed. If two or more sources have the exact same calculated lowest cost (to the penny), the order will continue to the next rule considering these sources only.
  • If a margin is set with a value (either as a fixed dollar amount or as a percentage), then all fulfillment solutions within that margin versus the lowest cost option will be considered viable, and the order will continue on to the next rule for those sources only. For example, if a $5 margin is set and the estimated cost for solution #1 is $20, solution #2 is $22, this is within the $5 margin and the order will continue to the next rule considering both of these sources.

Preferred Source(s)

  • This rule will evaluate the order of the sources as they are set to the right of the routing priority rules.
  • As seen in the image at the top of this page, you can easily drag and drop the Preferred Sources into a different order to be evaluated by the rule.
  • If an order can be fulfilled by the top preferred source, it will be routed to that source. If it can not, it will check the next source below in the preferred sources list.
  • You may notice the enabled, shipping address override, and suppress tracking toggles next to each source under the preferred sources section. These settings are global to the order routing process and are not directly correlated to the preferred sources rule (e.g. disabled sources will not be factored into other rules).

Has Shipping Policy Mapped [Preferred or Required]

  • This rule will check all available shipping methods from eligible sources
  • Check if the source has a source shipping method that is associated to the order's shipping policy.
  • This priority will either prefer or require sources to have this mapping present
Example:

Source 1 has Shipping methods mapped to "Standard and "Priority" policies

Source 2 only has a Shipping Method mapped to "Standard"

If the order that is being routed is for the "Priority" policy, this routing priority will attempt to send this order to Source 1.

If this is required, Source 1 is the only eligible option. If this is preferred, Source 1 is preferred, but it can still be routed to Source 2 if it cannot be fulfilled via Source 1.

Closest Margin

  • This rule will determine which source is closer to the customer by evaluating the distance between the customer and supplier. This only applies to sources and shipping addresses in the US.
  • The "From" Address is the "Source Address" (configurable within your Source), and the "To" Address is taken from the customer's shipping address.
  • While the calculation is not exact distances between the To and From Addresses, it takes an estimation between the two based in the center of the two Zip Codes.
Example:

The distance between Customer and Supplier X is 100 miles, and the distance between Customer and Supplier Y is 400 miles, then Supplier X would be deemed "Closest" if no margin (or margin is 300 or less) is identified.

Therefore, if the margin was set to 350, the system would say, "Yes, X is 300 miles closer, but that is not significant enough for the Flxpoint user to matter, so neither are deemed Closest".

Whereas, if margin was set to 250, the system would see that X is 300 miles closer than Y, and it is greater than the margin that the Flxpoint user thought was significant enough; thus making Supplier X deemed to be the Closest still.