Inquiry and Order permissions in the Commerce portal depend on whether the user belongs to a Customer or Prospect Account. Based on ERP processes, sales managers can assign appropriate permissions for prospect/customer accounts to control cart behaviour. Sales representatives can now better organise and manage incoming inquiries and orders, to optimise sales follow-up processes.

Commerce System Administrators (See "Commerce User Management" for more information), can switch on/off the order and inquiry processes on an application-wide level. This means that the Commerce application either does or does not support the order and/or inquiry process for all users of an account type as set up in 'Operation Settings' > 'Order & Inquiry': 

For example, users in Customer Accounts may be allowed to place both inquiries and orders, while users in Prospect Accounts may only be permitted to browse and inquire about product offerings.

Accounts are defined as a Customer or Prospect within the Digital Sales Platform and is maintained under 'Accounts' > (select account to be viewed) > 'Detail': 

Customer Contact Users of the Commerce Portal (see "Commerce User Management" for more information) associated to the Account, are subject to settings in place for the Account.

Use Case Example: 

Taking an example of a Customer Contact User in a Prospect Account: 

Only when the options to Inquire or Order are made available to the Account types, will respective Commerce users be able to view the relevant features in the Commerce Portal.

Where Inquiry is allowed, but Order & Checkout is disabled: 

While both Inquiry and Order & Checkout options are enabled: 

(See "Process Overview: Post-submission of Order/Inquiry" for more information)

Available-To-Promise (ATP) Check

As part of order placement, users may be assisted with the provision of up-to-date information on the products' estimated delivery schedule. 

This functionality can be maintained in 'Commerce Administration' > 'Operation Settings' > 'Order & Inquiry' > 'Checkout'. Enable 'Availability to Promise check from ERP':

Setup is also required in the Digital Sales Platform and can be maintained in 'Administration' > 'Master Data Management' > 'Setting Boolean' > 'Setting Custom Implementation For ATP Availability Check' > Setting Value Boolean: 'Yes':

Please whitelist the BAPI_MATERIAL_AVAILABILITY in ERP, which is used by this feature.

Do note that product information depends on the Plant ERP ID, which can be specified under Product Additional Information on the Digital Sales Platform: 

Quantity information is tied to the Unit indicated under product details:

There is also a groovy exit: ATP Check Script provided for making needed adjustments to the ERP response

The ATP Check works the same way in Quote as well where the delivery tab in the quote shows the delivery schedule.

Payment Method

There are many ways in which users can use to conveniently order Spares and Consumables and Commerce is one of them. As companies today have many choices how they are ordering (e.g. via Commerce / Self-Service, Call Center, EDI, Email, etc.), they also expect flexibility when choosing their preferred payment methods. With credit card payments, ACH / BAN transfers, and other options such as PayPal, Apple Pay, and so forth, they are being offered a variety of different methods and can choose their preferred one. 

This functionality can be maintained in 'Commerce Administration' > 'Payment Configuration'.

Selections made for the following as part of setup: 

*Mode selected in Commerce Admin would be the default for all accounts. Should it not be applicable for an account, Payment Type can be specified within that account’s Detail page. (See "Account Configuration" for more information)