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First, redundant calls that could occur when multiple products point to a single RTP|One inventory pool and inventory location or Sirisuware Max4Sale pool are reduced to a single call.
Second, only dates from today’s date through the end of the season are called. If today’s date is outside of the season, only dates within the upcoming season are called.
Finally, for products that do not need their inventory to be synced at regular intervals and have high availability, there is an option to only sync inventory for these once daily, which limits the regular syncs to only get inventory for products that could reasonably sell out.
- Add ‘StoreId’ setting to function app
There is a ‘StoreId’ setting in the function app settings. This means if you have multiple stores, work with your Aspenware Representative to define which store’s season start and end dates the inventory function should use as parameters for dates that it gets inventory for. The current default is 0, which is “All Stores.”
For products that do not need their inventory to be synced at regular intervals and have high availability, there is an option to only sync inventory for these once daily, which limits the regular syncs to only get inventory for products that could reasonably sell out.
The function to Update Inventory Pool Codes (, which looks for changes to the configuration in Aspenware Commerce inventory pools) now , can be set to run on a different frequency from the overall Inventory Sync function.
The inventory sync function was re-written to use proper Azure Durable function architecture and function chaining to increase performance.
The inventory architecture is diagrammed below.
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By utilizing this feature, resorts have control of capacity across any of their products. In turn, this will promote increased control and allow resorts to plan proper staffing for upcoming arrivals. In the case of COVID-enforced limitations, resorts can ensure they are adhering to capacity limitations.
Scenarios in which inventory could be oversold
There are a few scenarios, some of which may be found only in testing, in which inventory could be oversold.
Scenario 1: If the inventory is sold out, or a resort admin manually changes slots to 0 for a date or date range, and the inventory sync to Aspenware Commerce has not yet run, a guest could checkout on Aspenware Commerce with the remaining inventory slot (or slots) recorded from when the sync ran last. This scenario could result in overselling inventory in the POS system.
*Important: For resorts using RTP|Connect order processing, in this scenario, the order may fail in the order queue. In this case, inventory will not be oversold, but the failed order will need to be handled. For resorts using Unity order processing, the Aspenware order will process successfully, which will overbook inventory for the applicable slot or slots.
Scenario 2: This scenario is rare, but if two guests are competing for the same final inventory slot or slots, and they both complete checkout within a few seconds of each other, before the lock is released for guest 1 or guest 2, both orders may successfully process to the POS, thereby overbooking the inventory.
Scenario 3: This scenario was found in internal testing, and is also rare. If product A and product B both map to the same inventory pool in the POS, and a shopper adds the last slot for product A to the cart, waits for the lock to expire, and then adds product B to the cart (thereby taking that same last slot from inventory), that guest’s order for Product A and Product B will succeed, thereby overbooking inventory. A guest cannot successfully checkout with 2 slots for product A when only 1 remains, but a guest could overbook for that same slot if it’s configured on both product A and product B.
Scenarios where a guest could add to cart, but not be able to check out with an inventory product
Scenario 1: If a shopper books the last remaining slot in inventory when only 1 slot remains for an inventory group for the selected date, checks out, and returns to the shop to buy that product for the same date again before the order is processed and the lock expires, the shopper might see that date/slot as available and add it to cart, but be unable to check out with that product, if the lock has expired by the time he attempts to complete the order.
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