Inventories

Staff can set up products with quantity limits and inventory tracking so you can manage and track the flow of products at your association.

Quantity Control

Staff can set up products with a maximum quantity in Community Hub to control constituents' experience. Quantity limit is not enforced on the Add Items step of the Staff View order process so staff have the flexibility to create an order that fits a unique use case.

Merchandise Products

When setting up a merchandise product, the maximum quantity limits the quantity of a product's constituents can select on the Product Details page in Community Hub. A value of 1 or more limits the quantity to that number or below—great for physical goods—and a value of 0 allows constituents to enter an unlimited quantity—good for digital goods.

Registration Products

When setting up a registration product, like an event session, the maximum quantity represents whether the constituents can only attend the session themselves, or if they can attend and bring guests. While constituents make selections on the Choose Sessions page in Community Hub, a quantity of 1 only allows them to register themselves, and a quantity of 2 or more allows them to register themselves and enter the number of guests they want to bring to the session.

Inventory Tracking

Staff can set up products with current inventory information and enable inventory tracking to help you track your inventory levels for different types of products. For merchandise products, inventory tracking is used to track the remaining stock of a product. For registration products, like sessions, iinventory tracking is used to track the number of seats in that session.

Inventory levels do not update immediately after submitting a cart, instead, levels update within five minutes after submission. When this update occurs, Inventory Used on the product increases and Inventory On Hand decreases. If inventory tracking is not enabled for a merchandise product, Inventory Used and Inventory On Hand are not impacted by the purchase of that product.

Orders

As constituents and staff add products to their cart and submit it, Nimble AMS automatically checks and updates inventory levels.

Community Hub

To ensure constituents do not purchase products that have insufficient inventory, the Product Details and My Checkout page in Community Hub do a few checks and provide some direction.

On the Product Details page, the constituents can view merchandise products, select a quantity to purchase, and add in-stock merchandise products to their cart. If there is no remaining quantity of a product or constituents try to select a quantity greater than what is in stock, a message displays indicating that an insufficient quantity exists and are not allowed to add the product to their cart.

On the My Checkout page, constituents are notified if inventory for one of their selected products has decreased to the point that there is an insufficient quantity to be purchased. Constituents must reduce their selection or remove the product altogether to check out. When the cart is submitted, the quantity purchased reflects  Inventory On Hand on the product within five minutes of submission.

Staff View

To ensure staff do not purchase products that have insufficient inventory, the Staff View order process only allows the selection of in-stock products. On the Add Items step of the Staff View order process, products with no remaining inventory are displayed in the list of products, but staff cannot add them to the cart. Additionally, Unit Price and Quantity for the product cannot be adjusted. If inventory for one of the selected products has decreased to the point that there is an insufficient quantity to be purchased, a message displays when they try to save and staff must adjust their selection.

On the Payment step of the Staff View order process, when staff try to submit the cart, if inventory for one of their selected products has decreased to the point that there is an insufficient quantity to be purchased, a message displays letting them know what product lacks inventory and staff must go back to the Add Items step and adjust their selection.

Inventory Log

To help you keep track of inventory amounts, when a cart is submitted, an inventory record is created for any order item line containing products with inventory tracking enabled. The inventory record contains the quantity purchased of the related products.

Concurrency

When inventory on a product is low and multiple users—staff or constituents—attempt to purchase a product, Nimble AMS processes the carts in the sequence in which the carts are submitted. That said, once a cart has been submitted, it can take up to five minutes to update the Inventory On Hand for a particular product.

Example 1: Inventory On Hand for a coffee mug is at 1 three constituents attempt to order the mug at the same time. All three orders will be successful. When Inventory On Hand is updated—within five minutes after the first order—it will read -2 because all three orders went through. Also, once Inventory On Hand is updated, any other users with that product in their cart will receive a message indicating that inventory is insufficient when trying to submit the cart.

Example 2: Inventory On Hand for an event session with limited seats is at 1 and staff submit their cart first for the session and, within 5 minutes,  Inventory On Hand is updated to 0. A constituents trying to submit a cart with the same session receives a message indicating that inventory is insufficient. If the constituents submits their cart first and Inventory On Hand is updated, the opposite is true.

Again, whichever user submits their cart first is able to successfully purchase the product and will schedule the update of Inventory On Hand for that product, which will occur within 5 minutes thereafter.

Backorders

When back ordering is enabled, negative inventory can be assigned to a merchandise product to indicate a back-ordered item.

With back ordering, users—staff, and constituents—can order merchandise products that have an inventory of 0 or less. This means inventory records are still created and Inventory On Hand the merchandise product ends up populated with a negative inventory value to represent backordered items.

Backordering is only supported with merchandise products.

Cancellations

When staff cancel an order containing a product(s) that is inventory tracked, within five minutes:

• Quantity on the related inventory record changes from the quantity ordered to 0
• Inventory Used on the product decrements back to the quantity available before order submission
• Inventory On Hand is restored

Things to Keep in Mind

• Inventory levels do not update immediately. Instead, levels update within five minutes after the submission or cancellation of an order.
• When setting Quantity Limit on a registration product, Community Hub does not currently enforce this value as the maximum number of constituents can choose. Instead, if staff set Quantity Limit to 1, constituents can choose to register for the session. If staff set Quantity Limitto 2 or more, constituents can choose to register for the session and bring as many guests to the session as they want.
• If Inventory On Hand on a registration product is 1 or more, in Community Hub, constituents can choose to register for the session and bring as many guests to the session as they want, regardless of the remaining seats.
  
• Though the Inventory object contains the Adjustment field, this field is not updated when the related order is edited or canceled.