IBM Sterling Commerce Interview Question And Answer

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IBM Sterling Commerce interview question and answer related to OMS implementation. . .

This page lists down the common interview question and answers on OMS implementation by IBM Sterling Commerce. It has question related to basic customization and advanced business requirment implementation.
Main objective of this page is to guide you to answer interview questions and provide detail usnderstanding on IBM Sterling OMS implementation. Here I documented question and answer from my OMS implementation experience. Many question asked from the project where you have worked on. So go-through your project implementation documents and try to give a thought why those design and implementation decision were taken. You need to read the api documentation and IBM Knowledge centre documentation.

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Questions and Answers:

201). Difference between Schedule and Release transactions?

202). What is event template and api template how they differ?

203). Customer wants to send the invoice to their account reciveable system. How do you implement that?

204). After order purge ?


205). Suppose in callcenter UI you need to show the last 4 digit of the credit card one group of user in order details screen and las 6 digit in another group of user. How do you implement it ?

206). What does record container activity do ?

207). Can one seller be associated with two enterprise ?
Yes. But there will be one Primary enterprise for the seller.
Subsequent Question: Then whats the difference marking one enterprise as primary enterprise and other is non primary enterprise.

208). What are the factors which governs the implementation of a user exit by a Service or a Java Class ?

209). Is all screens are customizable in Callcenter UI? Tell me one screen which is not customizable ?

210). Is all screens are customizable in Callcenter UI? Tell me one screen which is not customizable ?

211). One electronic retailer wants to sell service plan (3 free service in the first year of purchase on payment of 10$ extra) with their product(e.g. tv ) ? How would you implement this requirment.


212). One retailer sell branded new cycle. They decided now onwards they will purchase old cycels (within 5 years of purchase ) and resale them again. How would you implement this requirment.
213). What is delivery order. Have you implemented any delivery order fulfillment. What are the challenges you faced?.

214). How to setup transfer relationship and node transfer schedule between two nodes/stores?
For each pair of node, node transfer relationship (From Relationship Or To Relationship) can be defined. It can be defined from two places.

1. IN Participant modelling. Open the node setup/configuration details. From there you can define both Form and To relationship
2. IN DOM. Go to Node Control under DOM and setup setup/configure both Form and To relationship
For each node transfer relation ship you can define a node transfer schedule and transit time.

Subsequent Question: Can I create a transfer order without having a transfer relationship defined?
Yes. You can. But you wil not have the flexibility to define the transit time. transfer schedule(In which day transfer is allowed ) and what is the cut-off time of the store.
215). How to implement Cash and Carry order?
You need to consider following points when implementing Cash and Carry order.

1. Delivery Method needs to be "CARRY"
2. Order should not have BillToAddress
3. While configuring EntryType in Application Manager, please check the check box "Allow Cash and Carry Line"
4. Order Line should have ShipNode and it needs to be released to the same store
5. You should have a UI in Web Store UI to capture the order. SOM had the order capture UI.

216). How transit time is calculated when transfer happens between two stores?
There is two mode to calcultate transit time

1. Basic Mode
2. Advanced Mode

In configuration you can mention which mode (radio button) you would like to enabled.
If you enable baisic mode, it use node transfer time schedule and node notification time to calculate the transit time.
If you enable Advanced Mode option, Carrier and Carrier Service Code configuration data can be used. Or only Carrier Service configuration data .
217). Have you used AdditionalDataProvider for Store UI? What's the use of it

218). How to extend a out of the box Store UI screen? Just mention the steps.

219). How to create a new screen? Just mention the steps.

220). Steps to create a Related Task?.

221). hi , could you add more details on the differences between sourcing rule and scheduling rule.?.
Sourcing rule tells us where the inventory is? It means what are the nodes where inventory available. Scheduing rule does the optimization on the result(outcome) of the sourcing rule and finally decide the shipnode for from where the order needs to be fulfilled.
Sourceing rules are configured per fulfillment type. And sourcing rule can be defined based on :

1. Sourcing Classification
2. Item attributes
3. Ship To Region

Where as On installation, by default one scheding rule become available with the name "SYSTEM". But we can add more rule scheduing rule based on our requirment. Scheduing rules are NOT per in fulfillment type.
Mainly in the scheduling rule, we define the shipping constraints (e.g. All line shipping together from a single node). Whether to optimized on Date or Number of shipment.
Subsequent Question:: When there are multiple Scheduing rule are configured in the system, how it's determind which sourcing rule to allpy/use to determine the final shipnode.

222). What is SLA indicator in StoreUI.? How to implement it?.

223). What are the differences (usd of) ExpectedShipmentDate and ExpectedDeliveryDate.

224). when (in which situation) order moved to backorder satus after schedule. Can you give an practical example?.
225). when (in which situation) order moved to backorder satus after Released. Can you give an practical example?.
226). One customer reported their scheduling process is taking longer time? What would be your approach to triage this issue.
227). What is the use of OMPProcessRoutingExternallyUE? Can you give an example.

228). What is the use of OMPGetExternalCostForOptionsUE? Can you give an example.

229). If I want to run RTAM fullsync only for US region, how can I acheive it? What could be the drawback of this approach (running only for one region)

230). What are the difference between transaction and api. Difference between createOrder api and createOrder transaction

231). One retailer sell digital item (e.g. camera) with 1 year warranty on camera lens. How would you implement(fulfill) product and service plan. After 1 year, customer may extend the warranty upto 2 years paying extra charges.

232). What is IBA (Item Based Allocation).
IBA is a process that reallocates the uncommitted and committed demands for items of existing orders to more suitable supplies based on user configuration and supply and demand changes in the system.
There are two types of item-based allocation:

1. FIFO prioritization -It gives orders that are placed first a higher priority than those placed later.
2. User-configured prioritization - It is based on order attributes, giving the specified orders higher priority than others When user-configured IBA priorities are not set, or they are set and completed, Sterling Selling and Fulfillment Foundation defaults to system-configured IBA priorities.

Example:
Suppose in the node (DC1) there is no onhand inventory for the Item1.
You captured an customer order (say SO1) for 5 quantity of Item1 against a PO (say PO1) which will reach to DC1 on 20-JUN-20222 and Demand ship date is 21-JUN-2022 (assume 1 day node processing time) and you have scheduled the order also.
Same way you capture antoher order (say SO2) for the ITEM1 for 5 quantity against PO2 which will reach DC1 on 25-JUN-2022. And demand ship date is 26-JUN-2022 and you scheduled the order also.
Now let say SO1 got cancelled on customer request. As PO1 is reaching on 20-JUN-2022, YOU would like to fulfill the SO2 with the PO1 inventory with shipdate 21-JUN-2022.
If you enable IBA, and if you choose FIFO IBA, you can achieve it.

For IBA, Please refer the following documentsation:
FIFO -IBA (https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/order-management-sw/9.4.0?topic=allocation-fifo-iba)
USER CONFIGURED IBA(https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/order-management-sw/9.4.0?topic=allocation-user-configured-ibaF)
233). How to push/publish the inventory pciture from IV to other applications (e.g. ATG)?
IV is not meant for running push mechanisms in real time to other down-stream and up-stream systems. It's expected every application will do a api/service call to IV to get availability pciture of an item instantly on real time.
But practical implementation challenge is that. Other applications (e.g. ATG) take time to make changes so that they can directly invoke the IV api and services.
As an interim solution they ask IV to push the imnventory picture as currently being happening through RTAM.
IV can pushes the inventory picture to marketplaces which are not ready to call Sterling Inventory Visibility APIs directly.
When other applications (e.g. ATG) is not ready to invoke IV, we can push/publish inventory picture to other applications as short term measure in following ways:

1. Data((Inventory Picture)) pushed to IBM Cloud Object Storage and clients need to download from IBM Cloud Object Storage to process the data.
2. Data(Inventory Picture) are pushed to a client's REST webhook.

For more details please visit product documentation (https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/order-management-sw/10.0?topic=isiv-using-sterling-inventory-visibility-as-inventory-management-system-phase-2)

234). How to purge a custom table?

235). One retailer wants to ship their high selling items from DC (DC is first choice), Medium selling items from Store (here store is first preference) and low selling item from Legacy Store (one type of store) ? How would you implement it?
Ans: Product support item based sourcing. That means we can define sourcing rule based on the item attribute.
Here we can use VelocityCode attribute (DB column name VELOCITY_CODE) to mark the fast , medium and slow mooving item. Or we can have custom column in Item table to store the velocity of the item.
We can use following VelocityCode

1. A - High moving item
2. B - Medium moving item
3. C - Low moving item

Now we can define soucing rule based on the VelocityCode item attribute and we can give the DC DG (adding DC into a DG) is the first prority when VeloityCode='A'. Even if we are using custom attribute, that custom attribute can be mentioned in the sourcing rule(Custom attribute appears in the Configurator UI).


236). One retailer allows transfer from Store to DC if inventory is not there in the DC (only 1 DC). But to reduce the cost, if there is multiple transfer on the same date from same store to DC, they would like to pack multiple items (from same or different orders) into a single box during. How would you allow to pack multiple items from different orders into a single box (container) during packing. It's not like that all the order will be consolidated to single shipment before it moving to ready for backroom pick?

237). How to you unpack a shipment/container after shipment gets confirmed. Example- Carrier pciked up the box from store for delivery but they could not delivered it. They return back to shipment (container) to Store. Now store want to send the same shipment with another carrier with a new tracking number?


238). One of our customer (who does b2b business) do not want to payment processing in OMS but would like to show the payment statuses which are available in forntend aplication in OMS (e.g atg)

239). What is Template Organization ( Organization who play the "Template" role)?
A role is a well-defined set of activities that can be performed by an organization. Each organization is assigned at least one role.
A Template organization defines the point-of-sale rules and configurations for a store or a group of stores. A Template organization is not a logical organization.
Product Documentation: https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/order-management-sw/10.0?topic=organization-organizations-roles-participant-associations
240). What is IBM Sterling Intelligent Promising?
It is an another offering from IBM in Order Promising and fulfillment area. It is a stand-alone SaaS solution which provides reliable inventory promises dynamically based on shopper location and ship nodes. It is very similar to IV offering. IBM Sterling Intelligent promising works in conjunction with IV. As a pre-rquisite customer have to use IV to get enabled for Intellignet Promising. Customer who are not using IV, they will not be able to intelligent promising SaaS solution.
For more details please refer the production documentation page. https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/intelligent-promising?topic=overview
241). What is Driver Date?
In the Details screen of Order Fulfillment process type, There is a item "Driver Date". Either Requested Ship Date or Requested Delivery Date can be marked as Driver Date
. Fulfillment process is driven by the Driver Date
Requested Ship Date Select this option if you want the fulfillment process to be driven by the order document's requested ship date.
Requested Delivery Date Select this option if you want the fulfillment process to be driven by the order document's requested delivery date.
In the scheduling rule, we can define how much early or how much late we can allow to schedule an order. Example: - We can mention we will allow 30 days early and 50 days beyond the requested date to allow schduling.
In the Process type defination if we mark "Requested Ship Date" is the driver date, then schduling engine will calculate 30 days and 50 days based on Expected Ship Date value.
242). What is Sterling Fulfillment Optimizer.?
It minimize total cost-to-serve. It optimizes an order, order-line or order-line quantity for the lowest total cost based on actual cost and profit drivers.
Utilize inventory at its most profitable price point. Prioritize slow moving or obsolete store inventory to support e-Commerce demand. Execute new sourcing decisions in real-time to minimize shipping costs. Leverage AI capabilities to continuously learn and improve. It optimize transportation costs and SLA at time of selecting sourcing node. Optimize delivery dates, Split order automatically to reduce costs
For more details please refer the production documentation page. https://www.ibm.com/downloads/cas/Y3GO0RZP

243). What is Commercial Invoice? How to generate commercial invoice?


244). What is Hold (e.g. Order Hold)? How it is used? How it block the transactions


245). How to find list of events from where a service is being invoked? Sometimes we have the service name but we do not know from which transaction events the service is being invoked or it is being invoked from another service. How to get this information?
We can this find this information by executing query in the database.
1. First figureout whether this service is being invoked from another service or not?
To do that we can execute following query:
select * from subflow where config xml like '%service name'%';
2. Then figureout whether this service is being invoked from other transaction events or not?
SELECT * FROM action actn, invoked flows ivf, flow flw where actn.action key = ivf.action key and ivf.flow key=flw.flow key and flw.flow_name=?

SELECT * FROM from EVENT evnt , EVENT CONDITION evcon, TRANSACTION trn where evcon.event key=evnt.event key and evnt.transaction key=trn.transaction key and action key=?
Mainly you need to query use tables to findout the answer:

• Flow
• Sub Flow
• Action
• Event
• Event Condition
• Invoked Flows
• Transaction

246). What is Order HUB?
If you have used / worked-on in IBM Sterling Commerce, you are aware of Sterling Admin Console. Sterling admin console is the UI for IBM Sterling Commerce application. Here we can search and view order and shipment details.
But major constrint of admin console is it is IE browser specific. Admin console does not work with other broser like Chrome, Mozila or Edge.
Microsoft gradually will gradually move to Edge from IE. So to remove the dependency with IE, IBM has stopped admin console from version 10.0 and introduced a new UI (Order HUB) to search and view order and shipment details. Order HUB is compatible to any modern browser.
Order HUB is very similar to Admin console. Just Order HUB is compatible to any modern browser.
But main differece is that Configurator (Application Manager) can not be launched from Order HUB. So how do we launch Application Manager? We need to use application client jar and launch configurator / application manger from command line.
247). can you please explain what is the Difference between getOrderList and getOrderDetails api?
Thanks for usiung easycodeforall! There are many differences between getOrderDetails and getOrderList api. But here I am nothing down the couple of easy differences.

1. getOrderList api can provide multiple order information in the api output.. Its a list of order information Where as getOrderDetails api alwyas provide the one order information It's a single order details
2. getOrderList api can be invoked by an empty order XML (Input XML does not contain any attribute. e.g. <Order /> ) where getOrderDetails api alwyas need OrderHeaderKey or (OrderNo, DocumentType and EnterpriseCode). Output template structure of getOrderList and getOrderDetails are different.
3. getOrderList api does not support any UE. Where as getOrderDetails api have/support some UE. Examples are ConvertCurrencyUE, GetFundsAvailableUE
4. getOrderList api does not lock any record or table on ORDER_HEADER table or any other table in database. It just trigger a simple select statement(DDL) on the database. Whereas getOrderDetails API acquires DB lock ( row lock only. No DB table lock.) on Order_Header table for the order requested. It triggers a SELECT FOR UPDATE query in the underling database.
5. getOrderList api support complex query. getOrderDetails api does not suppirt complex query.

Subsequent Question:

1. In which situation I should us getOrderDetails api and in which situation I need to use getOrderList api.?
2. Does really getOrderList api is faster than getOrderDetails api?
3. What will happen if some one invoke getOrderList api with empty oder XML (e.g. <Order />)
4. Does all list api (e.g. getItemList, getShipmentList) does not lock record on any DBf table?

Note: To know answer of the Subsequent questions, you need join our training courses.
248). What is Common Code? How it is used?
Common code is kind of lookup code and lookup values.
We use common code to store a set of values for a type (Common code values and common code type). There is underling table (BASE COMMON CODE and COMMON CODE) to store the multiple code values for a code type.
Product provided apis (getCommoncodeList) to retrieve code values for a code type.
Mainly we store multiple code values against a code type
Advantage of using Common Code is :

• We can store multiple values against one code type
• Values are stored in DB. So values can be changed on rumtime. No deployment is required.
• Common code values are cached on startup of the application by default. If you want, you can change this behavior.
• There is standard API(e.g. getCommonCodeList) to store and retrieve the common code values

Subsequent Question:

1. What are the disadvantages of Using Common code?
2. Can you please tell me in what situation we should not use common code? Can you give an example
3. What are the alternatives of Common Code

249). What is invokeUE? When and how its used?

invokeUE is an api like other api added in some 9.x version. It is used to directly invoke any UE just passing an XML.
It is very useful if just want to test an UE. You can use API tester and test any UE easily. You do not invoke the transaction. Directly invoke the UE with the use of invokeUE api.
But there are some limitation. All UE can not be invoke(tested) thorough invokeUE API

1. UE needs to accept XMl as input (Some UE accept Struct as input. e.g. recalculate header taz ue)
2. UE needs to return an XML (Some UE return string or other value. e.g. getOrderNo ue return String. So it can not be tested/invoked using invokeUE api )

We use common code to store a set of values for a type (Common code values and common code type). There is underling table (BASE COMMON CODE and COMMON CODE) to store the multiple code values for a code type.

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