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Key ideas in five minutes
Stock Sync uses a small number of ideas over and over. Each one below has a one-line definition and a short example. The Glossary has every term in alphabetical order.
How the ideas fit together
Read it like this: the PIM holds products. Each marketplace account has offers. An offer is matched to a product by its PIM product id (on ABOUT YOU, by its SKU). The account's settings and the product's stock together give the stock to publish, which is sent to the offer.
The places
PIM
Definition: our product information system. It holds every product, its stock and its lead time, and it gets its stock from the warehouse system.
Example: the PIM says product 101577 (SKU K50K510943-BAX, size M) has 7 pieces available, 9 on hand, and a lead time of 1 day.
Marketplace
Definition: a website where we sell as a seller: eMAG, Fashion Days or ABOUT YOU. eMAG and Fashion Days use the same kind of connection; ABOUT YOU has its own.
Example: eMAG, Fashion Days and ABOUT YOU are the marketplaces Stock Sync works with. eMAG and Fashion Days run websites in several countries, such as eMAG Romania, eMAG Bulgaria and Fashion Days Romania.
Account
Definition: one of our seller accounts, on one marketplace, in one country. Stock Sync handles each account on its own.
Example: "eMAG RO", "eMAG BG" and "Fashion Days RO" are three accounts. The same jacket can be offered on all three, and each gets its own stock number.
Connector
Definition: the part of Stock Sync that knows how to talk to one kind of marketplace. Today there are two: eMAG / Fashion Days and ABOUT YOU. Each account tells the connector its own API address and credentials: an eMAG or Fashion Days account has an API user and password, an ABOUT YOU account has an API key.
Example: eMAG RO and Fashion Days RO use the same connector, with different API addresses. An ABOUT YOU account uses the other connector, with the key from the ABOUT YOU Seller Center.
The things being synced
Offer
Definition: our listing of a product on one account, with the offer id and the stock the marketplace shows.
Example: on eMAG RO, offer 101577 is our listing of product 101577. The marketplace shows 4 pieces. On ABOUT YOU the offer id is the product variant's SKU, for example 81214932.
Matching (linking)
Definition: connecting an offer to the PIM product it is. On eMAG and Fashion Days the offer id is the PIM product id, so the two are linked by the same id. On ABOUT YOU the offer id is a SKU, and the offer is linked to the PIM product that has that SKU, or, for a SKU ending in _ and a size, that SKU and size. Barcodes (EAN) are never used for this.
Example: offer 101577 is Linked to PIM product 101577. Offer 55012 has no PIM product 55012, so it is Not linked, and Stock Sync never touches its stock. If product 101577 is later deleted from the PIM, the offer becomes Orphaned and gets stock 0. On ABOUT YOU, the offer MJ 1099_S TAY_9O_56 is linked to the PIM product with SKU MJ 1099 and size S TAY_9O_56; a SKU that two PIM products share stays Not linked. See Matching offers to products.
Open in PIM
Definition: a link, on every offer that is linked to a PIM product, to that product's page in PIM. It opens in a new tab. An offer that is not linked has no link.
Example: on the offer page of offer 101577, Open in PIM next to the PIM product opens PIM product 101577. In the Offers list, the row's ⋯ menu has Open in PIM too.
Available, on hand, stock to publish, published, marketplace shows
Five numbers appear next to every offer. They are easy to mix up:
| Number | What it is | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Available (PIM) | Stock we can sell now, as the PIM counts it | 7 |
| On hand (PIM) | Stock physically in the warehouse, including pieces Odoo reserved for other orders. Shown for information, never published | 9 |
| Stock to publish | The number Stock Sync wants the marketplace to show: available, after its rules | 7 |
| Published | The number the marketplace last confirmed | 4 |
| Marketplace shows | What the marketplace itself reported at the last offer import | 4 |
When Stock to publish and Published differ, Stock Sync sends the new number. When they are equal, nothing is sent.
Lead time and eligibility
Definition: the lead time is how many days a product takes before it can ship, as the PIM reports it. An account can have a Lead-time limit. An offer whose lead time is longer than the limit is not eligible and gets stock 0.
Example: eMAG RO has a limit of 2 days. A product that now comes from a supplier who delivers in 5 days shows Eligible: No — 5 days > 2 days, and the marketplace is sent 0. An unknown lead time, or an account with No limit, always counts as eligible.
How sending works
Preview and Live
Definition: every account is in one of two modes. In Preview Stock Sync calculates everything but sends nothing. In Live it sends. Every new account starts in Preview.
Example: eMAG BG is in Preview. One of its offers has Stock to publish 5 and Marketplace shows 3. Nothing is sent. Its status reads Preview, and its status banner says "Going Live would send 454 stock updates now." See Preview and Live.
Sync status
Every linked offer has a sync status:
| Status | Meaning |
|---|---|
| In sync | The marketplace shows what we want |
| Waiting to send | A new number is queued, or being retried |
| Sent, awaiting confirmation | The number was sent, and the marketplace has not said yet whether it applied it. Only ABOUT YOU answers later; eMAG and Fashion Days offers never have this status |
| Rejected | The marketplace refused it for a business reason, for example a campaign lock |
| Failed | Sending hit temporary errors 8 times in a row (about an hour) and gave up |
The Overview counts Sent, awaiting confirmation offers with Waiting to send (and the Offers list's Waiting view holds both), because the marketplace has not applied either yet. See Every status explained.
Sync run
Definition: one piece of work Stock Sync did, with its start, end, result and counts. The Sync runs tab of Activity lists them.
Example: a PIM reading that Succeeded with the counts "214 seen · 37 changed", or a Sending round for eMAG RO with "37 published". The kinds are PIM reading, Full PIM check, Offer import, Sending round and Recalculation.
Catalog poll (PIM reading)
Definition: the regular reading of the PIM, every 15 minutes, that picks up the products that changed since the last reading. The Overview shows how long ago it last succeeded (the PIM data tile). An operator can ask for one straight away with Read PIM now.
Example: the reading at 10:22 finds that product 101577 went from 7 to 5 available. See Reading the catalog from the PIM.
Outbox
Definition: Stock Sync's internal post tray. Every change is written together with a message announcing it, and the messages are passed on a moment later. Normally you never notice it. When a message cannot be passed on, it is set aside and waits for a person.
Example: the Overview shows "3 outbox messages set aside". The technical team finds the cause, then an operator presses Release on the Outbox tab of Activity. See Sending stock to the marketplace.
The account's condition
Account status
Definition: one word that says whether an account is sending: Sending, Preview, Paused or Suspended. It sums up the account's mode, state and health (below), and names the one to deal with first. It is shown beside the account everywhere; the sidebar adds a tag only when the account is not Sending.
Example: eMAG BG is in Preview and was paused for a stock count. Its status reads Paused; once it is resumed it reads Preview until someone goes Live. See Every status explained.
Account badge
Definition: a small coloured box with an account's initials (ER for eMAG Romania, ER2 for eMAG Romania Wh 2), shown wherever the account appears so that similar names are told apart at a glance. Its colour is never red, amber or green, which mean a status. See Account badge.
Health
Definition: whether the marketplace accepts the account. Healthy is normal. Suspended means Stock Sync stopped sending for the whole account, for example because the marketplace refused the password. Degraded is a warning between the two; nothing in the current version sets it, so you should not see it.
Example: Fashion Days BG reads Suspended, and its status banner says "eMAG offer/save answered 401: Invalid vendor credentials". Nothing is sent until the password is fixed and an operator presses Recover. See Account health and pausing.
Paused
Definition: an operator stopped the account on purpose. While it is paused, no offers are imported and nothing is sent. Stock changes from the PIM are still worked out and wait as Waiting to send. Resume imports the offers again and sends what waited.
Example: during a warehouse stock count you pause eMAG RO for an hour. Its status reads Paused. When you press Resume, the stock that changed meanwhile goes out in one go. See Pause and resume an account.
Next
- The journey of a stock number puts all these ideas in order.
- A tour of the screen shows where each one appears.