Thread: Live Inventory Update

Our database developer has created a SOAP Web Service that returns the current inventory level of a product.

It accepts a Product Number and returns the current inventory level.

Is there any way for me to query this web service from AspDotNetStorefront?

How would one go about keeping inventory up to date on a live-update basis?

You could use Event Handlers, but you'd have to modify the code to allow them to accept a response and do an update.

WSI is probably a better option as it can already handle updates to the DB, but you would have to write a 'middle' app that called your web service and got what it needed, then handed that off to the store through WSI to do the update.

WSI is definitely one way to do it.

For a couple of clients, we developed a new module that retrieves an XML file of stock adjustments using FTP from the client's warehousing provider. It runs under the windows scheduler services at least a couple of times a day.

We then process this file matching all products/variants by SKU and update the inventory level when the store inventory differs from the external feed data.

We wrote one solution using WSI and the other using database stored procedures.

Using the module, these stores are now dynamically updated with the true stock status as their stock is replenished or even if some order items are returned.

webopius:
That seems like a good solution. In this way, we can also have the application run on the local environment, not having to expose the internal web service to our ERP.

Scott:
That's what I figured. I guess this would also make upgrading an extra step.