Commerce Cloud Order Management is Dead; Long Live Salesforce Order Management

Salesforce is currently undergoing a big development regarding its in-house order management system.

In short: Commerce Cloud Order Management (which also includes the Fulfillment Center), currently a separate product of Salesforce that is built on Microsoft.Net as well as SQL Server technology, and is used with Salesforce Commerce Cloud, is going to be retired, and replaced by Salesforce Order Management, which is a specifically-built product of the Core Salesforce platform.

Why the change?

Commerce Cloud Order Management traces its origins back to Mainstreet Commerce, a cloud-based order management system solution, which was acquired in 2014 by the tech company that was then called Demandware.

And then in 2017 Demandware was, itself, acquired by Salesforce, which would soon be renamed Salesforce Commerce Cloud, and then split into B2C Commerce Cloud and B2B Commerce Cloud. And since then, the San Fran-based cloud giant has been intensifying its holistic, 360-degree experiences for their customers. And so the same year as they bought Demandware, Salesforce began to build an order management system on the Core Salesforce platform, replacing the legacy OMS in its investment.

By going in such a direction, Salesforce is offering a more unified vision by taking advantage of the other features and data-rich sections of the platform. And so with such a big change, let’s take a look at the important dates of the transfer.

Key dates to keep in mind

• July 2020

No new contracts have been offered since then, with renewals handled on a case-by-case basis, with no contracts extended after July 2022.

• October 21, 2021

The Commerce Cloud Order Management’s Fulfillment Center will be the first to retire, before Commerce Cloud Order Management itself. The reason for this is that the required desktop app for customers, Microsoft Silverlight, which is used in Fulfillment Center, is no longer going to be supported.

• July 2022

The full retirement of Commerce Cloud Order Management will be completed, along with full migration. No login nor access to software and servers, as well as to Commerce Cloud Order Management documentation.

So what’s the difference?

There are multiple distinctions between Commerce Cloud Order Management and Salesforce Order Management.

1. Salesforce Order Management is built on the Salesforce CRM platform.
2. In order to handle real-time inventory, invoice creation, payment capture and (of course) order fulfillment, there are end-to-end order workflows.
3. Salesforce Order Management gives a unified customer profile as well as order history of Commerce Cloud and Service Cloud.
4. Salesforce Order Management will facilitate new features faster and easier thanks to it being built on the Core platform.
5. Powered by Salesforce Lightning that accommodates custom visual workflows, click-to-code development, and simple extensibility.

Your traditional OMS is built into the system and hugely integrated which limits itself in terms of scalability and expense. Plus implementations are manual and take time to adopt – in an environment that is rapidly changing with little signs of slowing. Salesforce Order Management – originally launched in February last year – is locked and loaded to make the full transition from current products to Salesforce’s solution.

So what are the steps towards the migration of Salesforce Order Management?

Path to migration

Step 1: reimplementing order management 

All customizations and integrations are reimplemented from Commerce Cloud Order Management to Salesforce Order Management, in order to account for the platform differences in API patterns and the extensibility model.

While specific things need to be customized on the Commerce Cloud Order Management platform, they may not need to be on the Salesforce Order Management, thanks to the robustness of the Salesforce platform.

Step 2: migrating data

In order to migrate the historical order data from Commerce Cloud Order Management to Salesforce Order Management, automated tools are used to make the switch. It’s actually a seamless process that doesn’t act as a huge boulder sitting in the path of progress. And to ensure the path is clear, Salesforce has built a temporary bridge so that customers can continue to use Commerce Cloud Order Management while their new OMS is being built. Seamless. 

Step 3: implementing time and cost

This step will depend on how complex the current system is, which will determine the time of implementation and as a result the price. If you want more specifics, then the average implementation takes between three-to-six months.

Salesforce Order Management is its own platform that has the capabilities to not only manage orders but also customer records, fulfillment and payment abilities, the visibility of inventory, as well as customer after-payment care, and invoices. 

So now you know. Keep in mind the dates… and see you on the other side!

PS: ArganoUV is one of the world’s leading Salesforce B2C Commerce Cloud consultancies. Contact us to see how we can work together.