Fulfillment SKUs

Workarea v3.5 adds the concept of a Fulfillment SKU -- a model that defines policies for delivering ordered products to customers. This provides a more robust mechanism for the fulfillment of digital items while providing the flexibility to offer customized delivery behaviors at the SKU level.

a Workarea::Fulfillment::Sku is comprised of an ID and a policy. The ID corresponds to the SKU of a product variant, and aligns with the IDs of pricing, inventory, and shipping SKUs. The policy defines what is done to fulfill an item after an order has been placed.

module Workarea
  class Fulfillment
    module Policies
      class Download
        def process(order_item:, fulfillment: nil)
          # will be called when an SKU with this policy is purchased.
        end
      end
    end
  end
end

Fulfillment Policies

By default, Workarea offers two policies -- shipping, and download. Picking a policy will do two things: first, it will control the flow of checkout, which will not ask a customer for a shipping address or shipping method when it is not required for the items in their cart. Second, it will allow any automated behavior (such as creating a download token or sending a gift card) when the order is placed.

The shipping policy will require shipping info selection during checkout. It does nothing automatically when the order is placed. This is the default policy used when no policy exists for a SKU.

The download policy will automatically generate a Fulfillment::Token for a customer when they purchase a SKU with that policy. This token provides a unique URL to the customer that is specific to their order and account. This will allow them to download the file tied to the Fulfillment SKU from the provided link on the order confirmation page, in the confirmation email, and/or in their order history.

Fulfillment Tokens

A Fulfillment::Token is a document associated to the Fulfillment SKU that stores a secure random string. This association allows a URL with a unique token to be used to provide access to the file on the Fulfillment::SKU document. Tokens will also be associated to a user and an order if generated as a result of a customer placing an order. Tokens can also be generated via the admin UI.

Tokens do not expire, and the URLs they generate are not restricted to a specific user. However, the number of times a token is downloaded is tracked and displayed within the admin UI. If an admin user notices an unusually high number of downloads for a token, they can disable that token and prevent it from being used for any future downloads.

Custom Fulfillment Policies

Creating a new fulfillment policy requires two steps -- the creation of the policy class and updating the configuration.

A policy class should inherit from Workarea::Fulfillment::Policies::Base and define a #process method.

module Workarea
  class Fulfillment
    module Policies
      class GenerateTicket < Base
        def process(order_item:, fulfillment: nil)
          # use order_item information to generate ticket
          # update the fulfillment to reflect the generation of the ticket
        end
      end
    end
  end
end

Once a new policy class is in place, add it to the swappable list of policies in Workarea.config.fulfillment_policies

# config/initializers/workarea.rb
Workarea.configure do |config|
  config.fulfillment_policies << 'Workarea::Fulfillment::Policies::GenerateTicket'
end