Getting started with Virtual Stock Locations (VSL)

Omnium now supports virtual stock locations, allowing you to allocate parts of inventory in a physical warehouse to multiple virtual locations or sales channels. This provides a flexible and versatile way to organize, manage, and allocate inventory across various channels. 

Virtual stock locations (VSLs) are fictive entities that enable control over how much inventory each sales channel can access and sell, even when served by the same physical warehouse. Without VSLs, all stores connected to a warehouse can view and sell the entire inventory in that warehouse. However, with VSLs in place, the physical warehouse’s inventory is partitioned, and each store can only access the specific quantities allocated to its virtual warehouse.

VSL Setup

Settings

1. Activate VSL functionality under the inventory configuration in Omnium.
2. Navigate to configuration -> settings -> products -> inventory
   
   
   
   2. Enable "Use virtual stock locations".
   
   
   
   

Setting Up Store and Warehouses

Note: The recommended way of introducing virtual warehouses is to create new warehouses for the VSLs while keeping the existing physical warehouses unchanged. This approach avoids issues such as breaking functionality or displaying historical data incorrectly. Alternative approaches need careful consideration, as they may introduce errors, cause overselling, or create confusing inventory states.

The virtual warehouses should be marked as "Is virtual," and physical warehouses using VSLs should be marked with "Has virtual stock locations." Relate the virtual warehouses to their physical counterparts by setting the physical warehouse as a related warehouse on the virtual ones. Then, point the sales channels to the virtual warehouses instead of the physical warehouse.

In order for the VSL functionality to work correctly, no sales channels should be directly linked to the physical warehouse once the virtual warehouses have been introduced. All stores served by a physical warehouse with VSLs should have one of the virtual warehouses as its available warehouse.

Configure the warehouse to function as a warehouse with virtual stock locations

1. Navigate to stores
2. From the store list, select the physical warehouse you want to designate as a warehouse with virtual stock locations. Then, navigate to the three ellipses and click on "Edit Store."
   
   
   
3. From the information tab, select "has virtual stock locations" and click save store.
   
   
   
   
4. The warehouse will then be labeled as "has virtual stock locations."
   
   

Configure the warehouse to operate as a virtual warehouse

1. Create a new warehouse by clicking on the three ellipses and selecting "Create a new store."
   
   
   
   
2.  The warehouse must be a "is warehouse" and "is virtual"
   
   
   
   

3. Next, go to the available warehouse tab, choose the warehouse that "has VSLs," and select the physical warehouse you want the virtual warehouse to be linked to.
   
   
   
   

4. The warehouse with stock locations will now have the connected VLS listed in the store view.