The goal of this post is to demonstrate, through an example, how this functionality can be useful for businesses. I want to clarify that this case is applicable to companies that have multiple sources for creating sales orders and reserving products for customers. These sources can include Microsoft Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management, e-commerce, web portals, Power Platform applications, and any other external systems that can be integrated using APIs.

   To start, let's consider an example that will be demonstrated in a video at the end of the article. In our case, we will be using Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management and an external system integrated through an API (for generating API requests during the demonstration, we will be using Postman). And we also have our Dataverse base with the Inventory Visibility application as a visualizing interface for it. (The interaction scheme below is based on the information provided on the official Microsoft Learn resource
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics365/supply-chain/inventory/inventory-visibility-reservations ).

Let's imagine that we have on-hand 730 Available Physical amount of some product.

Please, attach to the file article image if it is included (.png/.jpg)

One of our sales representative persons had negotiations with potential customer and enter the request A to soft reserve 500 units using the Power platform application on his smartphone.

Inventory visibility updates after request A with 500 soft reservations and 230 still available.

Another customer created request B for 200 pieces of the same product.

Inventory visibility updates after request B with 700 soft reservations and 30 still available.

Please pay attention that the on-hand available physical in SCM is still 730 after both requests A and B.

The sales manager who works in the main office got a call from the customer and created a sales order in D365 SCM for 100 units. If the default soft reservation parameter is set to a “Block” then the sales manager will not be able to reserve 100 physical without soft reservation previously. And the soft reservation will fail due to not enough quantity. Without soft reservation functionality it will be possible to create a physical reserve in SCM for 100 units and one of the customers will faced with underdeliver problem because of double-booking.

As we see this situation is prevented when all external systems can make instant soft reservation API calls to Inventory Visibility, which provides a single source of truth for inventory availability.

Please, find the video of the Live-Demo below which demonstrates in practice the same example as described above. During my demonstration, I will show a successful soft reservation using API request and also from a Sales Order. Then I will show both of them failed because of a lack number of products in stock. And for the conclusion I will make a short overview through the Inventory Visibility Application.

Thank you for your attention to my article, hope it helps you. As usual, if you have any questions or comments, do not hesitate to contact me. I would be delighted to help you.

‍