Source configuration approaches for availability channel

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In this article

Scenario 1: Two-source approach
Scenario 2: Single source approach

When configuring your commerce catalog entity, you may choose to upload product availabilities to a separate source. This approach offers flexibility in managing availability data, but it has a key limitation, where in the search response, only items of the Product catalog object are accessible, not Availability items. This limitation applies when using a separate availability source. If you need availability information to appear alongside product data (for example, for controlling 'Add to Cart' visibility), an alternative is to use dictionary fields to store availability information directly within items of the Product catalog object.

Let’s explore two scenarios:

Scenario 1: Two-source approach

On a standard search page, to filter products by availability, you use the two-source approach by having your products and variants contained in one source and your availabilities in another. Your product and variant source metadata will look like the following.

Product metadata:

{
  "documentId": "product://001-red",
  "FileExtension": ".html",
  "ec_name": "Coveo Soccer Shoes - Red",
  "model": "Authentic",
  "ec_brand": ["Coveo"],
  "ec_description": "<p>The astonishing, the original, and always relevant Coveo style.</p>",
  "color": ["Red"],
  "ec_item_group_id": "001",
  "ec_product_id": "001-red",
  "ec_images": ["https://myimagegallery?productid"],
  "gender": "Men",
  "price_dict": {
    "": "28.00",
    "store1": "28.00",
    "store2": "30.00"
  },
  "ec_category": "Soccer Shoes",
  "objecttype": "Product"
}

Variant metadata:

{
  "documentId": "variant://001-red-8_wide",
  "FileExtension": ".html",
  "ec_name": "Coveo Soccer Shoes - Red / Size 8 - Wide",
  "ec_variant_id": "001-red-8_wide",
  "productsize": "8",
  "width": "wide",
  "ec_product_id": "001-red",
  "objecttype": "Variant"
}

Your source for availability data will look like this:

{
  "documentId": "store://s000002",
  "ec_name": "Montreal Store",
  "lat": 45.4975,
  "long": -73.5687,
  "ec_available_items": ["001-red-8_wide","001-red-9_wide","001-red-10_wide","001-red-11_wide", "001-blue-8_wide"], 1
  "ec_availability_id": "s000002",
  "objecttype": "Availability"
}

Scenario 2: Single source approach

When you want to display availability information another way, your availability information needs to appear in the same Catalog source as part of your product or variant data. For example, when you need to surface availability information on the product template to control visibility of the "add to cart" button to establish whether a product is available in a specific location. You would index your data under a single source and add the availability data info using the dictionary field.

Your product, variant, and availability source data contained in a single source will look like this:

{
  "title": "This is a product title",
  "documentId": "product://000001",
  "clickUri": "https://www.coveo.com/000001",
  "ec_brand": "Coveo",
  "objecttype": "Product",
  "ec_shortdesc": "This is a short descripton",
  "ec_product_id": "000001",
  "modelnumber": "000001",
  "ec_item_group_id": "2x8AC2",
  "subsite": "Coveo",
  "wordcount": 11,
  "ec_price": 15.79,
  "ec_promo_price": 15.79,
  "availablestores": "0001;0002;0003;0004;0005;0006;0007",
  "shippingoptions": {
    "": "Ship to Home;Ship to Store",
    "0001": "Ship to Home;Ship to Store",
    "0002": "Ship to Home;Ship to Store",
    "0003": "Ship to Store",
    "0004" : "Ship to Home;Ship to Store",
    "0005" : "Ship to Home",
    "0006" : "Ship to Home",
    "0007" : "Ship to Store"
  }
}

The availablestores field contains the list of stores, which will be used for filtering. The shippingoptions object (dictionary field) contains info specific to a store.