Everything About Magento 2 Multi Source Inventory (MSI) |Landofcoder

January 15, 2019

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Everything About Magento 2 Multi Source Inventory (MSI)

Magento 2.3 is not new to you, right? Along with the recent release of Magento 2.3 version, Magento 2 Multi-Source Inventory (MSI) project is introduced as a core solution for inventory management.

Why do you need Magento 2 Multi Source Inventory?

Until now, it’s a tough task to manage multi-source inventory from a single website. Hence, the trending in Magento now is managing inventory with multi channels. In particular, a Magento eCommerce website is selling items in multiple countries, it will have a certain inventory of specific products in different sources or locations. Therefore, a powerful tool to manage inventory in multisource is necessary for any Magento store.

Table of Contents

I. What’s Magento 2 Multi Source Inventory (MSI)?

It’s said that MSI doesn’t stand for Multi Source Inventory. MSI is a brand new inventory mangement mechanism for multi-source support. Amazingly, the current codebase of Magento modules is 483,254 lines of PHP code while MSI takes 46,844 lines.

Magento Multi Source Inventory (MSI) extension is an advanced solution to imptove inventory management. It enables to manage inventory of a single or across multiple locations or sources (channels) with coincident checkout protection and shipment matching algorithm.

Inventory management helps you expand your website by adding stocks & sources, updating quantities and increasing new sales channels. Besides, MSI limits negative impact on the checkout perfomance caused by source selection algorithm. Hence, you can still optimize checkout page and minimize abandoned cart for your website.

II. Some Magento 2 Multi Source Inventory Concepts

To understanding Magento 2 Multi Source Inventory more clearly, let’s explore some main concepts of this project.

Magento 2 MSI Sources

Sources are physical locations stocks placed and products stored. Those locations can be warehouses, brick-and-mortar stores, distribution centers or drop shippers. You will be in single source mode if ou have 1 source. On the other hand, if you have multiple sources, you will be in multi source mode.

2. Magento 2 MSI Stocks

Stocks work as a virtual product inventory representation for multiple sources of sales channels. Each stock represent a sale channel (website) with its available inventory and salable quantity.

3. Magento 2 MSI Sales Channels

Sales channels (Magento store websites) are linked to stocks and represent to sell your inventory.

4. Magento 2 MSI Salable Quantity

Salable quantity is a virtual number of product inventory which is calculated. After sources are linked to stocks, each stock will specify the number of products per source & product and will be linked to a corresponding sale channel.

5. Magento 2 MSI Source Selection Algorithm

Source selection algorithm is used to analyze whether the combination between sources and shipping using prioritized source order is the best. An important function of this algorithm during order shipment is suggesting proper sources, available quantities and amounts for shipping deduction.

6. Magento 2 MSI Partial Shipment and Drop Shipping

Magento 2 Multi Source Inventory extension will enable you to ship partially. Particularly, for items asked to be delivered upfront, you can split shipment and choose another stock with faster delivery. What’s more? You also can add a drop shipping partner to available sources if you want.

III. Outstanding Features Of Magento 2 Multi Source Inventory (MSI)

With Magento 2 MSI, you can manage the inventory with different warehouse locations, product types, or sources. Inventory management supports many product types such as simple, bundle, download, or virtual. Besides, it supports auto shipping items from multiple sources to complete orders based on balanced inventory, shipping cost, etc.

Magento Multi Source Inventory Management features and processes

Let’s see what highlight features you can get from Multi Source Inventory (MSI) in Magento 2.3.

Enable both single sourcing products and multi-sourcing products. However, for multi-sourcing, bundle product type is not supported.
Create unlimited sources with particular locations (warehouses, storefronts) and available shipping options
Add stocks to assemble virtual inventory from several or all sources]
Associate stock to sales channels with sources in priority
Override and rerun sources matching order shipments
Ship partial and distributed shipments from multiple locations
Allow orders that have multiple address shipping
Track, update, and transfer inventory quantities of each source
Set notifications for low available/salable inventory, out-of-stock, and backorders
Develop algorithms for customized sources and orders matching sales channels
Compatible with the 3rd party inventory system, warehouse, and order management that uses MSI APIs
Work with B2B. Products must be currently connected with the Default Stock

IV. How To Install Multi Source Inventory For Magento 2.3

We would like to introduce you the detailed tutotial for Magento 2.3 Multi Source Inventory (MSI) installation.

Step 1

You must download Magento 2.3 first.

Link download

2. Step 2

Go to Magento 2.3 root in terminal and run composer install

3. Step 3

Update the respository to install php 7.2. Run commands

Install Multi Source Inventory For Magento 2.3

You can run this command php -v to check the result.

4. Step 4

Install required dependencies for magento 2.3 and php 7.2 by running commands

nstall Multi Source Inventory For Magento 2.3

Then, you can run composer install again to complete the magento installation.

5. Step 5

Create new database in your phpmyadmin to install Magento

6. Step 6

Run command to setup sample data into your Magento 2.3

For username and password, you can create your account here to get a public key (username) and a private key (password) for credentials.

7. Step 7

Complete to install MSI in Magento 2.3

Congrats!. You have installed Magento 2.3 MSI on your server successfully.

V. How To Use Magento 2 Multi Source Inventory

To help you take advantage of Magento 2 Multi Source Inventory (MSI) effectively, we will show you how to use this module with ease.

Manage Sources

For each inventory location, you need to create corresponding sources. In ‘Manage Sources’, you can create unlimited physical locations of products by clicking on ‘Add New Source’ button. These sources can be warehouse or store.

How to Manage Sources in Magento 2 Multi Source Inventory

For each source, you can enable/disable, edit name, add description, latitude and longitude. Note that required parameters for a source are Name and Code.

2. Manage Stocks

If you want to create stocks for sales channels (Magento websites), go to ‘Manage Stock’ and hit on ‘Add New Stock’.

How to Manage Stocks in Magento 2 Multi Source Inventory

‘Sales Channels’ represent your stocks so you can assign souces to each sales channel.

3. Manage Catalog Product Inventory

When you want to add or edit a product, you need to assign sources to that product. Also, you can fill in available quantity of the product. At the same time, for each source, you can use the default notification for quantity.

How to Manage Catalog Product Inventory in Magento 2 Multi Source Inventory

4. Manage Order

Salable quantity is changed when a new order is placed and paid. And the source selection algorithm will be used when we create a shipment. This algorithm will calculate a new order should be delivered from which sources. Note that Magento 2.3 allows only one source selection algorithm based on source priority so you should specify it manually.

How To Manage Order in Magento 2 Multi Source Inventory

5. Use Rest APIs For Inventory

APIs are provided to move stock, create reports, synchronize with other Enterprise Resource Planning systems, etc. You can refer some guide for using APIs by MSI.

Link/unlink stocks & sources

Perform mass actions

VI. Conclusion

Magento 2 Multi Source Inventory (MSI) is a wonderful improvement along with Magento 2.3 extensions to manage your inventory with multi source. Thus, understanding its essential functionality and how to install & use effectively is necessary for Magento 2 enthusiasts. We also hope that this blog can help you to optimize your store rapidly.