Retail Architecture

Retail Architecture

Note: Retail SDK contains samples for customizing the individual retail component.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 provides a large range of solutions for MNC and SME daily operational tasks, among these Retail is one module that is used for retail store and operations management in a simplified and unified manner. Dynamics 365 for Retail is comprised of multiple parts which combined together forms up a complete retail solution which are:

Retail Headquarter:

                Retail headquarter handles processes including but not limited to retail stores and channels management, Catalog management, Store wise assortments, Sales transactions, Pricing etc. It acts as a communication point between the retail stores, ecommerce stores and the head office. It is D365 for finance and Operations.

Channels:

                Channels are the retail stores which can be a physical entity or an ecommerce online store. Channels are the main end point for the retail operations. They are composed of retail point of sale (pos) and hardware stations. A channel may contain a retail server as well but not necessary.

Retail POS:

                Retail POS is the point of sale for the end to end business operations. Dynamics 365 for Retail offers two type of POS

                Modern Point of Sale (MPOS)

                Cloud Point of Sale (CPOS)

MPOS is a device based point of sale which can be deployed on a supported PC, tablet or phone. CPOS is a cloud based solution which is deployed on the cloud and accessed through a browser.

Retail store scale unit:

                Retail Store Scale Unit (RSSU) is comprised of attributes which provide retail operations capabilities to the stores where constant internet connectivity is not available. RSSU keeps in sync with the retail headquarter when internet connectivity is available.

Hardware Station:

                Hardware station is a server that provides centralized connectivity between the POS and hardware peripherals devices (printers, cash drawers etc). Hardware station can also be dedicated, which are peripherals directly connect to the MPOS without an 

intermediate server. 

Retail Server:

                Retail Server is comprised of a set of APIs which can be accessed in order to perform operations through POS or online stores.

The main component of retail server are

Entity Type

                An entity is just like an oop class it has a state which is to be monitored example a Customer

Complex Type

                A complex type is an ODATA concept which groups related information into one that can be reused by multiple entity types.

Controller

                A controller is a Web Api which contains actions which control the CRUD operations for the entities. A controller must be related to only one entity type.

Metadata

                Defines a contract between the client and server.

We can customize a controller or create new controller, entity type and complex type as per our need in the retail server.

Commerce Runtime (CRT):

                Commerce Runtime is the core engine which performs all the core business operations and contains the business logic for retail. It is comprised of multiple layers that are data access layer, workflow layer, service layer and API layer.

Commerce Data Exchange (CDX):

                          Performs the synchronization between the retail store and head quarter. It is comprised of real time services and async services. The real-time services are responsible for performing task such as issuing and redeeming a gift card, make payment through loyalty card, Inventory Lookup, while the async services are responsible for data exchange between the channel database and the retail head quarter.

Reatil Request Life Cycle:

                When an operation request is generated by the POS it calls a retail server Web Api which then based on the request type calls the required service, workflow, trigger or any CRT api. Which then generates a response and provides it back to the POS.



check out introduction to retail sdk here.