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Business units

Business Unit​

All orders must be connected to a business unit (AKA a store). The Hii Retail platform is in most cases dependent on knowing at least basic information about all stores that will use the solution. To learn more about Business Units, you can check the Business Unit API. Once the stores are created, every request to Click and Collect has to say which store it concerns — but how you pass it depends on which interface you are calling:

  • REST — the business unit is part of the path: /api/v1/business-units/{businessUnitId}/orders/…
  • GraphQL — the business unit is a required header, Business-Unit-Id. A query without it is rejected.

Every request names the store it concerns, in a different place per interface. On the REST API the business unit is part of the path, as in /api/v1/business-units/stockholm/orders. On GraphQL it is the required Business-Unit-Id header, and a query without it is rejected.

Business unit layout​

Stores are rarely laid out alike, and a picker's natural starting point differs from shop to shop. So each store can map its own picking path: an ordered list of item categories and sub-categories, arranged into zones that match the physical floor. Any authorised user can do this in the app.

The picker's list follows the layout. Each order line is placed by its item's category, so a picker walks the store once in the order the store set, instead of criss-crossing the floor. The same order picked in two stores can be walked in two different orders; nothing about the order changes, only the sequence the picker sees.

The store's layout turns the pick list into one loop. Anna's order has socks, baked beans, bananas, milk and frozen peas. Without a layout the lines come in the order they arrived, and the picker walks back and forth across the floor. With the Stockholm store's layout the list runs bananas, beans, socks, milk, peas: one loop from fruit and veg round to the freezer. A category with no place in the layout comes last.

  • A category with no place in the layout comes last. A new category that nobody has placed yet still appears, at the end of the list, never left out.
  • Without a layout, the list is still in a stable order: the same order shows the same sequence every time it is opened.
  • The layout orders the lines within the picker's groups, Needs review, Next to pick and Picked. It does not replace them.
  • Changing the layout does not reshuffle an order someone is already picking. The new order applies to orders picked after the change.