Develop > Controller layer > Order and quote capture integration > Order and quote capture integration flows
Catalog browse flow
This section describes the message flows between WebSphere Commerce and the external system when a customer browses the catalog.
Following are the series of actions involved in browsing the catalog after a customer logs in to the WebSphere Commerce storefront, browses different categories of products, and requests product details:
- The WebSphere Commerce storefront calls WebSphere Commerce to retrieve inventory availability information. If the inventory information is available in WebSphere Commerce cache, it is displayed to the customer; otherwise GetInventoryAvailability call is made to the external system to retrieve the inventory availability value for a specific product.
- The WebSphere Commerce storefront calls WebSphere Commerce to retrieve the offer price for a product. If the offer price is available in WebSphere Commerce cache, it is displayed to the customer; otherwise GetPriceList call is made to the external system to retrieve the offer price value for a specific product.
The following diagram shows the catalog browse message flow between WebSphere Commerce and an external system.
Related concepts
Inventory availability caching
Transforming, loading, and extracting data using the WebSphere Commerce loading utilities