Skip to main content

Engagements

Concept: Lifecycle containers that model commerce as conversations, not isolated transactions.

What is an Engagement?​

An engagement is the complete commerce conversation between your business and a customer. It's not just an order — it's the entire journey:

  • Customer browses products
  • Requests a quote
  • Negotiates pricing
  • Configures products
  • Places an order
  • Inventory is allocated
  • Payment is processed
  • Items are shipped
  • Delivery is confirmed

All of this happens within one engagement. Every interaction, every state change, every decision is captured and preserved.

Why Not Just "Orders"?​

Traditional e-commerce has:

  • Cart (temporary, often lost)
  • Order (transactional, created at checkout)
  • Fulfillment (separate system, disconnected from order context)

B2B commerce needs:

  • Engagement (persistent conversation that starts with first product view)
  • Complete context throughout the entire journey
  • Seamless progression from quote to order to fulfillment
  • Full audit trail of decisions and changes

Engagement Lifecycle​

Each status represents a stage in the conversation. The engagement carries all context forward through each transition.

What Lives in an Engagement?​

  • Identity — Customer, tenant, channel information
  • Line Items — Products, quantities, configurations
  • Pricing — Calculations, modifiers, customer-specific rules
  • Fulfillment — Inventory allocation, warehouse assignments, tracking
  • Metadata — Custom fields, notes, references (PO numbers, delivery instructions)
  • Events — Complete audit trail of every change

Everything needed to understand and complete the commerce conversation.

How Engagements Work Across Systems​

In CommerceBridge​

The Bridge manages engagement state, lifecycle transitions, and coordinates workers to process engagement-related tasks.

In Touchpoint​

The UI displays and updates engagements in real-time. As customers add products or change quantities, the engagement updates. When they checkout, the engagement transitions from 'active' to 'processing'.

In Workers​

Workers receive engagement IDs in their job cards, fetch the engagement from the Bridge, perform their task (price calculation, inventory allocation, notification), and update the engagement state.

Benefits​

1. Complete Context Every system has access to the full conversation history.

2. Seamless Workflow Quote evolves into order without data loss or system handoffs.

3. Real-Time Sync UI, workers, and integrations all work with the same engagement model.

4. Audit Trail Every action is recorded for compliance and debugging.

Learn More​

For detailed implementation, see:

Engagements: Where commerce conversations live.