Concepts

This section holds the conceptual documentation that doesn't fit a single endpoint reference page or a task-oriented guide: platform-wide conventions, and entity lifecycle state machines — how core domain entities move between states, which transitions are valid, and which API operations trigger each one.

Conventions

• Errors & response conventions — status-code semantics (400-not-404, the 200-despite-failure family), the validation error array, OData failure modes, async responses.
• Identifiers & natural keys — Id vs ExternalRef vs Code vs Name precedence, tag numbers, barcodes, and the deleted-record sync pattern.

Lifecycles

How core domain entities move between states, which transitions are valid, and which operations trigger each one. Each page has a state diagram, a transitions table, and links to the reference pages for every operation.

• SKU lifecycle — Draft → Active → Clearance → EOL → Discontinued, and the operational lock that gates item/tag/order creation.
• Item lifecycle — the item state machine, snapshot eligibility, deletion gates, and the order/stocktake cascades that drive it.
• Order lifecycle — order states, the type-specific flows, stage gates, and item-state cascades.
• Stocktakes & counting — inventory states, the validation engine, approval gates, cycle counts, and snapshots.
• Tasks & schedules — task/schedule states and the cross-domain auto-complete links.
• Service records — the service-record lifecycle and move-on-complete behaviour.

Platform

• Asynchronous operations — background tasks, NotifyOnceComplete, polling, and completion callbacks.
• Place hierarchy & visibility — the derived nested-set model and user place-visibility.
• Extended properties & templates — how templates, ExtendedProperty definitions, and ExtendedPropertyValue compose to provide custom fields on items, places, people, and collections.

For the authoritative shape of each entity's DTOs, see the generated API Reference.