What is a building connection, and what do “Inventory managed by”, “Process fulfillments in Endless”, and “Push inventory” control?

A building connection links a building to one integration and, optionally, to a location in that integration through its External Location ID. Endless uses connections to know which external location’s stock to import into the building and where to send the building’s stock.

“Inventory managed by” (“Who manages inventory for this building?” on the older building page) decides who owns the counts. With Endless Commerce, you receive, adjust, and move stock in Endless. With a connected system, Endless imports that system’s counts on a schedule into the building’s Default Available and Default Unavailable locations and replaces what was there. Choose your 3PL when its counts are the ones you trust. Only integrations that can supply inventory are offered. Custom Apps can supply counts through the API without being polled by Endless.

Push inventory (“Push inventory to other systems?” on the older page) sends the building’s stock to that connection’s location when set to Yes. A connection cannot push and also be the inventory source.

“Process fulfillments in Endless” appears for integrations that create fulfillment orders. Yes permits processing of new fulfillments imported through that connection; it does not itself allocate or send them. Settings → Operations → Fulfillment Orders also offers these connection preferences. Save changes there; existing fulfillments keep their own preference.

“Default fulfillment integration” is the integration that new fulfillment orders at the building are sent to. A selection on the fulfillment order or a Set Fulfillment Integration automation can override it. When it is empty, each fulfillment is closed by its source integration or by hand. A building has one default.

A building can connect to many integrations, but only one connection per integration. Several of those can be fulfillment integrations, but only one is the default. To choose ShipStation as the default, keep one ShipStation fulfillment location on the building.

Connect each external location to one building only. Add connections on the newer building page, where the Add connection dialog blocks a location that another building already uses. Contact Endless support for help if two buildings already share a location.