Salesforce Docs Portal

Estimate Delivery Dates with AI Tools

Prepare your delivery estimation configuration and quote delivery promises to customers in one conversation. With headless Order Management, the AI client reads and updates your estimation setup and returns a delivery date.

Required Editions

View supported editions.

Delivery estimation depends on a layered configuration—processing times, carrier methods, routing, and business hours—that's easy to get wrong and hard to validate. With headless Order Management, an operations manager can tune that configuration in a conversation. A service agent can quote a reliable delivery date from the same live setup.

Note
Note Because an AI client uses large language models, which are probabilistic, results can vary from one run to the next. If you get an unexpected result, describe to the agent what happened so that it can help you diagnose and adjust. You don't need a specific model.

Scenario

Cloud Kicks is preparing for a holiday surge. Dana, an operations manager, must confirm that delivery estimates hold up before traffic spikes. Rather than click through processing time and carrier pages, Dana asks the AI client to show the processing time hierarchy. Dana asks it to extend a carrier method, add holiday closures, and turn on in-store pickup for a set of stores. Later, a service agent asks the same client to estimate whether a stock keeping unit (SKU) can reach a customer by a target date. In a single request, the agent returns an estimated delivery date. When standard shipping misses the date, it re-runs the estimate for in-store pickup.

Requirements

Complete the shared setup in AI Agent Use Cases for Order Management.

This use case also needs:

  • Order Management configured with Delivery Estimation setup: locations, location groups, carriers, and carrier methods for at least one managed carrier region.
  • Fulfillment routing configured with at least one rule group assigned to the Delivery Estimation setup.
  • An org-default processing time on at least one location, and business hours on locations so the agent can derive pickup windows.
  • The Order Management Operations Manager permission set to change delivery estimation configuration. To quote a delivery date without changing configuration, the Order Management Agent permission set is enough. If your org doesn't include Omnichannel Inventory, use Order Management: Operations Manager without Omnichannel Inventory or Order Management: Agent without Omnichannel Inventory.

The estimation functionality comes from the Salesforce Order Management APIs (Generally Available), which read and update the delivery estimation configuration and run the estimation pipeline. This use case is recommended for operations managers who tune delivery configuration and for service agents who quote delivery dates. It assumes familiarity with processing times, carriers, and fulfillment routing.

Agentic Tips

  • Describe your goal in your own words. For example:
    • "Show me the processing-time hierarchy for my locations."
    • "What's the delivery estimate for SKU BOOT-WOMENS-BRN-8 shipped to 94105 by Friday?"
    • "Can this SKU reach 94105 by Friday? If standard shipping misses it, does in-store pickup make the date?"
  • Include the SKU, the destination, the target date, and which shipping or pickup options to consider.
  • Have the agent read the current configuration before it acts. Make one change at a time, and then have the agent read the configuration back to verify.
  • Approve each configuration change. Review and confirm each write before the agent applies it. Quotes are read-only and don't need approval.
  • Avoid pasting credentials into a prompt. The agent acts as your authenticated user through the connected org.

Design Considerations

  • A delivery quote records the estimate but doesn't place an order.
  • Estimates reflect your current configuration. If standard shipping misses the target date, ask the agent to re-run the estimate for an alternate option, such as in-store pickup.

Tune Configuration and Quote a Delivery Date

Review and update delivery estimation configuration, then quote a delivery date.

Required Editions

  1. Confirm that your AI client is connected to Order Management as an authenticated user.
    The user needs permission to read and write estimation configuration and run the estimation pipeline.
  2. Ask the agent to show the processing-time hierarchy.
    The hierarchy is the org-default time and the more specific per-location times that override it.
  3. Ask the agent to update processing times, add a carrier method, set category-level processing times, add holiday closures, or enable in-store pickup for selected locations.
    The agent gathers the requirements it needs before it writes any configuration, and confirms each write.
  4. To quote a customer, ask the agent for the delivery estimate for a SKU shipped to a location by a target date.
    The agent evaluates availability, routing, carrier transit, and your configuration, then returns an estimated delivery date.
  5. If standard shipping misses the target date, ask the agent to re-run the estimate for an alternate option and show whether it meets the date.

For configuration changes, ask the agent to read the configuration back; it reflects the new processing times, carrier methods, holiday hours, and pickup settings. For a customer quote, the agent returns an estimated delivery date that reflects your current configuration and the selected shipping or pickup option.