What Availability Rules are used for
Use Availability Rules when you need to:
Hide products from product search in a self-service flow (so end-users never see them).
Hide products from orders in a self-service flow.
Mark products as unselectable (visible, but blocked) with a custom label explaining why.
Common examples:
Exclude final sale items from certain flows.
Show only warranty-eligible items.
Restrict a flow to a small list of SKUs/EANs for a campaign, pilot, or partner setup.
How it works (conceptually)
An Availability Rule has three parts:
Scope (optional): which request type / flow context the rule applies to
Conditions: which products it matches (e.g., SKU, EAN, tags, mapped fields)
Effect: what happens to matching products (hidden / blocked / labeled)
Setup guide (step-by-step)
Open the product datasource that your flow uses.
Go to Availability Rules (in the datasource settings).
Click Add rule.
Configure the rule:
Name: use a clear purpose-driven name (e.g., "BD flow – only allowed SKUs") (Optional)
Request type scope: choose the request type(s) this should affect (recommended when the same datasource is used across multiple flows)
Conditions: define how to match products (for example SKU/EAN)
Effect: choose one:
Hide from product search
Hide from orders
Mark as unselectable + set a label (e.g., "Not eligible for this flow")
Save the rule.
Test the flow:
Search for an allowed product (should appear and be selectable)
Search for a blocked product (should be hidden or blocked, depending on the effect)
When you might need a new datasource instead
Create a new datasource only if:
The flow needs a different underlying product catalog, or
The flow requires different product attributes/mappings that can’t exist in the shared datasource.
In most cases where it’s “same datasource, different subset of products,” Availability Rules are the intended solution.