Delaying Fulfillment Request Creation with a Wait Period
The automation settings for fulfillment requests include the option to specify a wait period, which lets you delay creation of fulfillment requests by the specified number of minutes. Delaying the creation of fulfillment requests lets you modify the sales order before fulfillment requests are created.
The wait period only applies to shipping orders. Fulfillment requests for store pickup orders are always created immediately after the sales order is saved.
The wait period duration starts when you create the sales order in the system. It is not dependent on the approval status of the sales order or the release of a payment hold on the sales order.
If you specify a wait period and select the Expected Ship Date is Reached option, the process will run after the date is reached or the wait period ends, whichever occurs last.
For example, you configure fulfillment requests to be created on the expected ship date. You also specify a wait period of 3 hours. The expected ship date is set for today. You create a sales order at 10 p.m. today. The process to create fulfillment requests will run on the next day at 1 a.m. when the wait period ends even if expected ship date is today.
The following diagram shows the timeline of the fulfillment request creation process with a wait period of 90 minutes. The selected business event is Sales Order Approved. When the sales order is created, the wait period starts. The order is approved a few minutes after it is created. At the end of the wait period, the fulfillment request is created.
If the Automatic Location Assignment feature is enabled, you can run both automation processes (automatic location assignment and fulfillment request creation) at the same time.
The following diagram shows the timeline of the fulfillment request creation process with the automatic location assignment process and a wait period of 90 minutes. The selected business event is Sales Order Approved. The option to rerun automatic location assignment is selected to ensure the ideal fulfillment locations are assigned.