Set up Fulfillment Operations
Fulfillment Operations turns Orderly Intelligence into an operational workspace for protecting shipments before they miss a carrier cutoff. It monitors connected fulfillment systems, groups related shipment risks into cases, and prepares evidence-backed actions for your team to review.
Set up Fulfillment Operations
Before you begin
Have the following information ready:
- The ShipStation, WMS, or 3PL connection that handles fulfillment.
- Each location's carrier cutoff time, timezone, and operating days.
- The source Orderly should use for shipment costs.
- Your review limits for shipment count, incremental cost, and confidence.
- The teammates who may review recommendations, approve actions, and change policy.
Fulfillment Operations is introduced organization by organization. If your team has Intelligence access but cannot see Fulfillment Ops, contact Orderly Support with your Orderly organization name.
1. Connect a fulfillment system
The first step lists active bridges that can provide operational signals or prepare fulfillment actions. ShipStation is supported, and compatible WMS and 3PL bridges can use the same normalized workflow.
If no eligible connection appears:
- Open Bridges in Orderly Hub.
- Connect or resume ShipStation, your WMS, or your 3PL bridge.
- Confirm the bridge is active and can sync shipments.
- Return to Intelligence → Fulfillment Ops.
Orderly also shows whether it has observed a live operational signal. You can continue setup while waiting for normal shipment activity; this indicator helps you confirm the connection after labels and tracking events begin flowing.
See Connect a store and sync orders for bridge setup.
2. Define carrier cutoffs
Add at least one cutoff rule. A rule tells the Network Watchtower when an untendered shipment is approaching its last responsible intervention time.
| Field | What to enter |
|---|---|
| Rule name | A recognizable label, such as East Coast · UPS Ground. |
| Fulfillment bridge | The connection responsible for this workflow. |
| Carrier code | The carrier identifier used by your shipment data, such as ups. |
| Service code | Optional service-level identifier, such as ups_ground. |
| Timezone | The location's IANA timezone, such as America/New_York. |
| Carrier cutoff | The local handoff deadline. |
| Decision buffer | How long before cutoff your team needs to review and act. |
| Operating days | The days on which this cutoff applies. |
Create separate rules when facilities, carriers, or services have different deadlines. The most specific applicable rule gives the team a more useful decision deadline.
A shipment is confirmed tendered when the carrier reports possession through an
acceptance or pickup scan. A WMS picked up or departed status is useful
provisional evidence, but it does not start the carrier transit SLA by itself.
3. Choose cost inputs and notifications
Choose the cost source that best represents the decision your team will make:
- ShipStation rates uses available shipment and rate-option costs.
- Shipment cost events uses recorded contracted, billed, surcharge, credit, claim, refund, and reship amounts when available.
- Orderly-assisted setup is for an external cost source that needs mapping.
Then confirm your three-letter currency, timezone, preferred morning briefing time, and notification channels. These preferences determine where Orderly will surface briefings and review prompts as each notification channel is enabled for your organization.
Observed cost events are shown as a health check. Selecting a cost source is required to finish setup, but the health check may remain pending until live shipments produce cost data.
4. Set the operating policy
The policy controls what the team may prepare and when human review is required.
| Level | Behavior |
|---|---|
| 1 · Observe | Detect and organize operational risk without proposing an action. |
| 2 · Recommend | Explain the preferred response without preparing an approval item. |
| 3 · Prepare for approval | Create an approval-ready action plan within your limits. |
For the initial rollout, use Level 3. Set:
- Maximum shipments in one approval.
- Maximum incremental cost for one approval.
- Minimum recommendation confidence.
- The action types the team may prepare.
- Whether the policy is active.
Available prepared actions include fulfillment holds and priority changes; carrier, service, rate, label, address, and pickup-wave changes; carrier traces; claims; reships; and customer promise or communication drafts.
Today, Level 3 records your approval but does not automatically change ShipStation, a WMS, a carrier, or a customer message. Your operator completes the approved change in the system that controls it. This keeps the initial workflow reviewable while Orderly measures outcomes.
5. Review and start validation
The final step checks four required items:
- An eligible operational bridge.
- At least one active carrier cutoff.
- A selected cost source.
- An enabled operating policy.
Select Start validation when all four are ready. The team begins monitoring live shipment signals and building cases. Use the validation period to compare recommendations with actual carrier and warehouse outcomes before changing your policy limits.
Permissions
Owners and administrators receive the Fulfillment Operations permissions by default. Custom roles can separate responsibilities:
| Permission | Allows |
|---|---|
fulfillment_operations.read | View setup, cases, evidence, recommendations, and prepared actions. |
fulfillment_operations.write | Change setup, cutoff rules, and run an evaluation. |
fulfillment_operations.approve | Approve or reject a prepared action. |
fulfillment_operations.policy_manage | Change autonomy, limits, confidence, and allowed actions. |
fulfillment_operations.emergency_manage | Reserved for emergency controls as execution capabilities expand. |
See Organization, team and roles to manage access.