Why aren't fulfillment orders auto-generating for my sales orders, and how do I diagnose and resolve it?

Symptom

One or more posted sales orders have an empty Fulfillment Orders panel — no fulfillment orders were created automatically, and no error message was shown. Orders may sit unfulfilled indefinitely while appearing to be in a normal state.

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Why it happens

Fulfillment-order auto-generation runs on one of three schedules, set on the Auto-Generation Trigger dropdown at Operations → Operations Admin → Smart Fulfillment Settings:

Manual — no automatic generation at all; every FO must be created by hand or via bulk action. Immediate — FOs are generated a short delay (a configurable number of minutes) after the order posts. This is a common configuration — don't assume your account runs on a daily batch. Scheduled — FOs are generated once per day. The "once a day, looking back at most two days" behavior only applies in this mode.

If any of these conditions is not met, the order is silently skipped:

1. The sales order must be posted. Unposted orders are always ignored.
2. A Fulfillment Priority List must exist. Either a system-wide default list, or a product-specific list must be configured. Without one, the system does not know which warehouse group to assign items to.
3. Stock must be sufficient — unless "Always Create" is enabled. The system calculates available stock for each warehouse group as on-hand quantity minus pending quantity at the moment of generation. If no warehouse group meets the minimum stock threshold, and the Always Create setting is off, no fulfillment order is generated.
4. The partial fulfillment threshold must be met. Each warehouse group must have at least a minimum percentage (default: 50%) of the remaining item quantity in order to be considered eligible.

If Order Consolidation is enabled but the required stock is split across multiple warehouses, Luminous will not create any FOs and will display an explicit error rather than skipping quietly.

How to resolve

Work through these checks in order. After addressing the underlying cause, use Step 6 to manually trigger generation without waiting for the next daily run.

Step 1 — Confirm the sales order is posted

1. Open the sales order in Luminous.
2. Check the order's status badge. It must show Posted.
3. If the order is still in Draft or another pre-posting state, complete the posting process first. Auto-generation will not run on unposted orders under any circumstances.

Step 2 — Check your Smart Fulfillment Settings

1. Go to Operations → Operations Admin → Smart Fulfillment Settings.

2. Review the following settings:

   Setting	What to check
   Always Create	If this is off (the default), no fulfillment order will be generated for any order with insufficient stock. Turn it on if you want orders created even when stock is low or zero.
   Order Consolidation	When on (default), the system tries to ship everything from a single warehouse first. If your highest-priority warehouse can't cover the full order, it may fall back to splitting — or produce no result if splitting is also disabled.
   Allow a single order line to be split	When off (default), items cannot be split across multiple warehouses. If no single warehouse has enough stock, no fulfillment order is created. Enable this setting if you want items distributed across warehouses.
   Partial order fulfillment threshold (%)	Appears once Allow partial order fulfillment is checked. The minimum percentage of an item's quantity a warehouse must have to be considered. Raising this above 50% makes it harder to qualify; lowering it toward 0% makes it easier.

3. Save any changes you make.

Step 3 — Verify a Fulfillment Priority List is configured

1. Go to Operations → Operations Admin → Fulfillment Priority Lists.
2. Confirm that a list is selected in the Default Fulfillment Priority List field on the Smart Fulfillment Settings page.
3. Open the default list and verify it contains at least one active warehouse group entry. A priority list with no warehouse group lines behaves the same as having no list at all.
4. If no default list exists, create one and add the warehouse group(s) that should fulfill orders.

Product-level override: Individual products can be assigned their own priority list. If a product's list was deleted or emptied, that product's line items will be skipped. Check the product record if only some items on an order are affected.

Step 4 — Check available stock levels

1. Open the product(s) on the affected order and review inventory levels across your warehouse groups.
2. Remember that available stock = on-hand minus pending at the time generation runs. An item that appears to have on-hand stock may still fail if a large amount of that stock is already pending against other orders.
3. If stock is the blocker, you have two options:
   • Replenish stock so the threshold is met.
   • Enable Always Create (Step 2) so fulfillment orders are created regardless of stock levels.

Step 5 — Enable shortage alerts so you are notified proactively

1. Return to Operations → Operations Admin → Smart Fulfillment Settings.
2. Check Enable Alerts and select one or more users under Notification Recipients, then click Save.
3. Going forward, whenever auto-generation is blocked by a stock shortage, those recipients will receive an email listing exactly which SKUs were short and how much stock was available versus requested.

Step 6 — Manually trigger auto-generation

Once you have corrected the underlying issue, do not wait for the next daily run — trigger generation immediately:

For a single order:

1. Open the sales order.
2. Open the Fulfillment Orders tab.
3. Click Actions and choose Auto Generate Fulfillment Orders.
4. Confirm the prompt. Luminous runs the engine and refreshes the panel.

For multiple orders at once:

1. Go to the Sales Orders list.
2. Select the orders that need fulfillment orders.
3. Open the Bulk Actions menu and choose Auto Generate Fulfillment Orders.

Note: The daily automatic run only processes orders posted within the past two days. If a sales order was posted more than two days ago and still has no fulfillment order, you must use the manual trigger above.

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When to contact support

Contact Luminous support if:

• You have verified all the steps above and fulfillment orders are still not being created.
• Auto-generation works for some channels but not others — this may indicate a channel-level configuration override that overrides your system-wide Always Create setting.
• You believe orders from more than two days ago should be picked up by the daily run automatically.
• You need proximity-based (location-aware) warehouse routing enabled — this requires specific feature flags and warehouse coordinate setup that must be done by Luminous staff.