The FulfillmentOrder resource represents either an item or a group of items in an order that are to be fulfilled from the same location. There can be more than one fulfillment order for an order at a given location.

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Fulfillment orders represent the work which is intended to be done in relation to an order. When the fulfillment of some or all line items has started, a Fulfillment is created by a merchant or third party to represent the ongoing or completed work of fulfillment. See below for more details on creating fulfillments.

Note

Shopify creates fulfillment orders automatically when an order is created. It is not possible to manually create fulfillment orders.

See below for more details on the lifecycle of a fulfillment order.

Retrieving fulfillment orders

All fulfillment orders related to a given order can be retrieved with the Get fulfillment orders by order ID endpoint. API access scopes govern which fulfillments orders are returned to clients. An API client will only receive a subset of the fulfillment orders which belong to an order if they don't have the necessary access scopes to view all of the fulfillment orders.

Fulfillment service apps can retrieve the fulfillment orders which have been assigned to their locations with the AssignedFulfillmentOrder resource. The `assignment_status` parameter in the Retrieve a list of assigned fulfillment orders query controls whether all assigned fulfillment orders should be returned or only those where a merchant has sent a fulfilment request and it has yet to be responded to. The API client must be granted the `read_assigned_fulfillment_orders` access scope to access the assigned fulfillment orders.

A specific fulfillment order can be retrieved with the Get fulfillment order endpoint.

The lifecycle of a fulfillment order

Fulfillment Order Creation

After an order is created, a background worker performs the order routing process which determines which locations will be responsible for fulfilling the purchased items. Once the order routing process is complete, one or more fulfillment orders will be created and assigned to these locations. It is not possible to manually create fulfillment orders.

Once a fulfillment order has been created, it will have one of two different lifecycles depending on the type of location which the fulfillment order is assigned to.

The lifecycle of a fulfillment order at a merchant managed location

Fulfillment orders are completed by creating fulfillments. Fulfillments represents the work done.

For digital products a merchant or an order management app would create a fulfilment once the digital asset has been provisioned. For example, in the case of a digital gift card, a merchant would to do this once the gift card has been activated - before the email being shipped.

On the other hand, for a traditional shipped order, a merchant or an order management app would create a fulfillment after picking and packing the items relating to a fulfillment order, but before the courier has collected the goods.

Learn about managing fulfillment orders as an order management app.

The lifecycle of a fulfillment order at a location which is managed by a fulfillment service

For fulfillment orders which are assigned to a location that is managed by a fulfillment service, a merchant or an Order Management App can send a fulfillment request to the fulfillment service which operates the location to request that they fulfill the associated items. A fulfillment service has the option to accept or reject this fulfillment request.

Once the fulfillment service has accepted the request, the request can no longer be cancelled by the merchant or order management app and instead a cancellation request must be submitted to the fulfillment service.

Once a fulfillment service accepts a fulfillment request, then after they are ready to pack items and send them for delivery, they create fulfillments with the Create a fulfillment for one or many fulfillment orders endpoint. They can provide tracking information right away or create fulfillments without it and then update tracking information for fulfillments.

Learn about managing fulfillment orders as a fulfillment service.

API access scopes

Fulfillment orders are governed by the following API access scopes:

The read_merchant_managed_fulfillment_orders and write_merchant_managed_fulfillment_orders access scopes grant access to fulfillment orders assigned to merchant-managed locations.
The read_assigned_fulfillment_orders and write_assigned_fulfillment_orders access scopes are intended for fulfillment services. These scopes grant access to fulfillment orders assigned to locations that are being managed by fulfillment services.
The read_third_party_fulfillment_orders and write_third_party_fulfillment_orders access scopes grant access to fulfillment orders assigned to locations managed by other fulfillment services.

Fulfillment service app access scopes

Usually, fulfillment services have the write_assigned_fulfillment_orders access scope and don't have the *_third_party_fulfillment_orders or *_merchant_managed_fulfillment_orders access scopes. The app will only have access to the fulfillment orders assigned to their location (or multiple locations if the app registers multiple fulfillment services on the shop). The app will not have access to fulfillment orders assigned to merchant-managed locations or locations owned by other fulfillment service apps.

Order management app access scopes

Order management apps will usually request write_merchant_managed_fulfillment_orders and write_third_party_fulfillment_orders access scopes. This will allow them to manage all fulfillment orders on behalf of a merchant.

If an app combines the functions of an order management app and a fulfillment service, then the app should request all access scopes to manage all assigned and all unassigned fulfillment orders.

Notifications about fulfillment orders

Fulfillment services are required to register a self-hosted callback URL which has a number of uses. One of these uses is that this callback URL will be notified whenever a merchant submits a fulfillment or cancellation request.

Both merchants and apps can subscribe to fulfillment order webhooks to be notified whenever fulfillment order related domain events occur.

Learn about fulfillment workflows.