Unclear error message when calling FulfillmentRequest

Retired Boards Appdev Fulfillment Api
3

Hi Charlie,

After doing some investigation, I’ve been able to find out the reason you get that error message for some requests. Find below an explanation of what that error means, and why you’re possibly seeing it.

  • Every line_item in an order has a fulfillment_service which indicates a third-party warehouse that’s fulfilling the item as described here. Valid values are manual (merchant would fulfill item), or the name of the provider, such as amazon or shipwire (a warehouse capable of fulfilling the item) as shown in the docs here.

  • An order item with fulfillment_service as manual indicates the merchant would be fulfilling that order ‘themselves’ (used loosely here to mean there isn’t an automated third-party service), and hence no need to make a request to a third-party service to handle that order. On the other hand, if the fulfillment_service of the order item is a service (amazon, shipwire, etc.), then the merchant would be using that service to fulfill the order item.

  • The FulfillmentOrder resource which represents either an item or a group of items in an order that are to be fulfilled from the same location has a fulfillment_service_handle field indicating how a fulfillment order would be handled. This isn’t documented but I believe the fulfillment_service_handle expects the same valid values as fulfillment_service mentioned above. Thus, the only time one would need to send a fulfillment request for a fulfillment order is when the fulfillment_service_handle has a valid value other than manual.

  • Making a fulfillment request sends a request to a service provider asking them to handle a fulfillment order (all orders associated with it) or an order item from the fulfillment order. For such a call to be valid, the fulfillment_service_handle should have the value of a valid fulfillment service centre capable of API integrations.

To answer your question about checks, yes, I believe that is the case. You would have to check to make sure the fulfillment_service_handle field of a fulfillment order is not manual before making a fulfillment request.

I hope this throws more light on the error in question and helps you take measures to avoid having this error message or to handle the error appropriately should you encounter it.

Let me know if there’s anything you’d like me to throw more light on. Thank you!

Best,

Seth.