Bulk actions on the sales orders list

The Sales Orders list lets you act on many orders at once instead of opening them one by one. Check the rows you want, choose whether the action applies to your selection or to every order matching your filters, then run a bulk action — dispatch, archive, delete, approve, email, allocate, and more. This guide also covers exporting the list to a spreadsheet.

Before you begin

• Open the list at Orders → Sales Orders.
• Anyone with list access can browse and select rows. Each bulk action is permission-gated — buttons you lack permission for don't appear (and some sit inside the More menu).
• The examples below use customer Blue Bottle Retail and order SO-DOCS-0001.

Action	Permission required
Dispatch Fulfillments	Fulfill sales orders
Archive / Unarchive	Update sales orders
Delete	Delete sales orders
Approve	Approve sales orders
Close	Cancel sales orders
Mark as Draft, Print Packing Slips, Send Email, Allocate / Unallocate	Update sales orders
Generate RMAs	Create returns
Export	Export sales orders

Select orders and choose a scope

1. Select rows with the checkboxes in the first column. A bulk-actions bar appears above the table showing how many items you've selected.
2. Choose the scope with the toggle on the left of the bar (see the warning below). Each option shows its count in parentheses:
   • Selected Only — acts on the rows you checked.
   • All Filtered — acts on every order that matches your current filters, including rows on pages you can't see.
3. Run an action (see the sections below), then confirm in the dialog. Use Clear Selection to deselect without acting.

"All Filtered" acts on every matching order, not just what's on screen

Each toggle option shows its count in parentheses. If your filters match 4,000 orders and only 25 are on screen, All Filtered (4000) archives, deletes, or emails all 4,000 — not the 25 in view. Before running a destructive bulk action with All Filtered, glance at the count in parentheses and confirm your filters describe exactly the set you intend. To narrow the set first, see List columns and filters.

A few actions always use your checked rows

The scope toggle governs Dispatch Fulfillments, Archive, Unarchive, Delete, Print Packing Slips, Send Email, Allocate, Unallocate, and Generate RMAs. Approve, Mark as Draft, Close, and Trace Genealogy always operate on the rows you have checked, regardless of the toggle. Trace Genealogy is capped at 500 orders per run.

Run a bulk action

The bar shows the most common actions as buttons; the rest live under the More menu (the chevron button).

Bulk action	Where	What it does
Dispatch Fulfillments	Button	Submits the orders' parked fulfillment orders to their carrier or 3PL. See Fulfill a sales order.
Archive	Button	Hides the orders from the everyday list without deleting them. Shows only when the selection isn't already archived.
Unarchive	Button	Restores archived orders to the working list. Shows only when the selection is already archived.
Delete	Button	Permanently removes the orders and everything derived from them. Runs as a background job. See Close, cancel, archive, and delete orders.
Approve	More	Approves the selected draft orders, committing stock through allocations. See Approve, reserve, and allocate stock.
Mark as Draft	More	Reverts open orders to draft, reversing their fulfillment and accounting records.
Close	More	Closes the selected orders. Orders with active backorders or unmapped lines are skipped.
Print Packing Slips (New) / Print Packing Slips (Legacy / Jasper)	More	Generates packing-slip PDFs for the selection with the chosen renderer. See Generate invoices, packing slips, and accounting.
Send Email	More	Emails customers about the selected orders. See Email customers about orders.
Allocate / Unallocate	More	Reserves or releases on-hand stock for the selected orders' lines. See Approve, reserve, and allocate stock.
Generate RMAs	More	Creates return authorizations against the selection. See Process returns: RMAs and credits.
Trace Genealogy (Backward)	More	Opens the lot-genealogy report tracing the checked orders' finished goods back to their raw-ingredient lots and vendors — useful for a recall.

Partial results are reported, not fatal

Bulk Approve and Close report per-order results: if some orders can't be processed (an empty draft can't be approved; an order with active backorders can't close), the successful ones still go through and you get a warning listing which were skipped and why. Delete, Send Email, Allocate/Unallocate, Print Packing Slips, and Generate RMAs run as tracked background jobs — watch their progress and completion summary in the job tray.

Dispatch fulfillments to a provider

Dispatch Fulfillments opens a dialog that lets you relax the pre-dispatch checks before handing the shipments off.

1. Click Dispatch Fulfillments.
2. Under Override Fulfillment Validations (Disable validations):, turn on any switch you want to bypass:
   • Out of Sync Fulfillment Status
   • Shipping Method Mapped
   • All Lines Mapped to Products
   • Restrict Manual Shipping Provider (Allow Manual Fulfillments)
   • All Lines Fully Fulfillable (Allow Partial Fulfillments)
3. Click the Dispatch for… button (it names the current scope) to submit.

"Dispatch Disabled" instead of a button

When shipping-provider dispatch is switched off for the environment, the Dispatch Fulfillments button is replaced by a red Dispatch Disabled chip. Hover it for the reason. An administrator enables dispatch in the environment configuration.

Email customers about orders

Send Email (in the More menu) sends one email per customer about their selected orders, following the Selected Only / All Filtered scope.

1. In the More menu, click Send Email. The Email Customers About Orders dialog opens.
2. Read the Recipients summary. It resolves your selection into customers and shows a count such as 12 orders → 9 emails, with chips for how many will send, are skipped (no email), skipped (opted out), or over cap. Click Refresh to re-run the preview after edits.
3. Choose an email template from the dropdown, or keep the built-in default. Use Manage templates to open the template settings in a new tab.
4. Edit the Subject, add any CC addresses (press Enter after each; up to 25), and edit the Body. Insert {{orders_table}} to place each customer's order table and {{customer_name}} for their name.
5. Select any Attachments (order documents) to include — up to 25.
6. Set the two options:
   • Combine multiple orders for the same customer into one email — on by default, so a customer with three orders gets one email, not three.
   • Skip customers who have opted out of marketing emails — on by default.
7. Expand Preview sample email to see a rendered sample addressed to a masked recipient.
8. Click Send Emails (the button shows the resolved count, for example Send 9 Emails). The send runs as a tracked job — track its progress in the job tray.

Orders without an email are always skipped

Orders whose customer has no email address are never sent to — this can't be overridden. A per-send recipient cap protects against runaway blasts; anything beyond it shows in the over cap chip and is left unsent. To email a single order instead, open it and use the email action in its header.

Export the list

Export writes the orders to an XLSX or CSV spreadsheet. The file includes exactly the columns you have visible in the grid, so tune your columns first if you want a specific layout.

1. Click Export in the list header to open the Export dialog.

2. Pick Records to export:

   Scope	What it exports
   All records	Every sales order, ignoring your current filters.
   Filtered results	Every order matching your active filters. Shows only when filters are active.
   Current page	Just the rows on the page you're viewing.
   Selected records	The rows you've checked. Shows only when you have a selection.

3. Pick a Content mode:

   • SO Summary — one row per sales order. This mode exports exactly the columns you have visible in the list, so tune the Columns menu first if you want a specific layout.
   • SO with Line Items — one row per line item, with the order's details repeated on each. The line-item columns are always fully included, regardless of which columns are visible.

4. Pick a File format: XLSX (Excel) or CSV.

5. Click Export.

For the full column-by-column list of both modes — and the pipe-delimited format of the Order Discounts / Line Discounts cells — see the Export sales order columns reference.

A raw export isn't directly re-importable

Export headings are display labels ("Order #", "Item SKU"), not the importer's field keys (sales_order_number, sku). To bulk-update orders instead, start from the import template and the importable columns reference.

Large exports run in the background

Small exports download immediately with a timestamped name (for example sales-orders-2026-07-10-14-30-05.xlsx, or sales-orders-detail-2026-07-10-14-30-05.xlsx for line-item mode). A large export — roughly a thousand orders or more — is handed to a background job instead; you get a "track progress in the job tray" message and the file becomes available from the tray when it finishes. A Current page export always downloads inline.

Common problems

Symptom	Likely cause	Fix
A bulk action affected far more orders than expected.	The scope toggle was on All Filtered, which acts on every matching order across all pages.	Narrow your filters, or switch to Selected Only, and re-check the count in parentheses before confirming.
Some orders were skipped by Close or Approve.	Those orders had active backorders or unmapped lines (Close), or were empty drafts (Approve).	Read the warning listing which were skipped and why, then resolve those orders individually.
The email preview shows fewer emails than orders selected.	Some customers have no email, opted out, or multiple orders were combined into one email.	Check the skipped (no email), skipped (opted out), and over cap chips; combining is expected when Combine multiple orders… is on.
Dispatch Fulfillments is a red Dispatch Disabled chip.	Shipping-provider dispatch is switched off for the environment.	Ask an administrator to enable dispatch.
An expected bulk button isn't showing.	You lack its permission, or it lives in the More menu.	Open More, or ask an administrator to grant the matching permission from the table above.

Next steps

• List columns and filters
• Approve, reserve, and allocate stock
• Close, cancel, archive, and delete orders
• Fulfill a sales order
• Import sales orders
• Export sales order columns reference
• Importable sales order columns reference
• Permissions reference
• Sales orders overview