How a sales order travels from Odoo to the warehouse and back: what makes it eligible, the three ways to send it, what the statuses mean, what a despatch confirmation does to your stock, holds, and cancellation in both directions.

The 3PL order record

When an order is sent, the connector creates a 3PL Order (visible under Operations > Orders and on the sales order's smart button) linking the sales order to the instance. It carries the 3PL's own reference (Sprint's AWB, ShipHero's order id), the raw and translated status, tracking, timestamps and any hold reason. One sales order can have bindings on more than one instance over its life (e.g. after a re-route), each with its own history.

The sales order itself gains a 3PL Connector tab showing the same information where salespeople actually look, and the order's chatter receives a note for every meaningful event: sent, status changes, despatched with tracking, cancellation, returns.

Eligibility - what "To Send" means

An order is eligible for an instance when all of these hold:

1. It is confirmed (a sales order, not a quotation).
2. Its warehouse is mapped on the instance.
3. It belongs to the same company as the instance.
4. It has a delivery method - unless Require Delivery Method is off.
5. It has not already been sent to this instance (orders in a failed state count as still-to-send so they retry).

The dashboard's To Send card counts exactly this set, so the number on the card is always "orders that would go if a push ran right now".

Three ways an order gets sent

1. Automatically. With Send Orders Automatically on, the scheduler pushes every eligible order at the configured interval, oldest first.
2. From the sales order. The Send to 3PL button (visible to Ops and Admins whenever the order is eligible) sends that one order immediately - it works even when automatic sending is off, and also from the order list via the Send to 3PL bulk action.
3. From the Orders page. Send Orders to 3PL opens the run popup: pick the instance, then choose scope - all eligible orders or specific orders (pick one or many; only eligible, unsent orders are offered). Deliberate manual sends bypass the automatic-sending switch: a person explicitly asked.

Whatever the path, if Send to 3PL if Out of Stock is off the stock gate is checked at send time and a shortfall holds the order back with the reason on its 3PL tab.

What actually goes to the 3PL: consignee name and address, phone and email, your order reference (this becomes the 3PL's customer reference - it is also how returns find their way back to the order), each storable line's SKU, quantity and unit price, currency, the mapped warehouse code, the mapped carrier service, expected delivery date if set, customs data (HS code, country of origin) where products carry it, and the IOSS number when the destination rules call for it. Every product line must have an Internal Reference (SKU) - a missing SKU fails the push with a clear error before anything is sent.