Hold Shipments

The Hold Shipments feature allows shipments to be paused during the fulfillment process. Unlike configurable shipment creation, which delays shipment creation itself, Hold Shipments apply after shipments are created and already have inventory reserved.

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Hold shipments are useful when you want to temporarily prevent shipments from progressing to fulfillment—for example, to align with business hours, prevent premature release, or apply a review period.

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Hold Shipment Creation

You can place shipments in Hold status either during shipment creation through APIs or later from the Order Admin UI, depending on your business needs. When a shipment is on hold, its associated inventory remains reserved. Providing a Hold Release Date and Time is optional. If no release date is specified, the shipment will remain on hold until you manually release it. Hold status is supported for all shipment types, including BOPIS, Ship to Home (STH), Delivery, and Transfers.

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Create Shipments Directly in Hold (API)

You can configure shipments to be created directly in Hold status during the shipment creation process using Shipment API extensions. This allows you to apply custom business rules to determine when shipments should start in Hold. You can also move an existing Ready shipment to Hold status using the Hold API.

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Place a Ready Shipment on Hold from Order Admin

You can place a shipment that is currently in Ready status on hold directly from the Order Admin UI without using the API. The Hold Shipment option appears in the Update Shipment dropdown on the Shipments tab and is only visible when the shipment status is Ready. This option is hidden for all other statuses (Cancelled, Fulfilled, Backordered, etc.) and is only available when the Shipment on Hold toggle is enabled in Site Settings. When you click Hold Shipment, a confirmation dialog appears where you can optionally specify a Hold Release Date and Time before confirming. If no release date is provided, the shipment remains on hold until you manually release it. If you cancel the action, the shipment remains in Ready status with no changes. This action is permission-controlled — only users with Shipment Update permissions can view and use this option.

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Release Shipments on Hold

Hold shipments can be released manually or automatically.

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Manual Release

When the Manual Release option is enabled in Site Settings, the Release for Fulfillment button appears on the Shipments tab in Order Admin. This button is only available for shipments in Hold status.

• Clicking Release for Fulfillment changes the shipment status from Hold to Ready, allowing shipment to continue through the normal fulfillment workflow.

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Automatic Release

When the Automatic Release option is enabled and configured with an interval, a Kibo background job ReleaseHoldShipment runs at the specified frequency.

• The job scans all shipments in Hold status.
• Any shipment whose Shipment Release Date is less than or equal to the current timestamp is automatically released and moved to Ready.

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Update Shipment Release Date

If a shipment is in Hold status and has a Shipment Release Date, Users can update the Shipment Release Date and Time from the Shipments tab in Order Admin (for shipments currently in Hold). When clicking the pencil/edit icon next to the field, a date-time picker opens allowing selection of both date and time.

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Shipment Release Date can also be updated via holdReleaseDate API.

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Viewing and Filtering Hold Shipments in Fulfiller UI

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Viewing Shipment Release Date

Fulfillment operators can view the Shipment Release Date directly on the FFUI workflow page for shipments currently in Hold status. The field appears below the Shipment Status field and displays the date and time in the user’s local timezone. The field is read-only — it cannot be edited from FFUI. It is only displayed when both of the following conditions are true:

• The shipment status is Hold
• A holdReleaseDate value is set on the shipment.

If the shipment status changes from Hold (e.g., after manual or automatic release) to Ready, or if the holdReleaseDate value is cleared, the field is automatically removed from the view.

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Filtering and Searching for Hold Shipments

Fulfillment users can filter and search for shipments in Hold status in the Fulfiller UI to monitor, plan, and manage held shipments. Using Advanced Filter To filter shipments by Hold status:

1. Navigate to the shipments page in Fulfiller UI
2. Click on Advanced Filter to expand the filter options
3. Open the Shipment Status dropdown
4. Select Hold from the available status options
5. Click Apply Filter