[WooCommerce] How Merchants Manage Scheduled Orders

Table Of Contents

1. Create New Scheduled Order
2. Failed Scheduled Orders
3. Resolving Failed Scheduled Orders
4. Managing Inactive Scheduled Orders
5. Create a Scheduled Order for a customer who forgot to choose Autoship at checkout

Create New Scheduled Order 

1. You can create a new Scheduled Order in Autoship Cloud > Scheduled Orders by selecting the "+" button.

2. Then, add a customer, product, payment method, and more as outlined in Editing Scheduled Orders.

3. Once you select "Update" your Scheduled Order will be created! You customer can see their new Scheduled Order in My Account > Scheduled Orders. 

Note: If a Scheduled Order fails to create at checkout (whether by the customer forgetting to select Autoship or due to an error) see this doc for next steps: How Scheduled Orders are Linked to WooCommerce Orders

Failed Scheduled Orders

When a Scheduled Order is processed, Autoship Cloud's hosted service, QPilot first checks the Scheduled Order to see if there are available order items, then creates a new Order in WooCommerce with a status of "Pending Payment".  Once the WooCommerce Order is created, the total amount of the WooCommerce Order (including any taxes and fees set in WooCommerce) is processed by QPilot using the customer's payment method. Upon successful payment, the WooCommerce Order status is updated from "Pending Payment" to "Processing".  

You can learn more here: How An Autoship Scheduled Order is Processed and here Processing Errors.

In the case that a Scheduled Order does not complete any of the processing steps successfully, the Scheduled Order is assigned a "Failed" status. Failed Scheduled Orders occur for the following reasons:

Payment Processing Error: the payment method failed to process.

• Scheduled Order status: Failed
• WooCommerce Order status: Pending Payment

Pre-Processing Error: the Scheduled Order can not start processing because it is missing items, a shipping rate, a payment method, or the items are not available to ship. 

• Scheduled Order status: Failed
• WooCommerce Order status: No order created

Site/API Connectivity: your site's API is not able to communicate at the time the Scheduled Order is processing.

• Scheduled Order status: Failed
• WooCommerce Order status: On Hold or Pending Payment
• Troubleshooting API issues: WooCommerce API Healthiness

System Error: an unknown error occurred during processing. 

• Scheduled Order Status: Failed
• WooCommerce Order status: Unknown

Manual Selection: the merchant editing the Scheduled Order assigned the status as "Failed".

• Scheduled Order Status: Failed
• WooCommerce Order status: Unknown

Resolving Failed Scheduled Orders

Step 1: Identify the Processing Error

To identify the processing error, visit Autoship Cloud > Scheduled Orders and review the "Last Cycle Status". 

You can review this document for more information about processing errors: Processing Errors

Step 2: Identify the Best Next Steps 

Select the processing error as shown in the Last Cycle Status, this will take you to an informative document that describes: 

• What Does This Error Mean
• Common Causes (if applicable)
• Suggested Next Steps 
• After Resolving The Issue (This section will tell you what to do in Step 3!)

You should follow the steps outlined in the linked QPilot Knowledge Base article to resolve the issue!

Step 3: Retry Processing the Scheduled Order 

Now that the issue has been resolved, you have two options: 

• Retry Processing the Scheduled Order (as outlined in the Suggested Next Steps in Step 2). This can be used to retry processing immediately. 
• Update the Scheduled Order's Next Occurrence Date in Autoship Cloud > Scheduled Orders >> "View/Edit" and update the status to Active. This will process the order on the selected date. 

How to retry processing a Scheduled Order:

To retry processing a Scheduled Order you should follow the direction outlined in Step 2 "After Resolving The Issue". Note: You should always review the action being taken to retry a Scheduled Order, different actions have different results! 

These actions are also outlined in this Document: Retry Processing a Failed Scheduled Order.

Step 4: Further Troubleshooting

If the Scheduled Order continues to fail, we recommend reaching out to our support team for further assistance. You can also review our troubleshooting guide: What Are the Best Steps to Troubleshoot Errors With My WooCommerce Site?

Managing Inactive Scheduled Orders 

If you notice that there are many Scheduled Orders in a Paused or Failed status in Autoship Cloud > Scheduled Orders, we recommend reviewing them. Some recommendations we may make are:

• Reaching out to any customers with Scheduled Orders that have been Failed or Paused for over 6 months (or another selected time frame). This way they may resume or reactivate their Scheduled Order!
• Placing selected Scheduled Orders into a Deleted Status (such as those that have been Failed or Paused for over 6 months). 

Identifying Inactive Scheduled Orders

• Filter Autoship Cloud > Scheduled Orders by Paused and/or Failed
  • For example, you can filter only Scheduled Orders that have a Last Occurrence Date of 6 months or longer. 
  • Or you could filter the Scheduled Orders by Next Occurrence, any that are set to 6 months ago or more. 
  • Pro-tip: You can export the Scheduled Order page to a CSV file (from the three-dot menu). Using this file you can sort Scheduled Orders further.

Resuming Inactive Scheduled Orders 

You can resume a Failed or Paused Scheduled Order in  Autoship Cloud > Scheduled Orders by updating the Next Occurrence Date and then set the status to Active. 

If the Scheduled Order is failed, you should first ensure the issue is resolved. See Failed Scheduled Orders above. 

Deleting Inactive Scheduled Orders 

You may delete a Scheduled Order in  Autoship Cloud > Scheduled Orders by selecting "Delete" in the Scheduled Order action menu.

You can also bulk delete Scheduled Orders as outlined here: Bulk Actions

Automation

You can automate inactive Scheduled Order management using our default MAPs features. For example, you can automatically delete Scheduled Orders that have been Failed for over 120 days.

To enable and edit these settings go to Autoship Cloud > MAPS. There are 2 default MAPs, one for Paused and one for Failed Scheduled Orders. They are disabled by default but you can easily enable them by turning on the "Enabled" toggle.

If you'd like to edit the number of days a Scheduled Order should be inactive prior to deletion, click on the edit icon. You can update the "Number of Days" Match Condition and then select "Finish" on the Summary page to update this.

Notes:

• Your customers will not be notified when the MAP is ran automatically.
• Enabling these MAPs will not retroactively apply. Only Scheduled Orders that meet these requirements after they are enabled will be affected. If you need assistance retroactively applying these MAPs let our support team know.
• Default MAPs are available to all QPilot Subscription Plans.

Benefits

Managing inactive Scheduled Orders helps both recover reoccurring revenue for your store by reactivating inactive Scheduled Orders and reduce your total Scheduled Orders count. As a result, your monthly subscription charge is also reduced. 

Learn more about subscriptions here: QPilot Subscription & Billing

Create a Scheduled Order for a customer who forgot to choose Autoship at checkout

You can create a Scheduled Order for a customer who forgot by simply creating a new Scheduled Order and adding the customer to it! See Create New Scheduled Order for more details.

Note: If the customer did not choose to save her payment method at checkout (which is only required when a product is scheduled for Autoship at checkout, but optional otherwise), you may need to add their payment method to her Scheduled Order a different way.

If this is the case, you can request that the customer add a payment method via My Account > Payment Methods and then add it to their Scheduled Order in My Account > Scheduled Orders or you can add it to their Scheduled Order for them after they've added it.

See this doc for more details: Editing Scheduled Orders

Can I Process a Customer's Scheduled Order Immediately Upon Creation

Yes! You can process a Scheduled Order immediately by selecting "Process Now" in Autoship Cloud > Scheduled Orders. 

Alternatively, you can set the Status to Active and set the Next Occurrence Date to the current or a past date. The Scheduled Order will be queued for processing automatically within a few minutes of creation. Lear more here:  Editing Scheduled Orders.