Order Deadlines (Ship-By Date)

What Are Order Deadlines?

Order deadlines tell you the latest date by which an order must be shipped to meet your promised delivery timeline. Orderline calculates this automatically based on:

When the order was placed
Your configured SLA (Service Level Agreement) — how many business days you need to ship
Your operational days — which days of the week you actually process orders
The cutoff time — orders placed after this time roll to the next business day

The result is displayed as a Ship By column in your orders list, complete with a color-coded urgency badge so you can instantly see which orders need attention.

Enabling Order Timelines

Open the Orderline app from your Shopify admin sidebar.
Navigate to Settings from the left sidebar.
Scroll down to the Order Timelines section.
Toggle the switch to On.

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│  Order timelines                              │
│  Ship-by dates and urgency are shown on orders│
│                                      [🟢 On]  │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────┘

What happens when you enable it?

Orderline immediately starts calculating ship-by dates for all new orders.

Existing open orders are backfilled in the background (this may take a few minutes for large order volumes).

The Ship By column appears in your orders table.

Configuring Operational Days

Before setting deadlines, tell Orderline which days of the week you process orders.

In Settings → Order Timelines, find the Operational days selector.
Choose a preset or select individual days:

Preset	Days Selected
Monday – Friday	Mon, Tue, Wed, Thu, Fri
Monday – Saturday	Mon, Tue, Wed, Thu, Fri, Sat
Every day	Mon, Tue, Wed, Thu, Fri, Sat, Sun
Custom	You pick

Why this matters: If your SLA is 2 days and an order comes in Friday evening, the ship-by date skips Saturday/Sunday if they are not operational days.

Setting the Default Deadline

The default deadline is the fallback rule that applies to all orders that don’t have a specific shipping-method configuration.

In Settings → Order Timelines, find the Default deadline card.
Click Edit.
Fill in the form:

Field	What to enter	Example
Order deadline (days)	Business days to ship	`3`
Cutoff time	Orders after this time roll to next day	`17:00`

Adjust the Urgency tiers (see Understanding Urgency Tiers below).
Click Save.

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│  Default (fallback)                              │
│  3 days · cutoff 17:00 · Critical ≤ 1d, Warning ≤ 2d│
│                                         [Edit]   │
└────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Setting Deadlines per Shipping Method

You can override the default deadline for specific shipping methods (e.g., express vs. standard).

Add a new method deadline

In Settings → Order Timelines, find Deadline by shipping methods.
Click Add order deadlines.
Select a Shipping method from the dropdown (pulled from your Shopify store).
Fill in:
- Order deadline (days) — SLA for this method
- Cutoff time (HH:mm) — method-specific cutoff
- Urgency tiers — method-specific urgency rules
- Always critical — optionally flag every order for this method as critical
Click Save.

┌──────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│  India Standard Shipping                           │
│  1d · cutoff 14:00 · Critical ≤ 1d, Warning ≤ 2d  │
│                              [Edit]  [Delete]      │
└──────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Edit or delete a method deadline

Click Edit next to any configured method to change its settings.
Click Delete to remove it. The order will then fall back to the default deadline.

Important: If a shipping method is not configured, orders using that method will use the default deadline.

Understanding Urgency Tiers

Urgency tiers control the color badge shown on each order. There are three tiers, evaluated from top to bottom:

Tier	Default Color	Meaning
Critical	🔴 Red	Order is very close to deadline
Warning	🟠 Orange	Order is approaching deadline
Safe	🟢 Green	Order has plenty of time

How tiers are matched

The app looks at how many days remain until the ship-by date and picks the first matching tier:

Critical: days remaining ≤ Critical threshold
Warning: days remaining ≤ Warning threshold (but above Critical)
Safe: everything else

Default thresholds

SLA Days	Critical	Warning	Safe
1 (next-day)	1 day left	0 days left (ship-by day)	—
2	1 day left	2 days left	> 2 days
3+	1 day left	2 days left	> 2 days

Customizing tiers

When editing a deadline (default or per-method), you can change the threshold days for Critical and Warning.

Rules:

Critical must be at least 1

Warning can be 0 or more

Critical and Warning must be different values

Both must be within the SLA range

“Always critical” option

For shipping methods where every order is urgent (e.g., same-day delivery), enable Always critical. Every order for that method will show a red badge regardless of how much time remains.

How It Looks on the Orders List

Once enabled, the orders table gets a new Ship By column:

┌──────────┬──────────────┬──────────┬──────────────┬─────────────┐
│ Order    │ Customer     │ Status   │ Ship By      │ Actions     │
├──────────┼──────────────┼──────────────┼───────────────────────┤
│ #1001    │ John Doe     │ Open     │ 🔴 24-May    │ …           │
│ #1002    │ Jane Smith   │ Open     │ 🟠 25-May    │ …           │
│ #1003    │ Bob Brown    │ Open     │ 🟢 28-May    │ …           │
│ #1004    │ Alice Green  │ Open     │ 🔴 Overdue   │ …           │
└──────────┴──────────────┴──────────┴──────────────┴─────────────┘

Badge labels

The badge text shows the ship-by date. Hovering or viewing the column reveals urgency context:

Days Remaining	Badge Text	Tone
Less than 0	`Overdue`	🔴 Critical
0	`Due today`	🔴 Critical
1	`Due tomorrow`	🔴 Critical (or 🟠 Warning)
2+	`dd-MMM-yyyy`	Based on tier match

Note: Completed or cancelled orders do not show urgency badges.

Sorting by Ship-By Date

Click the Ship by column header to sort orders by urgency:

First click: Sort ascending (overdue → safest)
Second click: Sort descending (safest → overdue)
Third click: Return to default sort

The sort indicator ↑ or ↓ appears next to the column header.

Disabling Order Timelines

Go to Settings → Order Timelines.
Toggle the switch to Off.

What happens:

The Ship By column is hidden from the orders list.

Ship-by dates stop being calculated for new orders.

Your existing settings are preserved. Re-enabling later restores everything exactly as you left it — no reconfiguration needed.

Troubleshooting

Some orders don’t show a ship-by date

Cause	Fix
Order timelines not enabled	Toggle Order Timelines on in Settings
Shipping method not configured	Either configure that method or set a default deadline
Order is completed/cancelled	Only open orders show ship-by dates
Order was created before enabling	Wait for the backfill to complete, or contact support

“Deadline not set for the following methods” warning

This banner appears when you have active orders using shipping methods that have no configuration.

Click Add order deadlines to configure them, or
Ensure your Default deadline is set (it acts as the fallback).

Urgency badge colors look wrong

Check that your urgency tiers are sorted correctly: Critical threshold must be smaller than Warning threshold.
Remember: tiers are evaluated in order — the first match wins.

Cutoff time not working as expected

Use 24-hour format: 14:00 (not 2:00 PM).
The cutoff is evaluated in your store’s local timezone.
Orders placed at exactly the cutoff time roll to the next business day.

Quick Reference

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│  ORDER DEADLINE SETUP CHECKLIST                              │
├────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│  ☐ Enable Order Timelines toggle                            │
│  ☐ Pick your Operational days (Mon–Fri, Mon–Sat, or custom) │
│  ☐ Set a Default deadline (days + cutoff + tiers)           │
│  ☐ Configure specific shipping methods (optional but recommended)│
│  ☐ Verify the Ship By column appears on the Orders list     │
│  ☐ Click column header to sort by urgency                   │
└────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Need more help? Contact Orderline support or check the Settings page in-app for inline guidance.