Why is my order slipping?

Every open order has a promised date: three working days after it was placed unless you change it. The scheduler adds a forecast: when it expects the order to be packed. When the forecast passes the promise, the order is at risk.

Where you see it

• Dashboard: the At risk tile, and a line under Needs you such as "2 orders will miss their promised ship date" with the worst case in days.
• Orders: the At risk chip, and on the row the promised date struck through with the forecast and "+n d".
• E-mail, on the Farm and Studio plans: "An order is going to miss its promised date", if switched on under Settings → Notifications.

How the forecast is built

Every five minutes the scheduler lays out all open tasks on your printers and gives each to the printer that would finish it earliest. It uses:

• the print time from the slicer for that part (or measured history),
• each part's success rate, so a part that fails one time in five takes longer,
• eight minutes for a colour change, six minutes to clear the plate after each job, and fourteen minutes per order for checking and packing,
• when printing printers will be free, from their progress so far.

What moves a forecast

• A failed print that has to be redone.
• A printer marked out of service.
• Work with a lower priority number put ahead of it.
• New tasks, or longer print times than expected.

What to do

Move the order's tasks up in the Print Queue, pin some of them to a free printer, or tell the customer early. Telling them two days before is a different conversation from telling them on the day.