Set up the Send Planner

The Send Planner needs two things before it can plan: at least one connected fulfillment network, and a first calculation. This page takes you from an empty Inventory → Send Planner to your first plan. The planner works with sensible defaults for every network, so you can calculate straight away and tune the rules afterwards.

Before you begin

• Connect at least one network, and make sure its fulfillment warehouse exists in SKU.io:

  • Amazon FBA and AWD: Connect Amazon and choose marketplaces, then Turn on FBA inventory tracking.
  • Walmart WFS: Turn on WFS.
  • TikTok FBT: Connect TikTok Shop, then Turn on FBT.

• Check your role. The planner has three permissions, set per role on the Roles tab of Settings → Users & Permissions:

  Permission	What it lets you do
  Send Planner → View	Open every tab and read plans, send runs, scenarios, history and network rules.
  Send Planner → Edit	Calculate and promote plans, change quantities, approve send runs, and change network rules. Needed for your first calculation.
  Send Planner → Draft	Create shipment drafts and allocate their source stock. Drafts for FBA, AWD, WFS and FBT also need Integrations → Edit, and transfer drafts and allocations also need Warehouse Transfers → Create.

  See Roles and permissions reference.

• For the best numbers, give your products a case quantity and dimensions. The planner rounds sends to whole cases and checks each network's carton and capacity limits with them. See Product fields reference.

Connect a network if the planner asks for one

1. Go to Inventory → Send Planner. The Plan tab opens.

2. If you see Connect a fulfillment network, no network is ready yet. Click Connect Amazon, Connect Walmart or Connect TikTok Shop. Each one opens Apps & Integrations, where you connect the account.

   A network appears in the planner once its integration has a fulfillment warehouse, so finish the network's own set-up from the pages listed under "Before you begin", then come back.

If you see Calculate your first plan instead, at least one network is ready. Go on to the next section.

Check the rules the planner starts with

The first plan uses each network's defaults, so this step is optional. It's worth a look if you already know a network's targets.

1. On the Calculate your first plan card, click Network rules. You can also open the Network rules tab at the top.
2. Check Keep for self-fulfilled orders (days) under Planner settings. It's the number of days of demand from the orders you ship yourself that stays at your warehouses: 21 days unless you change it.
3. Check each network card. The grey values in the fields are the network's defaults. Switch off any network you don't want to plan yet.
4. If you changed anything, click Save changes.

For every setting, see Set network rules.

Calculate your first plan

1. Open the Plan tab.

2. On the Calculate your first plan card, click Calculate plan.

   The planner reads stock at your warehouses and every connected network, keeps stock for your self-fulfilled demand, and splits the rest across the networks by days of cover. It runs in the background, so you can leave the page. Its progress shows in the job tray. See Follow background jobs.

3. When the calculation finishes, the Plan tab shows your first plan: the units to send, where they go, and a row for every SKU.

Calculate plan is greyed out when your role doesn't have Send Planner → Edit. Hover over it to see "You need the Send Planner edit permission".

If the first calculation doesn't finish

Network stock is out of date. If a network's stock hasn't synced for longer than Network stock is out of date after (hours) (24 hours unless you change it), the calculation stops instead of planning on old numbers. The Plan tab says "The plan could not be calculated: network stock is out of date." and lists each network with the reason. Then do one of these:

• Click the network's refresh button, for example Refresh Amazon FBA US inventory, to ask that network for fresh stock. The refresh shows in the job tray, and when it finishes you're offered a recalculation. Amazon AWD and TikTok FBT can't be refreshed here: their button is greyed out, and its tooltip tells you to sync them from their integration page, then recalculate.
• Click Plan anyway to calculate with the stock as it is. The plan is marked as planned on out-of-date stock until you refresh and recalculate.

A network was left out. If one network can't be read at all, for example because a connection is missing a permission, the planner plans the others and names the network ("TikTok FBT was left out of this plan.", for example) and gives the reason. Nothing is sent to that network until it can be read. Fix the connection, then click Recalculate.

Both cases are covered in detail in Recalculate the plan and fix calculation problems.

Finish the set-up

These settings are optional, and you can change them at any time. They all live on the Network rules tab and apply from the next calculation.

To…	Go to…
set targets, floors, priorities and receiving blackouts for each network	Set network rules
choose which warehouses ship to which network, and which ship your own orders	Choose where sends ship from
plan sends to your own warehouses or a 3PL	Stock your own warehouses and 3PLs by transfer
cap what a network takes in a month	Set network capacity limits
make an exception for one product	Set product overrides

Next steps: your first send

1. Read the send plan: check what the plan sends where, and where to look first.
2. Create shipment drafts: turn the plan into drafts in each network.

Then make it a habit with Work through a send run. For how one plan is built, see How the Send Planner works.