Troubleshooting
I uploaded or emailed the same order twice
What happens when the same order arrives more than once, and what to do if you do end up with two.
Updated
Usually nothing needs doing. Sending the same document again does not create a second order — you are taken to the one that already exists.
That holds however it arrives: uploaded twice, uploaded and then emailed, or emailed twice by a buyer who thought the first had not landed.
But I do have two orders
Then the two arrivals were not identical. Check which case this is.
The document really was different. A revised purchase order, a second scan of the same paper, or the same order retyped are all different documents. Compare the two orders — usually a quantity or a date differs, and the later one is the one you want.
One is from the body and one from an attachment. A message with an unsupported attachment — a Word file — is treated as having no attachment, so its body becomes an order. If the buyer then re-sent it as a PDF, you have one order from the covering note and one from the document.
A signature image became an order. Inline logos are attachments, and images are supported, so a message can produce an order from its letterhead graphic alongside the real one. If one order is empty or nonsensical, this is why. See Emails with multiple attachments.
What to do with the extra one
Delete it. Deleting removes the order and its source document.
Delete before creating a draft rather than after. Once a draft exists in Shopify it is a real draft order and has to be dealt with in Shopify.
If you already created two drafts
Cancel or delete the surplus draft in your Shopify admin. PO Autopilot will not create two drafts from one purchase order, but two purchase orders are two orders and each can produce one.
Re-sending something you deleted
Duplicate detection only considers documents that are still present. If you delete an order and send the same file again, it is treated as new.
That is intentional — deleting is how you say the earlier attempt should not count, so re-sending has to work.
Stopping it happening
- Forward selectively rather than forwarding everything, so replies and copies of the same message do not each become orders.
- Ask buyers not to re-send. Duplicate detection handles it, but a revised document is not a duplicate and will create a second order.