How Flare decides which dates to offer
Updated 23 July 2026
Every date in the calendar has passed every one of your rules. Understanding the order they apply in makes any "why is Tuesday greyed out?" question answerable in seconds.
The checklist a date must pass
For each candidate delivery date, Flare checks:
- Earliest / latest window — is it at least your minimum days ahead, and within your maximum? (Earliest and latest dates)
- Delivery days — do you deliver on that weekday? (Delivery days)
- Blocked dates — is the date (or its required dispatch date) blocked? (Blocked dates)
- Dispatch feasibility — working back from the delivery date using transit time, is there a valid ship day for it? Preparation/lead time pushes this out; shipping-day schedules are respected.
- Cutoff times — given the current time in your warehouse timezone, has the order missed the cutoff for that dispatch day? (Cutoff times)
- Order limits — is that day already at capacity? (Order limits)
- Product & customer rules — do any rules for the items in the cart (lead times, weekday restrictions, preorder dates) narrow it further? (Product & customer rules)
- Shipping zones — if zones are on, at least one shipping option for the shopper's address must be able to deliver that day. (Shipping zones)
A date shows as available if it passes everything; the strictest rule always wins.
Delivery date vs ship date
Flare always thinks in two dates:
- Delivery date — what the customer picks.
- Ship date (dispatch date) — delivery date minus transit time, walked back to a valid shipping day.
Both are written to the order, and the ship date is what drives hold & release, the shipping calendar's Ship date view, and ShipStation.
You can run "ship date only" if you promise dispatch rather than delivery — the picker's heading switches from "Delivery" to "Shipping" automatically.
Where to configure what
| Rule | Where |
|---|---|
| Earliest/latest, weekdays, blocked dates, cutoffs, time slots, order limits, pickup | Date availability |
| Transit times, zones, rates, carrier accounts | Shipping settings |
| Per-product/per-customer exceptions | Product & customer rules |
Testing a specific scenario
Ask Sparky — it can run your real calendar for any address and cart and explain exactly which rule produced (or removed) a date.