Order Modifications

Karl Falconer · Updated September 29, 2026 10:01

Orders change after they’re placed. A customer fixes their shipping address, adds an item, or reduces a quantity. With order modifications, DropStream picks those changes up from the sales channel and carries them through to the order in DropStream and, where the warehouse supports it, to the warehouse. You don’t have to re-key the change or cancel and re-create the order.

Cancellations are a kind of modification, but DropStream handles them separately. See Order Cancellations.

Platform support: Order modifications are available now, but not every store or warehouse platform supports them. A store has to be able to report changes, and a warehouse has to be able to accept them. To request support for a specific platform, contact support@getdropstream.com.

Use cases

Address corrections. A customer emails the merchant with a new apartment number an hour after ordering. The merchant updates the order in the sales channel, and the corrected address reaches the warehouse before the order ships.
Quantity changes and removed items. A customer drops one item from a three-item order. The line is reduced in DropStream, and the warehouse is told not to pick it.
Added items. A customer calls to add an item. The new line is added to the existing order instead of becoming a separate shipment.
Tag-driven workflows. A merchant adds a tag to an order in the sales channel (for example, to flag it for review). DropStream picks up the tag change, so rules that key on order.external_tags see the current tags.
Record keeping. A customer updates their email address or gift message. DropStream records the change on the order without disturbing fulfillment.

How DropStream detects changes

DropStream checks each supported store for edited orders on a schedule — every 5 minutes by default. You’ll find the schedule on the connection page, in the Sales Orders group, as Change & cancellation detection. It shows Not supported when the store platform can’t report changes.

Only open orders are checked — orders that haven’t shipped, been canceled, archived, or skipped, and that were placed within the last 30 days. See Connection Channels and Schedules for editing a schedule.

What counts as a change

DropStream sorts each change by whether it affects fulfillment.

Kind	Fields	What happens
Fulfillment changes	Shipping name, company, address, phone; requested ship date and cancel date; tags; line items (SKU, quantity, price, lines added or removed)	Applied to the order, and sent on to the warehouse if the order is already there.
Other changes	Customer email, notes, shipping notes, gift message, delivery dates, invoice and PO numbers, shipping, discount, tax and insurance amounts	Recorded on the order. Fulfillment isn’t affected.

Only lines that came from the store are compared. Lines your rules added (kit components, remapped SKUs, gift wrap) aren’t treated as changes. A line removed on the sales channel is canceled on the DropStream order, not deleted.

What happens to the order

What DropStream does with a fulfillment change depends on where the order is.

Where the order is	What happens
Not yet sent to the warehouse	The change is applied, and the order is checked again before it’s sent. The status shows New while that happens.
Waiting in a bundle or timed hold	The change is applied, and the order goes back through your Order Import rules.
On hold for review	The change is saved and shown on the hold banner. It’s applied when you release the order. See Hold Orders for Review.
Already at the warehouse	The change is applied in DropStream and sent to the warehouse. The order’s status doesn’t change; a badge shows the progress (see below).
Partially shipped	Only a cancellation of the unshipped items is acted on. Other changes are ignored, since part of the order is already on its way.
Split or bundled by a rule	Nothing is applied automatically, because the change can’t be mapped safely onto the split or combined orders. DropStream raises a Split Order Modified alert so someone can review it.

There’s no approval step. Supported changes are applied automatically.

See what changed

An order that was changed after import shows Modified by sales channel and the date next to its status. The Order summary card shows Last modified and By the sales channel.

To see exactly what changed, open the Activity tab. Each Source changes applied to order entry has a What changed section that lists each field’s Before and After values.

Track changes sent to the warehouse

When the order is already at the warehouse, a badge next to the status shows where the change is. Hover over the badge for details.

Badge	Meaning
Changes pending / Changes scheduled	Queued to send to the warehouse.
Changes sending	Being sent to the warehouse. If the warehouse was briefly unreachable, DropStream retries automatically.
Changes sent	The warehouse accepted the change.
Changes rejected	The warehouse refused the change — for example, because it had already started picking the order, or because the warehouse platform can’t accept changes.
Changes failed	DropStream couldn’t reach the warehouse after repeated retries.

If a change is rejected or failed, the order at the warehouse still has the old details. Check the Activity tab for the warehouse’s reason, then contact support@getdropstream.com to have the change resent — or update the order directly in the warehouse.

Get notified

Add these alert types to an alert policy to hear about modifications that need attention:

Split Order Modified — a split or bundled order changed at the source and needs manual review.
Warehouse Rejected Modification — the warehouse refused a change.
Modification Delivery Failed — a change couldn’t be sent to the warehouse.
Unsupported Modification — the store made a kind of change DropStream can’t apply.
Modification Rules Failed — processing the changed order failed.
Change Detection Failed — DropStream couldn’t check the store for changes.