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Automation Levels

The automation level is the line between "orders nothing" and "orders without asking". It is a ceiling, not a promise: a connector that cannot transmit caps the run below it.

The five levels

Each level does everything the one below it does, plus one more step.

Level Decides Creates order Transmits Needs approval
Off — — — —
Simulate — — —
Create Purchase Order — —
Transmit with Approval
Full Automation —

Off

Nothing happens automatically. Triggers and the job queue exit immediately. A run started manually from the sales order still decides — "Off" means "nothing on its own", not "switched off".

Simulate

Trading compares the vendors, applies every gate and writes the result to the sourcing log — but creates no purchase order. The result is Simulated.

This is the level for the first few days. You see on real orders which vendor Trading would have picked and whether the gates sit sensibly, without anything happening.

Create Purchase Order

Trading creates the drop-shipment purchase order and links it to the sales order. Nothing is transmitted — the orders sit in Business Central and follow your existing process.

Useful when you want the sourcing decision automated but the sending to stay where it is.

Transmit with Approval

As above, and every run additionally lands in the approval worklist. Only the release hands the purchase order to the supplier connector.

Before transmission the price is checked again: prices move while an order waits. If it deviates beyond the configured limit, the order does not go out (see Price deviation).

Full Automation

From sales order to supplier purchase order with no intervention. A run that passes every gate is transmitted immediately.

What is missing here only shows up later

At this level nobody reads along any more. Set at least the daily limit per vendor first — it is what stops a scheduled run from emptying a budget on bad data before anyone reads a notification.

What the level does not override

The gates apply at every level. Even under Full Automation a run with too little margin stops — it is not "automatically ordered anyway".

The emergency stop beats the level. With Transmission Blocked (Emergency Stop) set, even Full Automation transmits nothing. Purchase orders keep being created and wait until the block is lifted.

The connector caps it. If a supplier only supports a portal cart (see Supplier Connectors), the chain ends there regardless of the level. Such runs appear on the Carts to Confirm cue.

Simulate  →  Create Purchase Order  →  Transmit with Approval  →  Full Automation
 ~1 week           ~1 week                     ~2 weeks

Between every step: open the sourcing log and work through the exceptions. Once nothing surprising is left there, the next level is defensible.