Overview
Delivery Schedules in LISA Business allow you to predefine recurring delivery orders for subscription customers. A Delivery Schedule can be maintained as an item-level template on a Subscription Item and automatically copied onto new Subscription Plan Lines when those lines are created. Alternatively, users can create and maintain Delivery Schedules directly against a Subscription Plan Line. During subscription processing, LISA Business evaluates active schedules and, when a cycle is due, generates a Sales Order with the correct delivery dates and lines (optionally auto-releasing it).
Business value
Delivery Schedules reduce manual operational effort and improve delivery consistency for subscription customers. Instead of creating repetitive Sales Orders manually, users define a schedule once and let LISA Business generate delivery orders automatically according to the configured cadence. This delivers measurable value by:
- Reducing administrative overhead: recurring deliveries are generated automatically from the schedule, minimizing repetitive order entry.
- Improving customer experience: deliveries occur on predictable cycles aligned to contractual expectations.
- Increasing operational control: users can activate/deactivate schedules and lines, and apply cycle-based inclusion rules (Only In Cycle) to support complex delivery patterns.
- Supporting warehouse readiness: the optional Auto-Release flag allows businesses to decide whether orders should be immediately released for fulfillment or remain open for review.
- Strengthening auditability: generated orders are linked back to their delivery schedule header and lines, enabling traceability for customer service and operations.
Feature scope and key concepts
Delivery Schedules are composed of headers and lines:
- Delivery Schedule Header: defines the recurring cycle and governs processing behavior (including Auto-Release).
- Delivery Schedule Line: defines what will be delivered in a cycle (item, quantity, variant, pricing entitlement, and optional cycle inclusion rules).
Delivery Schedules can exist in two contexts:
- Subscription Item template schedules: maintained on an item card for subscription items only; used as templates.
- Subscription Plan Line schedules: maintained on a specific subscription plan line; used for actual processing.
When a Subscription Plan Line is created for a subscription item, active templates on the item can be copied to the plan line and become the plan line’s operational schedules.
Prerequisites
Before configuring Delivery Schedules, ensure:
- Subscription items are correctly flagged as Subscription Items in LISA Business.
- Subscription Plans and Subscription Plan Lines are in use in your environment.
- The Subscription Process (batch/job) that generates delivery orders is enabled and scheduled according to your operational needs.
- Standard non-subscription items used on Delivery Schedule Lines are created and available, including optional variants and unit of measure setup.
Roles and responsibilities
Typical roles involved:
- Subscription Administrator / Customer Operations: defines templates on subscription items and configures plan-line schedules.
- Sales Operations: reviews and releases orders when Auto-Release is not enabled.
- Warehouse / Fulfillment: processes released Sales Orders for picking, shipping, and invoicing as per standard Business Central flows.
- Finance: reviews pricing behavior, especially entitlement (free) lines.
Accessing Delivery Schedules
From the Item Card (template configuration)
Use this entry point to create templates that will be copied to subscription plan lines.
- Open the Item Card for a subscription item.
- Select Delivery Schedules.
Important behaviors:
- The Delivery Schedules action is only available for Subscription Items.
- Schedules created here are treated as templates.
From Subscriptions Cockpit (plan line configuration)
Use this entry point to manage schedules for a specific subscription plan line.
- Open Subscriptions Cockpit.
- Select the relevant Subscription Plan Line.
- Select Delivery Schedules.
Important behaviors:
- If the Subscription Plan is Published or Cancelled, the Delivery Schedules page is read-only.
- Schedules created here drive actual Sales Order generation.
Configuring a Delivery Schedule template on a subscription item
Use this to define a reusable schedule for all future subscriptions using the item.
Create a header
- Open the subscription item’s Delivery Schedules page.
- Create a new Delivery Schedule Header.
- Populate the following fields:
- Name: meaningful identifier (example: “Monthly Accessories Delivery”).
- Cycle Count: number of cycles to generate (example: 12 for one year).
- Cycle Length: the numeric interval of each cycle (example: 1).
- Cycle Type: Days, Months, or Years.
- Auto-Release: enable if generated Sales Orders should be automatically released.
- Active: set to true only after at least one active line exists.
Notes:
- The schedule header is linked to the Subscription Item behind the scenes.
- Start Date, Current Cycle, and Remaining Cycles are not shown in template context.
Add lines
- Under the header, create Delivery Schedule Lines for each delivered item.
- Populate:
- Item No: must be a standard item; subscription items are not allowed.
- Variant Code: optional.
- Quantity: required.
- Unit of Measure Code: defaults automatically; adjust if required.
- Entitlement: enable to force price to zero when orders are generated.
- Only In Cycle: optional; comma-separated list of cycle numbers (example:
1,3,6). - Active: enable for lines that should generate sales lines.
Activate the header
- Once at least one line is Active, set the header Active field to true.
Configuring a Delivery Schedule directly on a subscription plan line
Use this when a subscription requires a bespoke delivery arrangement different from the standard template.
Create a header
- Open Delivery Schedules from the Subscriptions Cockpit at line level.
- Create a new Delivery Schedule Header.
- Fields to configure:
- Name
- Start Date: defaults from Subscription Plan Line Start Date; can be changed.
- Cycle Count
- Cycle Length
- Cycle Type
- Auto-Release
- Active
Read-only fields in plan-line context:
- Current Cycle: indicates the cycle number that will be used next.
- Remaining Cycles: indicates how many cycles remain to be generated.
Add lines
- Add Delivery Schedule Lines exactly as per template configuration.
- Ensure the header is set to Active only once at least one line is Active.
Using templates with automatic copy-on-insert
When a Subscription Plan Line is created for a subscription item, LISA Business checks whether the subscription item has any active schedule headers/lines.
If active schedules exist:
- The schedule headers and lines are copied onto the new Subscription Plan Line.
- On the copied header:
- The item reference is cleared.
- A reference to the Subscription Plan Line is set.
- Start Date is set to the Subscription Plan Line Start Date.
- Current Cycle is set to 1.
- Remaining Cycles is set to Cycle Count.
- Auto-Release copies from the template header.
If no active schedules exist:
- No schedules are created automatically.
Operational guidance:
- If you need different behavior per customer, adjust the copied schedules on the plan line after creation (where permitted by plan status).
Processing behavior and operational outcomes
How Sales Orders are generated
During subscription processing:
- LISA Business evaluates each enabled Subscription Plan Line.
- For each active Delivery Schedule Header linked to the plan line with Remaining Cycles > 0, it checks whether a cycle is due based on system date and the schedule definition.
- When due, LISA Business creates a new Sales Order:
- Customer is taken from the Subscription Plan.
- Sales Order is flagged as a subscription delivery schedule order.
- The Sales Order is linked to the Delivery Schedule Header.
- Requested Delivery Date is set to the Start Date of the current cycle.
- Shipment Date is calculated by standard Business Central logic based on lead time.
Auto-Release behavior
- If Auto-Release is enabled on the Delivery Schedule Header, the Sales Order is immediately Released for delivery.
- If Auto-Release is disabled, the Sales Order remains Open for review and manual release.
How Sales Lines are generated
For each active Delivery Schedule Line:
- If Only In Cycle is blank, the line is included for every cycle.
- If Only In Cycle is populated, the line is included only when the current cycle number is listed.
- The Sales Line is linked back to the Delivery Schedule Line.
- Pricing:
- If Entitlement is true, the Sales Line price is set to zero.
- Otherwise, pricing follows standard Business Central pricing logic.
Cycle counters update
After Sales Order creation:
- Current Cycle increments by 1.
- Remaining Cycles decrements by 1.
Validation rules and configuration constraints
Header constraints
- A Delivery Schedule Header must be linked to either:
- a Subscription Item, or
- a Subscription Plan Line
Exactly one of these links must exist.
- Header Active can only be set to true if at least one active schedule line exists.
Line constraints
- Item No is mandatory and cannot be a subscription item.
- Quantity is mandatory.
- Only In Cycle must be either:
- a single integer, or
- a comma-separated list of integers
No other format is accepted.
Page behavior constraints
- When the Subscription Plan is Published or Cancelled, the Delivery Schedules page opened from the plan line is read-only.