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Delivery Scheduling & Blackout Dates

This page covers the day-to-day work of running the delivery schedule: moving tickets through their statuses, setting dates and times, blocking out days you don't deliver, and handling customer pickups. For creating a delivery ticket in the first place, see Adding New Deliveries.

Delivery statuses

Every delivery ticket has a Status, set from the dropdown on the ticket or in bulk from the Tickets page. The statuses, in the order a delivery normally moves through them:

  1. On Hold — the ticket exists but no delivery date is set yet (for example, the customer will call back to schedule). On Hold tickets appear in the Deliveries On Hold section of the Tickets page, with the date the sale was rung shown as "sold."
  2. Scheduled — a delivery date is set.
  3. Ready — the order is pulled and staged.
  4. Loading / Loaded — the order is going onto (or is on) the truck.
  5. Out for Delivery — the truck has left.
  6. Delivered — done. Delivered tickets move to the Recent Deliveries section.
  7. Canceled — the delivery won't happen. Canceled tickets also move to Recent Deliveries.

Pickup tickets use the same statuses, except the final status reads Picked Up instead of Delivered. A few stores have slightly different status wording configured by VMX, but the flow is the same.

The Deliveries Today section shows everything due today — plus anything Loading, Loaded, or Out for Delivery regardless of date, and any Scheduled/Ready ticket whose date has already passed, so overdue deliveries never disappear from view.

Set the delivery date and time on a ticket

  1. Open the delivery ticket and click the Date field.
  2. Pick a date from the calendar. Days are shaded by how many deliveries are already scheduled, and hovering a day shows a count like "3 scheduled," so you can steer customers toward lighter days. Blacked-out dates are unavailable (see the blackout sections below).
  3. Pick a time from the time dropdown next to the date. The standard choices are AM, PM, and Anytime; some stores instead have hour-by-hour times, time windows (for example 10am-12pm), or "by" times (for example By 10AM) configured by VMX.

The date and time save automatically as soon as you pick them — there is no separate Save step.

Change the status of several deliveries at once

From the Tickets page you can update many deliveries in one step:

  1. Check the box next to each delivery in the Deliveries Today, Deliveries Scheduled, or Deliveries On Hold sections. The checkbox next to the Deliveries Today heading selects everything currently listed in that section.
  2. Click With Checked (top right) and choose the new status: Scheduled, Ready, Loading, Loaded, Out for Delivery, Delivered, On Hold, or Canceled.
  3. Confirm the prompt — "Change the status of N delivery tickets to …?".

If nothing is checked you'll see "No deliveries selected." After the update, a confirmation like "Updated 4 delivery tickets to \"Delivered\"" appears and the page refreshes.

Add blackout dates when you don't deliver

Blackout dates block delivery scheduling for days the trucks don't run — holidays, market days, the winter break. To manage them:

  1. Go to Deliveries and open the Blackouts tab.
  2. Click + Add next to the Blackout Dates heading.
  3. In the dialog ("Enter blackout start date and optional end date:"), pick a Start date. To black out a range, also pick an End date (optional) — every day in the range is blacked out. Leaving the start date empty shows "Please select a start date"; an end date before the start shows "End date cannot be before start date".
  4. Click Add, then confirm on the Confirm blackout dates prompt — "You have selected N day(s) in the range from … to …. Proceed?" — with Yes, add them.

The list shows upcoming blackout dates for your store; past dates drop off automatically. To remove one, click the trash icon next to the date and confirm "Delete blackout date?". Blackout dates are per store — if you have multiple locations, set them at each store.

What blackout dates do when scheduling a delivery

On the delivery ticket's Date calendar, blacked-out days are greyed out and can't be selected, so staff can't book a delivery on a day the trucks don't run.

Stores with the AM/PM blackout option (below) get an override instead of a hard block: the date stays clickable, and picking it asks "This date is blacked out for deliveries. Schedule this delivery anyway?" — so a manager can push an exception through.

AM-only and PM-only blackout periods

Some stores can black out just the morning or afternoon of a day instead of the whole day. This option is enabled per-client by VMX — contact help@vmxllc.com if you'd like it.

When enabled, the + Add dialog on the Blackouts tab gains a period selector with All day, AM only, and PM only, and the Blackout Dates list labels partial days with an AM only / PM only badge. On the delivery ticket, choosing a blocked half of the day asks "AM delivery is blacked out on this date. Schedule this delivery anyway?" (or the PM equivalent) — confirm to override, or decline and the time reverts to Anytime.

The Schedule calendar (truck capacity view)

Stores that run set trucks with daily capacity limits can have a Schedule tab on the Deliveries page. This is configured per-client by VMX with your trucks, capacities, and delivery zones — contact help@vmxllc.com to discuss setting it up. When configured, it provides:

  • A month calendar showing, for each day, every truck's booked count against its capacity (for example Trailer: 3/8), turning red when a truck is full, with a ticket total per day. Arrows at the top move between months.
  • Quick Lookup — type a customer's postal code to see their delivery zone and the next available date on each truck, so you can quote a date while the customer is at the counter.
  • A day detail view — click any day to see its deliveries grouped by truck, with customer, address, zone, items, payment state (Paid / Cheque / Owing / Quote), and status. Drag rows to reorder stops or drag a delivery onto another truck's section to reassign it; changes save automatically.
  • Per-truck Optimize (Google reorders the stops for the shortest drive and shows the total distance and time), Route (opens the full stop-by-stop route in Google Maps), and Print (prints that truck's list with a scannable route QR code) buttons.
  • View in Tickets → to jump from a day back to the main Tickets page.

Customer pickups

Stores that sell orders for later customer pickup can track them with the same ticket system as deliveries. Pickup tracking is enabled per-client by VMX — contact help@vmxllc.com to discuss enabling it.

When enabled, a Pickups entry appears in the navigation menu with a badge showing how many pickups are currently due. The Pickups page works exactly like the delivery Tickets page — Pickups Today, Pickups Scheduled, Pickups On Hold, and Recent Pickups sections, a + Pickup button to create a ticket, and the same bulk With Checked status updates — and pickup tickets use the same statuses as deliveries, ending in Picked Up instead of Delivered. On stores that track both, the main Tickets page gains a Type column showing whether each ticket is a Delivery or a Pickup.

Routes, blackout dates, and vehicles apply to deliveries only, so those tabs are not shown on the Pickups view.