Constraint optimizer

Elevate plan

The constraint optimizer checks a purchase order against configured constraint rules and proposes a plan. Nothing changes until you review the plan and confirm apply.

Constraint optimizer plan with status, guidance, recommended actions, and Apply Plan button — Optimizer plans explain status, reasons, remaining gaps, and why each action was selected.

What the optimizer can change

The active mode is Fill gaps. It can:

Increase an existing PO line.
Add an eligible supplier variant as a new PO line.

It cannot currently:

Reduce a line.
Remove a line.
Intentionally make a hard target rule worse.
Apply a plan without your confirmation.

Rule behavior

Constraint Studio rules can be optimizer targets or warning-only rules.

Optimizer target on: the optimizer tries to satisfy the rule and treats caps/limits as hard boundaries for additive plans.
Optimizer target off: the rule still appears as a PO hint, but the optimizer does not target it directly.
Objective outputs: some rules, such as fill capacity blocks, add ranking scores so a feasible plan is ordered toward a better business outcome.
Severity: controls whether PO hints look like Info, Warning, or Error. Severity is not the same as optimizer hardness.

Hard target constraints are not knowingly violated by the optimizer. Soft warnings and objectives can remain open and are reported in the plan reasons.

Modes

Mode	Availability	Behavior
Fill gaps	Active	Adds new lines or increases existing lines.
Rebalance	Locked	Reserved for future reduce/remove plans. UI and API do not allow it yet.

Forecast view

A Forecast View can be selected before running the optimizer. When a view is selected, the optimizer can use stock-day context for ranking. If no view is selected, the run can still proceed, but candidates are ranked without stock-day prioritization and the guidance explains that.

If loading the Forecast View fails, the dialog shows guidance and still lets you run with the available supplier candidates.

Statuses and reasons

Status	Meaning
`optimal`	The bounded search found a complete plan for the targeted rules it can solve.
`feasible`	The plan is valid and useful, but some objective or remaining rule reasons may remain.
`infeasible`	Rules conflict, required data is missing, or Fill gaps cannot solve the current violation.
`time_limit`	The bounded search stopped before finishing every branch.
`model_too_large`	The candidate pool is too large for the configured safety limits. Narrow the scope and retry.

The plan can include:

Guidance - setup notes, missing view context, or source-mode notes.
Status reasons - why this status was returned.
Remaining rule reasons - target gaps that remain open.
Why selected - why each recommended action was chosen.

Apply flow

Open a Draft or Sent PO.
Click Optimize.
Run Fill gaps.
Review actions, final quantities, reasons, and added variants.
Click Apply Plan.
Confirm the summary.

Apply is one server-side request. Logistified rechecks the baseline, validates the target PO status and supplier/variant eligibility, applies the actions, reevaluates constraints, and returns refreshed audit information. If the PO changed after the plan was created, apply is rejected as stale and you should rerun the optimizer.

Only Elevate users can apply plans. Apply is allowed only for Draft and Sent POs.

Limits and missing data

The optimizer is bounded and deterministic so it can run safely in Logistified’s Worker environment. It returns clear reasons instead of running indefinitely.

Common limits:

Missing MOQ, pack size, Product MOQ, CBM, weight, group, purchase family, or cost data.
Missing or inactive supplier mapping.
Deleted or unavailable variant.
Candidate pool too large.
Rules that require reduce/remove actions while only Fill gaps is available.
Budget or max-cap rules already violated by the current PO.

Sync to Shopify

Apply updates the PO in Logistified. It does not send the PO, email the supplier, or push incoming inventory to Shopify by itself. Use the normal PO lifecycle action or Sync to Shopify when you want Shopify incoming inventory updated.