01Define the wave and its source population
Open one readiness record with facility, warehouse, wave ID or proposed batch, wave type, template version, planned process and release times, shift, cutoff and reviewer. List the source sales orders, transfers, outbound shipment orders or other permitted demand at line level with shipment, load, route and priority references that actually apply. Capture the query or selection rule and the extract time. Distinguish lines already assigned to another open wave, load or work record. Microsoft documents shipping, production and kanban wave types as system-specific examples; do not mix their eligibility rules or assume every warehouse uses those categories. A report total is not a stable baseline if orders can still change. Freeze the reviewed population or preserve a versioned delta before approval.
02Verify demand, reservation and hold eligibility
Confirm that each line is authorized, not canceled, not fully fulfilled and still due from the reviewed warehouse. Reconcile requested, released, reserved or allocated, picked and remaining quantity in one validated unit. Microsoft notes that sales-order and kanban inventory must be reserved before release in its documented process; local systems may use different allocation controls, so record the applicable rule rather than declaring one universal requirement. Exclude blocked, quarantined, damaged, expired, wrong-owner or otherwise ineligible inventory. Check header, line, customer, payment, fraud, document, quality and shipping holds separately. A recently released sales-order hold may require the validation to run again. Record partial eligibility by line; do not mark a whole order ready because one line has stock.
03Validate templates, methods and location logic
Record the selected wave template and why its query matches. Check warehouse, order type, template sequence, automatic or manual processing setting, threshold, maximums and effective dates. Confirm that the first matching template is intentionally the most appropriate, not merely broad enough to capture the line. Review the configured methods that allocate inventory, create replenishment, containerize, create work or perform other local actions. Link the active work template, work pool and location directives or equivalent rules. Test whether the item, unit, status, lot, location and package hierarchy can produce valid pick and put work. A valid order with no permitted source location is an exception, not a reason to open an arbitrary location. Preserve configuration changes outside the release record through normal change control.
04Match the release to floor capacity and cutoff
Estimate remaining lines, units, handling units, travel, replenishment, special handling and exception load against available people, equipment, pick faces, packing stations, staging positions and dock windows. Use observed rates by relevant work type, with changeover, breaks, charging, congestion and known outages where material. Keep a carrier cutoff, customer promise, warehouse ready-by time and wave-release target as separate fields. A late release made to improve a dashboard cannot create more processing time. Decide whether to split by route, priority, temperature, hazardous handling, location zone or complete-order requirement only through the approved policy. Protect safety, access and quality controls even when the wave is urgent. Record which downstream owner accepted the planned volume and when capacity will be checked again.
05Handle failed and nonallocated lines visibly
Process the wave through a controlled validation or system step and retain messages, method results and correlation IDs. Classify each failure: insufficient eligible inventory, reservation conflict, no location, unit or master-data error, missing shipment, load conflict, hold, route or address issue, configuration failure or technical queue problem. Microsoft describes automatic rewaving of nonallocated shipment lines as one possible system behavior; it does not remove the need to know which demand failed or whether the next attempt is still useful. Give each line a disposition: correct data, replenish, reallocate, rewave, backorder, split, hold, cancel or escalate. Prevent the original and replacement work from both remaining executable. Do not zero a line or change status solely to make the wave finish.
06Authorize, release and freeze the result
Present eligible lines, exclusions, risks, cutoff confidence and unresolved exceptions to the role authorized to release. Record approval time, scope and any override. An override should identify the failed rule, evidence considered, affected lines, expiry and downstream safeguards; a generic urgent flag is not enough. Process and release the approved wave using its exact version. Capture resulting shipment, load, work and replenishment IDs, plus error or batch-job references. Lock or version the population according to system design and define how late additions are handled. Microsoft distinguishes creating, processing and releasing a wave; keep those milestones separate so a processed batch is not reported as floor-ready before work is actually available. Notify operations of true priority, route, cutoff and known exceptions.
07Reconcile work creation and improve the rule
Bridge every proposed source line to released work, deliberate exclusion, failed line, replacement wave or commercial outcome. Check for duplicate work, empty work headers, orphan shipments, unassigned replenishment and released work that mobile users cannot access. Compare planned and actual release time, eligible-line rate, allocation failure, work-creation error, manual override, rewave age, short pick, completion before cutoff and canceled work. Separate causes arising before the wave from those created by template logic or floor execution. Sample released work back to current demand and sample excluded demand forward to its next owned event. Tune templates, thresholds and timing only from repeated evidence. Close when the population and work bridge balances and no failed line has disappeared from view.