A Dubai distributor can see a confirmed order in its sales app, but the dispatch system never received it. A database update and a message to another system can fail independently. A transactional outbox records the need to send the message alongside the order change, so a temporary outage does not erase the work still to be done.
Save the order and the pending message together
Write the order and an outbox record in the same database transaction. The outbox record might say that order 842 is ready for dispatch and include a stable event ID. If the order rolls back, the outbox record rolls back too. A separate process reads committed outbox records and delivers them to the dispatch system. AWS describes this approach in its transactional outbox guidance.
Design for a repeated message
The delivery process may send a message successfully and then fail before recording the acknowledgement. A retry can send the same event again. The receiving system should recognise the event ID and avoid creating a second dispatch job. If it cannot enforce that rule directly, agree where duplicate detection will happen before introducing automated retries. If cancellation and dispatch events can arrive out of sequence, use order versions or an explicit state check to stop an older event from reversing a newer decision.
Give operations a visible recovery path
Show staff the difference between an order that is saved, a message waiting to send and a dispatch job confirmed by the receiver. Monitor the age of the oldest unsent event and assign an owner for repeated failures. In a test environment, stop the receiver, create an order, restart it and verify that exactly one dispatch job results. Then simulate a lost acknowledgement and repeat. The database transaction guide covers related writes within one application.
ITZ’s custom software development service can review where your order and dispatch systems exchange events. Describe one order status that goes missing between systems.
Review your order-to-dispatch integration
Bring the two systems, an anonymised order reference and how staff currently recover missing jobs. Use the form to discuss delivery, retries and reconciliation. Review Your Order-to-Dispatch Integration
