What happens when an order is escalated?

An escalated order is one TheTuningGroup has taken over. It shows the status Escalated, and it is frozen for you: the thread with the dealer stays open and you can still read and download everything, but the order cannot be delivered, cancelled or refunded again until the platform team puts it back into play.

What escalates an order?

Two things put an order in a state the platform owns:

• A third revision request. Two revisions on one order are free and come straight back to you as Revision requested. The next one does not — it moves the order to Escalated and hands it to the platform team, on the grounds that three rounds is a disagreement, not a rework (handling-revisions).
• A failure. An order you or the platform marked failed shows as Failed. The dealer's credits are already back; the row stays visible so the case is not lost.

A dealer can also press Escalate on an order thread. That opens a support ticket for the platform admins with the order attached — it does not change the order's status, and the ticket is deliberately not routed to you, because an escalation may be about you. Your view of that case stays the order thread.

Where do I see escalated orders?

Two boards, and they are not the same list.

Operations → Escalations is the platform-wide board: every order on the platform currently Escalated or Failed, not only yours. The table shows Status, Vehicle, Reason (the dealer's own words from the revision request, or the failure reason), when it was Raised, and a row of actions. Empty, it reads "No escalations". Clicking a row opens the order.

Your own escalated work is easier to find in Operations → Work queue: open the status filter and select Escalated. That list is scoped to your workspaces and nothing else.

What can I do about an escalated order of mine?

Argue it in the order thread, with evidence. Logs, a datalog, photos of the car, what you changed between versions, what the dealer reports — all of it belongs in the conversation, because that thread is what the platform team reads when it decides.

What you cannot do is push the order forward yourself. The order page still draws its Workflow steps and an upload slot, but a delivery, a cancellation or a refund on an Escalated order is refused — the order has to be released back into the queue first. Do not work around that by asking the dealer to place a fresh order for the same car: it splits the history and charges them twice.

The three buttons on the Escalations board — Reassign, Retry and Refund — are TheTuningGroup's own controls, reserved for platform staff. On a tuner account they do not appear at all, rather than sitting there to fail if pressed — the board stays read-only awareness for you, action for us.

What does the platform do with it?

One of three things:

• Reassign — drops the assigned tuner and returns the order to In Queue, so it can be picked up again.
• Retry — returns the order to In Queue without changing who is on it, which is the normal exit when the two sides have agreed on what to fix.
• Refund — returns the dealer's credits and closes the order. This cannot be undone.

Once an order is back in the queue, it is ordinary work again: claim it or deliver it exactly as before.

Nothing has moved and the dealer is waiting

Escalation pauses the argument, not the clock the dealer feels. If an escalated order has sat for more than a working day, open Communication → Messages, start a chat with TheTuningGroup Support, and give them the vehicle, the order reference, what you delivered and what the dealer says is wrong. A message with those four facts gets a verdict; "order stuck" does not.