What this covers

How tasking captures are assessed for quality, what happens with cloud cover, how to request an additional review of a capture you think fell short, and when cancelling an order costs you. Use it to plan imaging campaigns and set expectations.

Note: the behaviour described below is Planet's standard tasking policy and applies to Tanager tasking orders. The specific quality checks and threshold values that apply to any given order are defined by the tasking product used to create it.

Cloud cover and quality thresholds

There is no single fixed cloud-cover maximum across tasking. Each tasking product defines its own quality checks and thresholds, applied when your order is assessed. Those checks include a cloud and haze evaluation plus a manual operator review. Each capture also reports a cloud_cover value, so you can see what was actually collected. If a capture does not meet the product's quality commitments, Planet may re-task or re-process it (see disputes below).

How captures are assessed

When a capture is collected, it is checked against the product's requirements (rectification quality, target coverage, cloud and haze, and manual review). The order is marked:

• SUCCESS / FULFILLED — all required checks met the specification.
• INVALID — the required specifications were not met.

Manual review typically happens within 24 hours of the capture being published. Manual review can change an assessment in either direction — a SUCCESS may be reassessed as INVALID (moving the order back to IN_PROGRESS or EXPIRED), and the reverse correction is also possible. After the 24-hour point, such changes are unlikely.

Disputing a capture (requesting an additional review)

If you disagree with a capture's quality evaluation, you can ask Planet to review it again from the Tasking Dashboard.

1. Open the Order Detail view in the Tasking Dashboard.
2. Give your reason and add a written explanation. The more detail you provide, the faster the review.
3. Submit. The capture is reassessed.

• Deadline: request within two weeks of the capture publication date.
• Tracking: follow progress in the capture detail view and order history, or via the API.
• Outcome: Planet may re-task or re-process the image if quality commitments were not met. The order creator gets an email once a decision is made.

Scheduling

• Flexible orders keep re-tasking automatically until a passing capture is collected or the order's end time is reached.
• Assured orders get a single collection opportunity at the chosen time.

Cancellations and charges (Assured orders)

Timelines at a glance

Examples

Planning around cloud cover. You place a Flexible tasking order over a cloudy region. It keeps re-tasking until it gets a capture that passes the product's cloud and haze checks, or until your order window ends — so give cloudy areas a longer window.

Disputing a capture. A capture publishes Monday and looks hazier than expected. You have until about two weeks later to open Order Detail, explain what you're seeing, and submit. Planet reviews and re-tasks or re-processes if it did not meet the commitment.

Avoiding a cancellation charge. You have already cancelled 3 Assured orders today and need to drop a 4th — that is 50% of its credits. If collection is under 24 hours away you cannot cancel at all. Consider swapping the window instead, which has no penalty.