Fulfillment is a module of the Warehouse section, under Sales: every order still to go out, from the store, wholesale, the marketplace, the API, an order taken at the register to be shipped, and your fulfillment clients, from every facility, in one grid. It reads the same rows as the shipments desk and acts through the same functions, so nothing done here is done differently from the desk, the pick tickets or the waves.
What a row says
Each order shows where it stands, read each time from the records that hold it, never stored:
- New: nothing has been done to it yet.
- On a pick ticket, Being picked, Picked: its pick ticket, with the ticket number a tap away.
- Packed: packed on the desk, waiting for its label.
- Label made: its label is bought and waits for the carrier.
- On hold: held here, with why.
Beside the stage: the facility it goes out from (chosen here, else its ticket's or wave's place, else the place parcels usually go out from), the carrier and service, the cutoff it has to be packed and labeled by, the day it was promised, how old it is, and its flags:
- Late: its cutoff passed and it is not labeled, or its promised day passed.
- At risk: its cutoff is within two hours and it is not labeled, or it was promised today and is not packed.
- Short of stock: its facility lacks something it needs, by the one definition of availability: every item there in enough, on hand and not held. Stock ready says it has everything.
A held order is neither late nor at risk: it waits on purpose.
Cutoffs
A cutoff is when a carrier picks up at a facility: the time an order has to be packed and labeled by to go out that day. Set them under Carrier cutoffs: for one carrier or every one, at one facility or every one, at a time of day on the days of the week it holds. The most specific one that fits an order is the one that counts, and an order in a wave takes the wave's own cutoff first.
Working a batch
Tap a row to select it, Shift for a run of them, Ctrl (or ⌘) for one more, then act from the rail:
- Make pick tickets allocates the orders: it makes one pick ticket a facility for the orders picked, each line the stock that would go first in walking order, with what the place lacks short from the start.
- Add to a wave puts them in an open wave, or gathers a new one at the facility they share with its carrier and cutoff; the wave is released into tickets under Wave.
- Mark packed packs each in your usual box at what its products weigh; one whose weight is not known is said, and is packed by hand in its drawer.
- Make labels buys a label for each through your carrier accounts, at the service chosen when it was packed or at your rule for choosing a rate.
- Mark shipped says the carrier has the labeled ones: their orders are sent, the stock leaves, and the customers are emailed the tracking.
- Hold and Release, with why. Move to a facility changes where an order goes out from (one on a ticket or in a wave stays until the ticket is canceled or it is taken out of the wave). Set the promised day keeps the day it was promised, which the late and at-risk flags read.
- Print gives the labels made on 4 × 6 pages, and a pick list from a facility for the rest.
What a batch did is said line by line: each order done, and each not done with why. The ones not done stay selected, to be looked at.
Open an order (a double tap, Enter, or Open) for the desk's own drawer: what is in it, its packing, its labels, what the carrier said.
Best practices
- Set a cutoff for each carrier that picks up, so the dashboard tells you what is at risk before the truck comes rather than after.
- Work the flags first: the tiles across the top narrow the grid to late, at risk or short with one tap.
- Allocate by facility: select everything going out from one place and make its tickets at once, or gather it into one wave a carrier cutoff.
- Hold with a reason that the next person can act on ("waiting on payment"), and release the moment it is settled.
- Move an order to another facility when the first is short of stock, before anyone picks it.