Workflow

Workflow

Order preparation workflow


The order preparation screen is designed to easily manage orders shipments.

It looks like :


Concepts

Batches & Steps

Preparation steps are availale as “red buttons” at the top of the “Order preparation” screen.

Note

More information in the “Preparation steps” section.

Whatever steps configuration you choose, we advise to process orders by batch (let’s say 20 orders per batch). For each batch of orders processed, ALL the preparation steps have to be executed.

The batch of orders currently processed is displayed in the “In progress tab”.

Once all preparation steps have been processed, the last one (“Flush shipped orders”) will remove all orders from the “In progress” tab, allowing you to process a new batch of orders.

Through all preparation steps, you can track the preparation progress for each order having a look at the “Preparation status”.

The “Preparation status” can take the following values :

  • New : The order has just been added to the batch.
  • Packed : The order has been packed.
  • Shipped : The order bas been shipped (meaning that the tracking number has been added at shipment level).

Operator & warehouses

At the top of the screen, you got the possibility to change the current operator and the current warehouse.
Here are some details on these 2 notions :

  • Operator : Each operator (Magento user) can prepare its own batch of orders.

    If you select orders using one operator (add them to the “In progress” tab), those orders will not be visible for the others operators.

    By this way, several operators can work at the same time on different batches without managing the same orders.

  • Warehouse : This is the warehouse from which you prepare orders.

    If you only use the Order preparation extension, only the “default” warehouse wil be available.

    However, if you also use our Inventory management OR Embedded ERP extension, several warehouses will be available here.

    The visible orders for each warehouse will depend of Warehouses routing configuration.

    You will only see orders having at least one product affected to the selected warehouse.


Preparation steps

Once on the Prepare orders screen, a few buttons managing the order preparation process will be displayed :

Note

You can choose which buttons will be displayed from the configuration.

Orders selection

This first step (mandatory) is designed to select orders to add in the batch of orders to manage.

Note

Only “opened orders” will be displayed in the Order preparation screen.

Opened orders are orders which are not fully shipped, and neither cancelled.

To help you to find orders to process, opened orders are divided into 4 differents tabs.

Preparation tabs understanding

The Order preparation screen is made of 4 different tabs, sorting orders according to ordered products stock status :

  • In stock : Contains orders having all products to ship in stock.
  • Backorder : Contains orders having some of the products to ship not in stock.
  • On Hold : Contains orders not to ship at the moment (depending of the Orders statuses mapping configuration).
  • In progress : Contains orders being currently prepared (orders selected in the current batch of orders to process).

Note

Orders will be displayed in the different tabs depending of the configuration set for the Orders statuses mapping.

Note

If you also use our “Inventory Management” extension, the orders distribution between tabs “In stock” and “Backorders” will also depend of the products “reservation” status. In fact, an order having every products reserved will be displayed into the “In stock” tab, however if an order contains one or more product NOT reserved, it will be displayed in the “Backorder” tab.

Colors meaning

All orders are displayed with their products details in the different tabs. Color codes are used to distinguish product statuses :

  • Strikethrough : The product has already been shipped.
  • Green : The product is currently in stock (or has been reserved for this order if you’ve our Inventory management extension).
  • Red : The product is out of stock.
  • Orange : The product is partially in stock (or has been partially reserved if you’ve our Inventory management extension). For instance, you must ship 3 qty of a product, but only 2 are currently in stock / have been reserved.
  • Grey and italic : The product must be dispatched from another warehouse (see Orders statuses mapping configuration).

From these tabs, you can select orders to add to the current batch of managed orders, as seen previously.

To Achieve that goal, you’ve got 2 options :

  • Tick the orders checkboxes from the grids, and then select the mass action “Prepare” located at the top-left corner of each tab’s grid.
  • Use the “Prepare” link from the “action” column displayed on each tab’s grid.

In both case, selected order(s) will be removed from the current tab and added to the “In progress” tab.

Note

If an ordered product is out of stock, it will not be managed through the order preparation steps, and so a partial shipment will be created for the order containing it.

Picking

The Picking step will launch a PDF file download, composed of all selected orders details.

This PDF will be composed of a Global picking list page as summary (if enabled in the module configuration), and of one page per order selected in the batch.

Global picking list page

You can add a global picking list of all orders in the batch at the beginning of the Picking PDF, by enabling the Include global picklist option.

This page will display all products you need to prepare orders currently selected in the batch.

For example this can be helpful to pick all the products and pack them afterward.

The global picking list looks like this :


Orders pages

The Picking PDF is then composed of one page for each order in the batch, with their details displayed, if the option Include single order picklist has been set to “Yes”.

  • Barcode : A barcode containing the order ID is generated for each order, it can then be used at the Packing step to select orders to pack.
  • Order details : Operator name’s, shipping method used and order date.
  • Customer address(es) : Shipping and Billing address(es).
  • Products list : Depending of the option PDF Layout, more or less products information will be displayed :

Example of a product in an order page with the PDF Layout option set to “Large font with images” :


Example of a product in an order page with the PDF Layout option set to “Small font” :


Note

If you wish to modify the picking list data or structure, here is the path of the PHP file to modify :

app\code\BoostMyShop\OrderPreparation\Model\Pdf\PickingList.php

Packing

The packing applies on orders in the batch.

To pack an order, you can :

  • Scan the barcode on the picking list
  • Select the order with the drop down menu on the top left corner.

In both cases, the order details are displayed, with the products to pack.

For each products, you can scan the product barcode OR use the - / + button to update the quantity packed. Every time the quantity packed for one product changes, the status on the right changes.


Once every product are packed, you can confirm the packing using the commit packing button : the extension will create shipment and invoice (depending of the settings in stores > configuration > boostmyshop > order preparation) and display a confirmation screen.

From the confirmation screen, you can :

  • Download the packing slip PDF
  • Download the invoice PDF
  • Download the shipping label template file
  • Enter the tracking number and save it into the shipment : when the tracking number is saved, the customer is notified by email (using the regular magento shipment notification email)

Mass create shipments & invoices

This step will automatically create shipment and invoice for each order in the batch of selected orders (if not already created).

Download PDFs

This button will launch the invoice and packing slip download for all orders in the batch of selected orders.

Note

Packing slip will only be downloaded if orders have already been shipped, and by the same way invoices will only be downloaded if orders have been invoiced.

Shipping

Export to shipping software

Note

Shipping label templates can be configured following this article : Shipping label templates.

Once shipping information are filled for selected order, system is able to create a file (using the shipping label template) to export order information in shipping software and print shipping labels.

To download the shipping file, click on the link “Export for XXX” into the Export order details section.

Then, you will get a csv / text or xml file that you can import into your shipping software to print the shipping label.

To get more information on how to import an order information file in the shipping software, please read the user manual of the software.

Import tracking numbers

Warning

This feature requires beforehand to have setup a tracking numbers export file from the Shipping labels section.

On the right of the screen, you will find a Import tracking file section, from where you will be able to import any CSV file containing tracking numbers and shipments information.

Once imported, all tracking numbers in the file will be automatically set to their respective shipments.

To import a CSV tracking file, select the shipping label template you want to use from the drop-down list, then upload your file clicking on Chose file button, and finally click on the Import button.

Once the file is processed, you should see the tracking numbers imported filled into the Tracking # column of the Orders to ship grid.

You also have the possibility to manually fill tracking numbers from the Tracking # column of the grid. Once tracking numbers have been filled, click on the Save tracking numbers button to save them.

Flush shipped orders

This button remove all shipped orders from the “In progress” tab, so you can start to manage a new batch of orders.


    • Related Articles

    • Concepts

      3. Concepts This page explains the main concepts of the Order preparation extension. Order preparation tabs The order preparation extension main screen displays 3 tabs in which it distributes orders : In stock orders : contains orders for which every ...

    • Installation

      2. Installation Warning From Magento version 2.3, Magento Multi-Sources Inventory modules are installed and enabled. Our Embedded ERP modules are not compatible with these modules. To make it work correctly, you will need to disable them all, ...

    • Picking / Packing per Batch

      Overview This article explains how to prepare orders creating batches of orders. Packing per batch workflow is the following :  Warehouse manager creates batch containing several orders, batches are not assigned to any user Warehouse manager prints ...

    • Installation

      2. Installation From Magento version 2.3, Magento Multi-Sources Inventory modules are installed and enabled. Our Embedded ERP modules are not compatible with these modules. To make it work correctly, you will need to disable them all, following ...

    • Configuration

      3. Configuration POS configuration General These settings will define the global rules of POS. Option Description Barcode attribute Products barcode attribute Disable sounds Disable sound when a product is added to POS checkout screen Authorize the ...