The most important setup step of Shipment Management is the concept of status of the route. The status is effectively the set of steps the route has to go through from the placing of the order to delivery/collection of the items. Shipment Management provides total flexibility in the shipping process and this is defined in the Route Status list. It is possible to have different processes for different Shipping Agents meaning Shipment Management can manage the process for both your own logistics and third-party shipping agents.
The status lines that make up the process can be defined from the Route Status List page. This can be accessed from selecting Route Status List from the ribbon of the Shipment Management Setup page:
This option opens a page that defines this list of route status codes. Each Route Status Code represents a process or check within a route which needs to be completed before the route can progress onto the next status.
The easiest way to configure the process is to use the Setup Status List option on the ribbon:
This will open a wizard that will guide you through the configuration by asking a series of questions on how you run your shipping operations.
The wizard can be run several times of you use a number of shipping agents or a mix of your own logistics and external shipping agents.
If you wish to make any changes to the Route Status List you may do this after running the wizard. If you want to understand more information of the purpose of each status you can either select Status Information from the ribbon:
This will display a descriptive summary of the purpose function of the status. Alternatively you can review the Status Types section of this guide.
To highlight the use of multiple Shipping Agents, lets consider the following scenario:
In the example above setup of status codes has been done for Shipping Agent codes External (a third party Shipping Agent) and OWN LOG. (an internal logistics fleet)
Take the example above:
- Once a route has processed status code 10 'Planning' this will be followed by code 20 (as specified in the next Code field).
- The route will then run through and will process status code 20 next but will filter for the appropriate Shipping Agent Code for that route.
- When processing status code 20 it will either run 'Create Shipments' for our external shipping agent or 'Create Consolidated Shipments' for our own logistics.
- Further down, Print Documentation is only processed for the external shipping agent.
The additional fields on the Route Status List allow further control on how a route is processed:
The Error Policy determines what happens if an error occurs during processing of a status. if this is set to Status Error are Not processed, the system will still automatically move to the next status, (if specified). This might be useful if you have picks for a large number items and there is an error picking one item. In this scenario you may not want to hold up processing of the route whilst the error is resolved. If the Error Policy is set to Stop and Show Errors, processing of the route will be stopped and the error can be resolved.
If you select Process Automatically, then you do not have to manually process the status from the Shipment Management Routes screen and it will be automatically processed once the preceding status has been completed. Regardless of this setting, certain status types are also integrated with warehouse documents or Clever WMS Devices. In these cases the status will be automatically moved to the next status. For example, Register Picks will be automatically completed once the last pick relating to the route is processed by registering the warehouse pick directly against the warehouse pick document or via Clever WMS Devices.
Choosing to Hide Status means that the code selected will be hidden from the factbox on the Shipment Management Routes screen. Status lines are also automatically hidden if they are not relevant to the route. For example, Create Receipts will be automatically hidden and not processed if there are no collections on the route.
If you tick the option to Allow Moving Lines/Drops, this will enable you to control at what status codes you would like to permit users to move drops onto a new or existing route. The setup above only allows drops to be moved at their planning stage, if you attempt to move a drop at any other status code you will receive an error stating it cannot be moved:
If you tick the option to Manage Failed Deliveries, this will allow you to process actions relating to handling deliveries that could not be completed. Generally this would only apply to status lines after completing your shipments and prior to making any receipts as the result of collections.
Note: This restriction applies to moving drops within a route as well as moving to a different existing or new route.
If you select Prevent Processing from Route, it will not be possible to processing the status directly from the Route page. This is useful for steps such as picking when you need the warehouse operatives to process the picks and the status to only be updated once picking is complete.
The following video shows an example of how additional statuses can be added: