Work Orders – ShipHero

Work orders are used so that a job or specific task can easily be scheduled or assigned to someone. They can be created by a customer (if you are a 3PL) or created internally by a member of your team. This article will cover the following topics relating to Work Orders in ShipHero.

Types of ShipHero Work Orders

How to Create a Work Order

How to Create a Work Order from Backorders

Work Order Statuses

Assembly Work Order Details

3PL Work Order Billing for Ad Hoc Charges

Additional Features

Types of ShipHero Work Orders

ShipHero provides two types of work orders so that you can select the one that best fits the needs of your project. Work orders are considered separate from your daily order volume. You can assign different warehouse employees to work orders as necessary.

Assembly Work Orders

The Assembly Work Order guides users through assembling SKUs. For example:

Your store sells boxes of dog treats in various flavors.
You want to sell a pre-built box of a selection of your flavored dog treats.
Using an Assembly work order, you can create and assign a SKU to this grouping of dog treats and the special packaging that is needed.
Your pickers will then pick the specified dog treats and the package and provide it to the packers assigned to this work order.
Your packers will pre-build the box with the flavors already packed.
The pre-built package is then placed into receiving and can now be picked and packed as 1 item.

Custom Work Orders

The Custom Work Order is an empty field that allows the user to upload attachments or write instructions for a task.

How to Create a Work Order

Work orders can be created in the 3PL account, 3PL client account, or on the brand account.

Go to https://shipping.shiphero.com/work-orders/
Select Create Work Order
Choose 3PL (if applicable), Warehouse (if applicable), and the requested due date.
Name your work order and choose the work order type (Assembly or Custom)
If you select an assembly work order, you will be prompted to choose an Assembly SKU. If you select a custom work order, you will skip this step.
Assembly work orders only: After selecting the Assembly kit, please input how many you want to create.
For custom work orders, you will have the option to type in instructions manually (optional):
For Assembly work orders, you will have the opportunity to type in packing and Assembly details (optional)
For both assembly and custom work orders, you will be able to upload attachments (optional).

NOTE: We support several file types: PDF, png, jpeg, jpg, doc, xlsx, xls, ppt, pptx, and mp4 (videos).

How to Create a Work Order from Backorders

Work orders can be created depending on the backorders needed for an Assembly SKU.

Go to https://app.shiphero.com/dashboard/products
Filter by Is Assembly: Yes
Select Assembly SKU with backorders (can be 1 Assembly SKU or all with backorders - bulk is supported)

Click Create a Work Order.
Work Orders for each SKU will be created automatically for the quantity that is backordered.
Go to https://shipping.shiphero.com/work-orders/
The new work orders will be available.

Pending Quantity on Work Orders

If a work order has already been created for an item that is backordered and a second work order for the same product is added, ShipHero will deduct the amount of items attached to the existing work order.

For example:

Assembly SKU - Spring Snacks has 100 backorders.
We create a work order for 100 Spring Snacks.
While working on this current work order, we import another 100 Spring Snack orders.
The backorder now shows 200, but we already have a work order for 100.
When creating the new work order on the Inventory page, ShipHero will know to set the quantity. as 100 since the system knows that 100 is already in progress.

NOTE: The user can also update an existing work order and increase the quantity but this is if they want to use the Bulk Create Work Orders in app dot.

Work Order Statuses

After a work order has been opened, it will go through the following statuses:

Awaiting Approval - Only applies to work orders that are submitted by clients to a 3PL for approval.
In Progress - The work order was approved or is ready to go, but has not been picked yet.
Ready to Pick - The user selects the pick locations for the components as well as the staging location (not applicable to custom work orders).
Assembly in Progress - The components are deducted from the pick locations and moved to the staging location. The items are assembled and can be transferred to the receiving location during this step (not applicable to custom work orders).
Done - All of the Assembly SKU(s) were made and received - the work order was 100% completed.
Closed - The work order was not fully received, but you are closing it as "partially done". If you are a 3PL, you can bill your client for the work that was done (even if not 100% complete).
Canceled - The work order is canceled. No editing can be done.

Assembly Work Order Details

An assembly work order must have Assembly SKUs.

Creating an Assembly SKU

To mark a SKU as an Assembly, go to the product details page and select the edit icon. Select the setting "This is an Assembly SKU used in Work Orders" and click Update.

Once a SKU is marked as an Assembly SKU, you can add Assembly SKU components.

NOTE: An Assembly SKU cannot be a Kit, because Kits cannot have locations or an on-hand quantity. An Assembly SKU can have locations and an on-hand quantity.

An Assembly SKU must have at least 1 component.

You can change the components of an Assembly SKU, but it will not update on an existing work order. This is intentional to support the following use cases:

- You create an Assembly SKU with the components: 1 hat, 1 shirt, and 1 blue sticker. You do not have enough blue stickers and decide it is ok to use a different sticker but have the same Assembly SKU.
- You can edit the sticker component SKU and make another work order with the new sticker. The first work order will use your blue stickers, and the new one will have the new sticker SKU.

Picking the Components

In this step, you will select which locations you will pick the items from. You will also choose the location where the components will be moved to.

You can update the number of assembly SKUs to create as well as your pick quantities.
Components can be picked from multiple locations.
If a SKU has a lot code, you can only pick the same lot/expiration for that SKU. We do not support mixing lot codes for the same SKU.

If the lot code matches, you can choose different locations for the same SKU.

Once all the picking locations are selected, print the pick sheet:

The quantities can still be updated as needed - so if you need more on hand, you can change the quantities.

Once everything is picked and moved to the staging location, you can update the status to "Assembly in Progress."

Moving to "ASSEMBLY IN PROGRESS" will deduct the components from the selected locations and move them to the Staging location. Please make sure all locations are accurate before moving to the next step. This transfer cannot be undone.

NOTE: We suggest using the putaway feature if you need to return items after they are transferred to the staging location. Scan in the staging area, which will list all the items there. Then you can move them back using the inventory transfer feature.

Assembling the Components

Once in the Assembly status, your team will build the Assembly SKU according to the instructions on the work order. The attachments can be downloaded and viewed at any time.

As the SKUs are completed, they can be received at the receiving location.

Transfer the completed Assembly SKU to the receiving location:

You can receive all at once or receive as you go.

Printing Assembly SKU Barcodes

You can print barcodes for your Assembly SKU during any of the phases.

They can be printed after the SKU is assembled or you can pre-print them once the work order is created.

Creating Assembly SKU Lot Codes:

For this version, the Assembly SKU lot code will need to be created in app.shiphero.com.

Go to https://app.shiphero.com/dashboard/lots
Create a lot for this Assembly SKU, including the expiration date:

Once your lot is made, you can assign the lot code to the location where this SKU was received.

Go to https://app.shiphero.com/dashboard/product-locations
Search location and click “Edit Lot”

3. Choose lot code for your Assembly SKU.

Notes:

You'll only need to do this once per location - ex. if you receive all of these to location “Receiving WO.”
You must assign this lot code to each location if you receive multiple locations.
You do not need to make a new lot code each time since all of these SKUs in the work order should have the same lot code.

Additional Features

Work orders can have a requested due date and a scheduled date. The scheduled date is when the 3PL or brand would like to begin work on this work order.