Bulk pack and ship

Bulk pack and ship packs and ships a whole batch of single-line orders in one action. It is the packing counterpart of bulk picking: the picker has collected the products for many orders into one container, and instead of packing each order by hand, you scan the container once and Boxture creates a parcel and a shipment for every order in it, ships them and prints their labels.

Typical use: a webshop promotion where hundreds of customers each ordered the same product.

Who can use it

Bulk pack and ship is available to users with the role Bulk pack and ship and to admins. They find Bulk pack and ship in the menu of the Orders overview.

Because each order is packed and shipped, the user must also be allowed to pack (Admin, Warehouse associate or Packer), and to ship (Admin, Warehouse associate or Shipper) for the automatic shipping step.

Before you start

• The orders must have been picked on a pick list of a pick list plan of type Bulk, into a container. Containers picked in other ways are refused with "Container ... is not bulk picked".
• A default packing material must be set for the orders (through the packing setting or the shipping method). Without one, the run stops with "Default Packing Material is not configured".
• For carriers with an integration, label printing works best with Create label on pack complete or labels requested at shipping; both happen automatically in this flow.

TIP

Create a bulk plan with the rule Quantity = 1 (or a single Product rule with release policy Exclusive) so that it only selects orders that bulk pack and ship can handle.

Bulk packing and shipping a container

1. Go to Orders and choose Bulk pack and ship in the menu.
2. Scan or select the Container. Only picked containers that were bulk picked are listed.
3. If the container holds serialized products, a Serial number field appears. Scan all serial numbers of the items in the container, one per line.
4. Click Bulk pack and ship.

The work starts in the background ("Bulk pack and ship started."). You receive a notification for every order:

• success: the order was packed and shipped;
• an error for an order that could not be packed, or a shipping error with a link to the shipment;
• a warning for orders that were skipped (see below).

What happens for each order

For every order that has items in the container, Boxture:

1. Packs the order's items from the container into one new parcel, using the order's default packing material and its weight.
2. Creates a separate shipment for the order. Shipments are numbered in the description, for example "Order 3 - ..." followed by the order number, so you can see the sequence.
3. Ships the shipment straight away, because the order is fully packed and has exactly one shipment, regardless of the Auto ship setting.
4. Requests the carrier label, if the carrier is integrated (see Carrier labels).
5. Collects all papers produced for that order (labels and documents) and sends them to the printer as one combined print job, so that each order's paperwork comes out together.

When the container is empty at the end, it is retired.

Each order is handled on its own: a problem with one order does not stop the others.

Orders that are skipped

Bulk pack and ship only handles simple orders. These orders in the container are skipped with a warning, and stay picked so you can pack them manually:

Skipped order	Warning
The order asks for specific serial numbers	"Serial number ordered ... is a multi-line order, it has been ignored."
The order has more than one order line	"Sales order ... is a multi-line order, it has been ignored."

Serial numbers

For serialized products, all serial numbers in the container must be scanned. Boxture checks that:

• the product is actually serialized ("Serial Number should be blank as product is not serialized");
• no serial number is scanned twice;
• the number of serial numbers matches the number of picked items ("Too many serial numbers scanned", "Please Scan all Serial Numbers in container ...");
• every scanned serial number is in the container ("Serial number ... not in container"), and every serial number already registered in the container is scanned ("Please scan all picked serial numbers").

The scanned serial numbers are then distributed over the orders, in order, as they are packed.

After the run

• Check the notifications for failed or skipped orders and handle them in the normal packing screen.
• Shipments whose carrier label failed are back in pending; see When a label request fails.
• The new shipments appear under Shipments.