Lots on Orders

A lot often goes out on more than one order. You pack 60 blocks of lot 101326-POBO-7 for one customer on Tuesday, and the other 40 stay in the lot until another order takes some of them next week.

Nothing extra is needed for this. The lot keeps its code, its label and its count. Each order records how many units of the lot it took. What is left stays on the lot under the same code, ready for the next order.

This guide covers packing part of a lot, finding what is left, packing the rest later, and what a recall shows for a lot that went out on several orders.

Who can do what

Boxing blocks ahead of the ship

Blocks boxed days before they ship go into the reefer, so move them there first:

1. Open the lot and click Move.
2. Pick the rack as From and the reefer as To. A reefer set up inside the PACKED location counts as packed.
3. Enter the number you boxed and click Confirm move.
4. Then add the units to the order (next section) and pick the reefer under Ship from.

Adding units to an order doesn’t move them. If you skip the move, the units still show on the rack until the order ships. A count of that rack before the ship finds them there. Sporeline doesn’t move boxed units to the reefer for you when you add them to an order.

Add part of a lot to an order

1. Open the order and go to the Fulfill tab.
2. Under Lot, pick the lot. Each lot shows how many units are available, and how many are packed.
3. Enter the Units for this order. You can take fewer than the lot has; the rest stay on the lot.
4. Under Ship from, pick where these units are, for example the reefer you boxed them into. Leave it empty and the ship takes packed units first, then units with no place, then the places with the most free units. Units another order named under Ship from, and units In transit, are left alone.
5. Click Add from lot.
6. When the order is boxed, click Mark packed.

Auto-assign lots fills the order’s lines for you, packed lots first, then the oldest. You check the plan, and can leave rows out or lower them, before anything is added. To fill many orders at once, see Auto-assign Lots and Pick Lists.

The units are now held for this order. Other orders can’t take them, and the lot’s Available count goes down by that many.

Scan to pack on the phone

You can fill an order from the phone or a Zebra handheld by scanning labels, with the same checks as the web’s Fulfill tab.

1. Open the order on the phone. Orders that are PLANNED or PACKED and have a product line show Scan to pack.
2. Tap Scan to pack and scan with the Zebra trigger or the camera:
   • A block label (a bag) goes on the line that takes its product. Sporeline picks the line. If two lines take it, the phone asks which one.
   • A lot label asks How many units from this lot? (1 to start). Enter the number and tap Add to order. The ship takes packed units first, then other units of the lot; to name a rack, add the lot on the web under Ship from.
   • A pallet label sends the blocks you scan next onto that pallet. Tap Off pallet to stop.
3. The phone sends one scan at a time: while a scan is being answered, the camera and the trigger pause. After you add units from a lot (or cancel), that lot’s label is paused too, so a label left in view is not added twice. To add more from the same lot, tap Scan next and scan it again; scanning any other label also ends the pause.
4. Each scan adds a row with what happened: where it went and how many the line now has, Already on this order for a bag you scanned twice (nothing changes), or the reason Sporeline refused it. The line counts at the top update after each scan. The rows stay on screen while the phone asks for a lot’s units or a line.
5. Tap Done to go back to the order. If scans are still being answered, the phone stops scanning and says Waiting for N scans to be answered…; when the answers are in, read them and tap Back to order. Packed so far on the order lists the bags and lot units on it, with their line.

What a refusal looks like: the row shows Sporeline’s own sentence, for example “Nothing on this order takes Blue Oyster.”, “Every matching line is full”, “Lot … is awaiting release and can’t go on an order”, “Lot … is flagged for contamination”, or “Block … is already allocated to order SO-0040”. Nothing is added when a scan is refused.

Some things to know:

• Scanning to an order needs a connection. Each scan is checked by Sporeline on the spot, so a refusal reaches you at the shelf. Offline, the screen says so and sends nothing; scan again when you have signal.
• If the phone loses the answer to a lot scan, it does not send it again by itself, because the units could be added twice. It reloads the order: check the line counts before scanning that lot again. A bag scanned twice is never added twice.
• With the worker switch on, each bag and lot you scan is recorded under the person picked in Who’s working? at that moment.
• Scan the Sporeline label. A farm’s own printed lot code (a code with no Sporeline QR) is not read by the phone yet; add those lots on the web’s Fulfill tab or a scan station.

Mark packed with short lines

If your farm checks short lines when an order is packed (Settings > Configuration > Fulfillment, When Mark packed finds a short line), Mark as Packed on the phone answers the same way as the web:

• Warn: the phone shows which line is short, for example “Line 1 (LM-5LB): 7 of 10 allocated. Allocate the rest, or mark it packed anyway.” Tap Pack short anyway to pack it as it is (the order’s history says it was packed short), or Cancel and scan the rest.
• Refuse: the phone shows the sentence and the order stays PLANNED until the lines are full.

Shipping an order with lots or scanned blocks on it is still done on the web, from the Fulfill tab.

Find what is left

The rest of the lot keeps its code and stays open. You can see it in three places:

• The lot page. The On orders card lists the orders holding units of this lot that haven’t shipped, then the orders that already shipped, each with the customer and the number of units. If the lot is on more than 200 orders, the card shows the first 200, open orders first, then shipped ones, latest first, and says the lot may be on more. If a lot has more links than Sporeline can read in time, the card says the same thing. If some orders couldn’t be read in time, the card says how many; reload to try again. The last line says how many are still available.
• Inventory. The Lots card shows on hand, allocated and available for each lot.
• The Fulfill tab’s lot list on any order, with how many are available.

A lot past its box-by date with units still outside PACKED stays on the box-by reminder until you pack or discard those units.

Pack the rest on another order

Days later, open the next order and add units from the same lot, as above. The order can take up to what the lot still has available. Each order gets its own units of the lot; the lot code is the same on both.

What each packing list prints

Each order’s packing list prints only the units of the lot on that order. Order 1’s list says 101326-POBO-7: 60 unit(s); order 2’s says 101326-POBO-7: 25 unit(s). Turn this on or off with Print the lots shipped on packing lists on the Fulfillment tab of Configuration.

What happens at ship

When a Manager clicks Ship… on the order, Sporeline takes the order’s units off the lot: on hand goes down, the units come off the place named under Ship from (or, with none named, in the order above), and the lot’s history gets a Shipped line naming the order and customer. Units another order named under Ship from stay where they are, and the ship never leaves the lot with fewer units than other orders still hold. A lot with units left stays open under the same code.

What a recall shows for a lot on several orders

Open Traceability, enter the lot code, choose Recall Scope and click Search.

• Affected Deliveries lists every order the lot went out on, with the customer. The Lot units column says how many units of the lot each order got, for example Lot 101326-POBO-7: 60 shipped … or Lot 101326-POBO-7: 25 allocated, not shipped.
• Affected Batches shows what is left on the lot and how many units are still reserved for orders, for example 15 of 100 · 0 reserved.
• Export JSON carries the same numbers.

If a line says units not read, Sporeline couldn’t read that order’s units. The order is still on the list. Open the order and check its lots.

Starting from a complaint on one order

A customer complaint usually names an order, not a lot. On Traceability, scan the order’s label or paste its ID (from the order page’s address), choose Recall Scope and click Search. The recall lists that order, and under Other orders that received the same lots every other order that got units of the same lots, with the lot that links them.

When the rest is never used

If the remaining units of a lot are never packed, open the lot and click Discard. Pick a reason. The discard is recorded with its reason, and a lot with nothing left is closed.

When something goes wrong

• “Lot … has N available (… on hand, … allocated to orders); can’t allocate …”: other orders already hold some of the lot. Enter N or less, or pick another lot.
• “This batch already fills another line of this order.”: a lot can fill one line per order. Add more units on that line instead, or use another lot.
• “Lot … already shipped on this order. Fill the rest from another lot.”: this order already shipped its units of the lot. Fill the rest from another lot.

See also Lots and Spawn and Orders and Packing Slips.