Starting September 2023, PULPO WMS has added another layer of complexity to the sales orders called "Fulfillment orders".
If the "Segment sales orders into fulfillment orders" option is enabled, the sales orders will be split into fulfillment orders automatically, following the chosen criteria.
If the setting is disabled, the sales orders will still have fulfillments, but they will be a complete match to the sales orders and will not be shown in the frontend.
The fulfillments, during the picking, packing, and shipping process, will be handled as independent orders. Cancellations and pausing will affect the whole original sales order and related fulfillments. The segmentation criteria shall follow the defined numerical order.
Activating the setting
To activate the setting, open Settings, Select the Outgoing tab, select the Orders and Picking section, and activate the checkbox next to the "Segment sales orders into fulfillment orders".
After activating the setting, the user has to define the segmenting criteria or their combination:
Segment by tags of the products
Segment by number of line items
The user can add up to 5 criteria, and rules will be applied in numerical order.
In case the user decides to split by tags, it is possible to select multiple tags to be applied for this purpose. The product doesn't need to have all of the tags, having any of the tags is enough to be properly related to a certain fulfillment order.
Example: In the situation shown above, the products will be first split by tag.
In case the tags attached to the products do not match any of the tags listed, the remaining part of the order will be split into fulfillment orders each having 2 SKUs (the last one created can have only one line item in case the quantity of remaining line items after splitting by tag is odd).
Option behavior - Outgoing orders view.
After the setting is activated, the new tab "Fulfillment orders" emerges in the "Outgoing orders" view.
Important: With the setting is enabled, picking tasks to be created in the "Fulfillment orders" tab. The "Outgoing orders" tab will only provide an overview of the existing sales order.
The view for a sales order changes as well. The sales order information shows the list of related fulfillment orders.
Button (1) allows pausing all fulfillment orders at once.
Button (2) allows editing an order.
The 3-dots button in the upper right corner assigns the priority to the sales order, and the similar priority to all the related fulfillment orders.
Important: Modifying line items will result in the creation of new fulfillment orders from the sales order using the defined logic. Previously created fulfillment orders will be removed from the system.
Option behavior - Fulfillment orders view
The "Fulfillment orders" tab of the "Outgoing orders" section is used to view fulfillments related to sales orders and manage the picking process.
Like before, the pickings are created after filtering out the fulfillment orders by the state "Queue", and there are no changes in the picking creation mechanism. The fulfillments can be split and merged like the sales orders before.
The general view of the Fulfillment Order contains information about the Sales order and related fulfillment orders.
The 3-dots button in the upper right corner assigns priority to the fulfillment order.
Option behavior - fulfillment order statuses and sales order status
The state of a sales order depends on the combination of fulfillment order statuses.
Rule of thumb - the order state is equal to the state of the least advanced fulfillment order.
On the screenshot provided below, the sales order has the status "IN PICKING", even though one of the related fulfillment orders has already ended.
Once the last fulfillment order related to the sales order changes its state to "PACKING", the order will go to the state "PACKING" as well, etc.
Once all the related fulfillments have ended, the order will be considered ended as well.
Important: deleting or changing fulfillment orders is not possible. Only the parent sales order can be deleted or changed, which will trigger corresponding changes in the fulfillment orders.