How to Use Digital Picking in Link

How to use Link in your order picking process to always pick the right item

Rain Gilbert avatar
Written by Rain Gilbert
Updated over a week ago

Overview

Digital picking allows you to scan items off your shelves for shipping, ensuring you always grab the right item! You can use digital Picking via Link to easily maneuver in the facility. It can be paired with ring scanners for more efficient picking.


Table Of Contents


Video Guide: How to use Upright Link for Digital Picking


How It Works

Digital Picking guides you to each item one by one based on your inventory layout, so you never have to backtrack. The picker must confirm they have the right item in front of them by scanning the product barcode. If the barcode is incorrect, Link won't let the picker proceed.

To start picking orders with the Link app, log in and click "Pick orders" on the home screen.

Within “Pick Orders” you’ll see how many items and orders need to be fulfilled, with various ways to select how to sort and find those orders while picking:

Note: Swipe up in the "Choose a pick mode" section of the screen to see more picking profiles and the "Custom" and "Scan" options.

Pick Orders screen in Link

Fulfillment Stats

The top card of the Pick Orders screen in Link shows you how many orders (1) and items (2) meet the following filter criteria from Lister's Orders page:

  • Payment Status - Paid, Partially Paid, Partially Refunded

  • Pick and Pack Status - Not Started

  • Fulfillment Status - Unfulfilled, Partially Fulfilled

💡 Operational Tip: If your picking profiles exclude the payment statuses Partially Paid and Partially Refunded, the numbers in Link may not match Lister.

In addition, Link will not count Orders and Items that are currently locked on another device for picking.

Order Picking Screen in Lister (Left) and Link (right)

Picking Profiles

By default, each account gets "Single item orders" and "Multi item orders" picking profiles which will show up in this section. In Lister, you can customize which picking profiles show up here by managing your picking profiles.

With custom picking profiles, you can create tailored profiles to meet your workflow needs. For example, if jewelry or other high-value items are only accessible to certain team members, you could create a custom profile that only includes items from your jewelry categories. Click here to learn more about custom picking profiles.

CS Help Center Link Mockups - Presentation 2023-06-27 at 10.38.01 AM

Custom

Custom pick lists allow you to create one-off pick lists. These can be especially useful for unique scenarios like offering expedited handling during a promotional period for specific types of items. For example, you could create a pick list with specific criteria like "pick all jewelry items from last week."

Steps to create a custom one-off pick list are below.

  1. Tap “Custom” from the Pick Orders screen

  2. Batch Size: Select a number or orders to pull from the Batch size menu

  3. Batch type: How orders are selected by paid date:

    • Newest orders

    • Oldest orders

    • Ship by date - Soonest

    • Within Date Range

  4. Order type: Select between single item orders, multi item orders, or all

  5. Shipping method: Filter to show items listed with a specific shipping carrier

  6. Picking order: Pick orders by inventory location A to Z or Z to A

  7. Show advanced filters: Optional additional filters (8-13) to further sort orders

  8. Bin Count: Number of bins on order-picking cart used for multi-item orders

  9. Picking Method: The direction Link will guide you through inventory when picking multi-item orders

    • By Order: Link will route you through inventory one order at a time

    • By Location: Link will route you through inventory based on the inventory location first, directing you to place each item in the appropriate bin for the order

  10. Channels: Select specific marketplaces

  11. Locations: Choose specific inventory locations for the batch

  12. Categories: Filters batch to only show items from specific Lister categories

  13. Start Picking: Generates a pick list from the selected filters

Custom Pick list options in Link

💡Operational Tip: For teams that use tote-picking carts for multi-item orders, set the Bin Count to the number of toes on your cart.
If you select "By Location" as your picking method, Link will guide you by location to each item.

Match the Order at the top right of the screen with the corresponding bin as you pull items. For example, all items that are part of “Order 1 of 12” would go in Bin 1 on your cart, all items marked as “Order 2 of 12” would be placed in Bin 2, and so on.

Match the Order number with your tote number on your order picking cart

Scan

The Scan function allows you to scan a printed pick list, individual pack slip, or product barcode for picking.

  1. Tap "Pick orders" from the Link home screen

  2. Swipe up and tap “Scan” on the Pick Orders page

  3. Manually type or scan a printed pick list, pack slip, or product barcode

  4. Tap the blue “Start picking” button

Use the "Scan" option in Digital Picking to scan a printed pack slip

Example Picking Profile Workflow

Tapping "Single item orders" will bring up a page asking how many items you want to pick at a time. When you tap "Start picking" Link will reserve 25 of the oldest paid orders, then sort them by location (A-Z). You can override this number if you want to pick a higher or lower number of orders to pick at once.

  1. Tap “Pick Orders”

  2. Tap “Singe item orders”

  3. Tap the blue “Start Picking” button

    CS Help Center Link Mockups - Presentation 2023-04-10 at 2.27.01 PM
  4. The Pick Products screen will show the product picture, title, SKU and inventory location of the item that needs to be picked

    • Navigate to the inventory location shown and find the product

  5. Tap the scan button to open the camera

  6. Align the product barcode in the camera app

  7. Once the scan is registered, the SKU will update as picked at the bottom of the screen

  8. The next item in the pick list will then show on the screen. Repeat locating and scanning each item

  9. Once the final item has been picked, you can create another pick list to continue pulling orders

  10. Tap “Exit” after all orders have been pulled​​

💡Operational Tip: A ring barcode scanner greatly speeds up the scanning process by skipping steps 5 and 6, saving time while picking orders!


Actions Menu

Tapping "Actions" opens a menu of additional options to take on an item:

  1. Mark Picked: Marking an item as picked is the same as scanning an item. Use this if a barcode is damaged and can't be read.

  2. Mark Not Found: Marking an item as not found skips the item in the pic and moves it to the Not Found section of the Orders manager within Lister

  3. Undo: Tapping undo will revert the last taken on the previous item (picking, skipping, marked unfound)

  4. Cancel: Closes the actions menu


Skip Item

Skipping an item unlocks the order, allowing other people to pick the item again. This is most commonly used if you can't physically fit an item on your inventory cart as you’re picking orders.

If the item can’t be found in the location, we recommend marking it as not found from the action menu instead of skipping it so the item can be investigated further. See below under “How to Track Missing Items” for more details.


How Digital Picking Works with Lister

Once all items in an order are handled in Link, Lister will show “Picked” as the fulfillment status. If you use Pack Mode in your order fulfillment process, the status will update later to “Packed” once the order has been made ready for shipment. The status will automatically update to “Fulfilled” after the order has been shipped or marked as picked up.

You can use the “More filters” menu in the orders page to filter for specific pick and pack statuses.


How to Track Missing Items

If an item is marked “Not found” via the actions menu during picking, it will show up in Lister under the "Not found" tab. If this tab isn't visible to you, there are no missing items. 🎉

This tab is intended to be used as a to-do list. Each day you can go into this section of the order manager and further investigate what happened to each order and why it wasn't found.

Team leaders should review this tab daily to determine if an item can be found or if the buyer needs to be refunded.

Clicking into the order will show you an audit log of who and when a teammate reported the item as missing.


How to Override a Missing Item Status

If the missing item is found and shipped, the status will automatically update once it’s packed via pack mode or shipped. In addition, you can manually override the missing status on the order page by following the steps below:

  1. Click the pencil icon next to “Not found” in the Picked/Packed status column

  2. Select the new status in the popup window

  3. Click the blue “Update” button


Productivity and Auditing

Each time an item is picked in Link, Lister will track this action in the Operational Productivity and User Productivity reports.

Every time an order is assigned to a pick list, an item is picked, skipped, or marked not found, Lister will log exactly what happened in the order event logs.


Order Locking

To prevent pickers from picking the same items simultaneously, Link and Lister will lock orders during the picking process. That means only one person at a time will be picking specific orders.

Orders are locked until midnight each night to allow your pickers time to pick items. Any items not picked past midnight will be pickable again the next day.

Order locks are triggered in a couple of different ways:

  • Once picking begins in Link

  • When you print a pack slip for an order in Lister

When an order is locked, the order's icon will change, and Lister will give you a reason why:

  • You can find all locked orders by using the "More filters" menu from the Orders page and setting the "Pick and pack status" to "In progress"


How to Unlock All Orders and Pick Lists

  • If you need to unlock all orders for picking again, you can do so in Admin > Orders by clicking “Unlock all orders and pick lists” at the bottom of the page.

  • In most situations, you won't need to use this as orders unlock each midnight


How to Unlock Individual Pick Lists

  1. Navigate to the orders page by clicking the shopping cart icon in the top right of Lister

  2. Click “View pick lists”

  3. Click the orange “Unlock” button next to the picklist


Related Guides

Have questions? Reach out to us at support@uprightlabs.com or via chat anytime between 9am-6pm ET, Monday to Friday

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