December 21st, 2022 | Company news

OrderFlow Releases 4.2.9 and 4.3.0

OrderFlow WMS release announcement

OrderFlow Releases 4.2.9 and 4.3.0

OrderFlow WMS release announcement

We’re pleased to announce the release of OrderFlow 4.3.0. This came hot on the heels of 4.2.9 so we’ve combined details of both releases in this announcement.

During the last two releases we’ve added support for three new third party systems, as well as a number of updates to existing integrations. We’ve also included some significant product improvements, particularly in warehouse processes that involve manufacturing and licence plates.

Integrations

The most recent releases include an web service integration with the German carrier GLS.

Skubana is a US-based order management platform which can now be used with OrderFlow for fulfilment. OrderFlow uses the Skubana API to fetch orders and purchase orders, as well as send inventory notifications and despatch notifications.

With this release we have our first integration with Xero, the popular cloud-based accounting package.

In addition to the new integrations, we’ve made various enhancements and updates to existing integrations.

Based on our existing Hermes integration, we now have an Evri equivalent, reflecting their recent name change.

We’ve updated the supported versions on our DHL and Fedex API integrations.

We’ve made some additions to our Royal Mail integration (via Intersoft), making it easier to configure certain service enhancements.

We’ve improved our support for the Shopify Fulfilment API, adding detail to the shipment despatch notification.

New Product Improvements

Licence plates are a feature that gets increasingly used in OrderFlow warehouse operations. With this release we now have a nested licence plate capability, which can greatly simplify certain stock handling tasks. This feature allows for stock to be held in totes (represented by a licence plate) which can itself be nested in a pallet (also represented by a licence plate). Stock operations such as moves within the warehouse and transfers between warehouses can now be done using either the stock licence plate (at the tote level) or the nesting licence plate (at the pallet level).

We’ve added a new licence plate feature that allows for whole or partial licence picking. A full pallet pick would in this case be represented by the move of an existing pallet licence plate. A partial pick from a pallet would result in the creation of a new licence plate, and the move of stock from the source to new licence plate. This feature allows for operations that involve both full and partial pallet quantities to be performed in streamlined way.

We’ve also generalised the ability to carry out a stock move task by picking to multiple licence plates. For example, presenting stock to a manufacturing process could involve picking stock from storage into one or more licence plates, each of which is then moved into the manufacturing area.

With the most recent release we’ve added a handheld process for receipt of finished stock against a works order. The newly produced stock can be received into licence plates as they come out of manufacturing. A licence plate based putaway of the finished stock follows easily from this receipt.

Last but not least in this area, we’ve added support for multi-SKU works orders. The OrderFlow API has been extended to allow third party manufacturing software systems to send a list of expected finished product and quantity combinations. Using a new handheld process on OrderFlow it is possible to receive these onto licence plates for further processing or putaway.

Other Enhancements

This release also covers many other areas with smaller changes, with over 90 small feature additions and bug fixes.

Some of more notable of these are included below:

  • we’ve allowed for a streamlined bulk load of product data sheets, which the packer will be able to print easily and include with outgoing shipments.
  • persistence of scan to pack actions is now available on the handheld interface. This feature allows large orders to be packed using the handheld without having to worry about work lost between sessions.
  • we’ve added a feature to record changes in the availability status of products, specifically when products go out of stock, and when they come back into stock
  • we’ve streamlined the handheld interface used for returning stock into the warehouse, eliminating operator steps where they are not required
Back to Blog