What are some slick things you’re doing with your warehouse apps input script?
Right now, the only thing we have is converting UPCs to SKUs in Inventory Relocation and Inventory Adjustment.
I feel like there’s more that can be done… looking for some inspiration.
When there is an e-commerrce order that is missing the necessary billing address, we have a script that will add a billing address to the record when it’s missing. This way the order will get pulled in from the shopping cart and you won’t have to go to your client and ask them to fix their order.
Hey @Jake-EcoShip
The UPCs to SKUs piece helped us out a ton when we discovered the Warehouse Input Script.
We had a similar thought for being able to do more with warehouse input scripts and found out that it can interact your browser to do all sorts of things by using the Window object (window.alert() for example will have an alert pop up with whatever text you put in the parentheses). Our first idea was to use this at Pack/Ship Station when our folks are packing an international order to make sure they use pack station.
A really cool idea that we just started using was building out a full order assembly instructions based on the items in an order. We went as far as to using a local PC as a server that would build a page for each order when it is created in IP that has instructions, photos, etc. Really you can open up a link to any webpage using window.open().
We have some other ideas for popups but haven’t had success on mobile yet in our tinkering.
This is so awesome. Exactly the kind of inspiration I’m looking for. I’m really interested in the alerts idea. If you’re down for it - I’d love to see how you guys are implementing, just a copy/paste to jake@ecoship.com would be absolutely amazing.
One other idea I’ve been kicking around, but have no clue how to implement would be adding another column in the location table in item inquiry (mobile) that has the expiration date/production lot associated with the receipt ID.
Great question, Jake! I’ve seen quite a few valid use cases for our warehouse apps input script. Here are a few…
Accepting any values via warehouse scans. Some users have custom fields on the item (like an ASIN) that they want to be able to scan in lieu of SKU, UPC or Vendor SKU at various points in the application. Some folks have employed this at the pack / ship station so they can identify orders using the same method. The script itself lets you identify which areas of the application that you want this to be available in, down to the “context” screen.
Warehouse apps input scripts can also parse data on the fly. We had a new customer a few years back that came to us with a warehouse that was already in good shape as far as location barcodes and address scheme was concerned. Once they got into testing the system, they quickly realized their existing location labels all had random “check digits” (hidden digits in their barcode labels that ensured users were actually scanning the locations). Instead of reconfiguring the warehouse, or adding the check digit into the Infoplus location address, we advised them to use a warehouse apps input script to strip the first digit off of location scans so that it would read and return the address correctly.
Another use case off the top of my head is one where we recently had a company that wanted to use our pick to cart feature, but did not want to go through each subsequent “cart location” scan for each pick. This is unusual but made sense for their specific operation where each cart only holds one order at a time, with the orders having various size products ranging from nuts and bolts to larger kitchen appliances. As a result, they were able to utilize the warehouse apps input script to grab the cart location address data directly from the google chrome console logs and return that value (only when prompted to scan cart location) so that their users only needed to scan the cart barcode when putting each pick onto the cart. The system recognized that they were being prompted for a cart location scan, would grab the cart location that it was prompting and then return that value no matter what other value was scanned. As a result, their pickers identify the cart they use and then proceed into each pick. All they had to do at that point is scan the cart they are picking to and Infoplus took care of the rest.
I’m sure I have a few more use cases that just aren’t top of mind right now - I will update this thread as they come up. I’m curious and interested to see what others are doing with this “hidden” gem!
Like always, our professional services team is standing by to assist anyone that might not have the technical expertise on staff to accomplish this themselves!