Automatic printing

An operator plans a wave and walks off to collect it. With a rule in place, the list of what to pick is already coming out of the printer: nobody requested it, nobody pressed Print, and the sheet is waiting by the time the operator arrives.

Stockly → Operations → Printing → Automatic printing.

Note

Not to be confused with Document rules, the entry above. A document rule waits for a Shopware document and prints it as it is generated. A rule here waits for work, that is a wave being planned or an operation starting or finishing, and asks for a warehouse document such as a pick list, which no Shopware document type covers.

Columns: Name, Priority, When, Print, Applies to, Stock type, Printer, Active.

When: the three moments

Add rule opens New printing rule. The When field is the core of the rule and should be read before the rest.

When	The moment it means
Work is handed to a picker	a wave has been planned and its orders claimed — before the operator has seen the list on screen. This is the one that puts the sheet on the printer while they are still walking to it. It fires again when orders are added to a wave already under way
An operation is started	the operation moves to in progress, which is when somebody actually begins working it rather than when it was assigned
An operation is finished	the operation reaches completed. For paperwork that belongs with the finished goods rather than with the walk — a packing slip, typically

Print: what comes out

Pick list, Packing slip, or Pick list and packing slip. The last one prints two separate sheets, so a rule that asks for both can still send each to a different device if the stock types differ.

Applies to: conditions that hold together

Three fields, each optional: Operator, Packing station, Warehouse.

Each one left empty matches any value, and the ones that are filled in must all hold. A rule naming an operator and a warehouse applies to that person only while they are working in that hall, and not to them in the other building or to their colleague in this one. A rule with nothing filled in applies to everybody, and the list says so: Everybody, everywhere.

Priority

Rules are checked from the highest number down, and the first one that fits wins. Give the rule for one station a higher priority than the shop-wide one, or the shop-wide one will answer first and the station rule will never be reached.

Stock type

What the document has to come out on. The job then only goes to devices carrying that stock, which is how a pick list reaches the office printer instead of the label printer standing next to it. → Stock types

Printer

Normally left empty; the list then shows From the bench. Where a sheet comes out belongs to the bench, and the default printers answer that per station, operator or warehouse.

It is filled in only for a rule that must always use one specific device, wherever the operator is: a single label printer for returns paperwork, for instance.

Copies

How many sheets each run produces. One is the usual answer; two suits a warehouse that keeps a copy in the box.

Watching it work

Every sheet a rule asks for appears in the print queue like any other job, with pick-wave in the Source column. If nothing comes out, that is where the reason is: most often No printer assigned, which means the rule fired correctly and the routing had no single answer.

Deleting a rule

Work stops printing by itself. Nothing already queued or printed is affected.

Beyond printing

The moment a wave is handed to a picker is also available as a trigger in the Shopware Flow Builder, so a mail, a tag or a state change can hang on it without a print rule being involved at all.

Next steps

• Default printers — the answer to where, which most rules leave to the bench.
• Stock types — A4 against labels, and why a rule names one.
• Picking waves — the work the first trigger listens for.
• Print queue — where every sheet a rule asks for shows up.