Confirm the outbound shipment automatically in WHS (AX 2012 R3)

I needed help with this – and I’d like to acknowledge John Foster of Blue Horseshoe who very kindly sent me a very detailed e-mail after I to a posted a question on the AXUG forum; and Nataliia Sukhanova of Intergen who noticed the subtle difference between two Mobile menu items.

So, let’s try and do a really simple sales order pick, pack and despatch workflow in a WHS (Advanced warehouse processes) warehouse.

First we’re going to set a couple of parameters so that we automatically reserve inventory at sales order entry when we run the batch job to release sales orders. We need a ‘Fulfilment rate’.Accounts receivable > Setup > Accounts receivable parameters > Warehouse management:

And we need to set a parameter on the warehouse so that the inventory’s reserved to the sales order line when we run the ‘Automatic release of sales orders’ batch job in Warehouse management. Warehouse management > Setup > Warehouse setup > Warehouses:

So, here’s my sales order. Sales and marketing > Common > Sales orders > All sales orders:

Now run the job to release the sales order work to the warehouse (and create the load and shipment). Warehouse management > Periodic > Automatic release of sales orders:

And we get work. Warehouse management > Common > Work > Open sales work:

Do the work, and now we can go to the shipment and print the packing slip. Warehouse management > Common > Shipments > Active shipments:

Except that, of course we can’t post the sales order packing slip from the shipment, because we haven’t confirmed the outbound shipment.

Now I can imagine an environment where you would want to put in an additional process step at this point (because for instance, in New Zealand when you transport plant or animal products they must often be accompanied by the appropriate certification issued by the Ministry for Primary Industries – and you’d want to check that this certification was in place before completing the sales order delivery). But there are also implementations where you’d consider that this additional step didn’t add any value – and you’d want to automate it.

To do that, we’re going to use the scary sounding ‘Work audit template’. Go to Warehouse management > Setup > Work > Work audit template and create a new one like this:

In case the screen-shot isn’t clear, the settings I’ve used are:

Audit template ID:    AutoConfShipment
Description:        Automatically confirm outbound shipment
Audit trigger field:    WorkId
Audit trigger event:    Status change
Break status:        Loaded
Line > Function:        Event
Line > Event:        Shipping confirmed

We need to link this to the mobile client menu item that’s used to perform the pick, If you want to test this yourself – and if you don’t why are you still with me – make sure you use ‘User directed’ sales picking, Warehouse management > Setup > Mobile device > Mobile device menu items:

Now let’s run through the sales order pick cycle shown above again, after completing the Pick work this is what we see on the Shipment. Warehouse management > Common > Shipments > Active shipments:

And the reason for this, is of course that the Shipment has been automatically confirmed and it’s now ready for posting the packing slip:

We’re not quite done with this – because I haven’t figured out how to display a list of shipments which are ready for packing slip posting; and also I found that you have to use a ‘User directed’ sales picking step. If you use a Mobile menu item which is ‘System directed’, the automatic shipment confirmation doesn’t happen (at least not in the demo AX 2012 R3 CU8 hyper-v image).

Incidentally, I’ve also tried this with the slightly simpler Work audit template setup like this:

And that also works.