About Auto Manufacturing
Learn how to automate your workflows using our auto manufacture feature.
In this article:
- About Auto Manufacturing
- Enabling Auto Manufactures
- Removing Auto Manufactures
- Stock Level Rules for Automanufacturing
About Auto Manufacturing
This feature is available in our INDIE+ plans.
The Auto manufacture feature allows you to automate the creation of your manufactures, based on the orders you receive. It is useful for situations where products:
- Are not created in advance as a batch and
- Contain materials that do not change between manufactures.
A simple example of auto manufacturing would be a charm bracelet in which the customer selects their desired charm from a list of available options. Since the finished product is only created when the order is received and only involves a relatively insignificant configuration time, this would be an ideal candidate for auto manufacturing.
Auto manufacturing can be configured at the account, product, or variation level.
The auto manufacturing flow can also additionally create any components involved in the product, and this can be configured for multi-level situations.
Automanufacture Rules
It's important to note that auto manufacturing will only occur for a product/variation ordered if:
- It is switched on (via the account, parent product, or variation)
- There is a recipe in place for the product ordered (for variations, the recipe needs to exist at either the variation level or the parent product level)
If these conditions are met, a manufacture will be created for the quantity ordered, using the same date as the order. This manufacture will be created regardless of the product or variations in the stock levels that are currently available.
By default, the manufacture will be created with a production status of Not Started. For eligible plans, this default status can be optionally changed See Configuring the default production status for automanufactures for more details.
Note: If the order eligible for auto manufacturing is later canceled, the generated manufacture will be removed automatically if the auto removal feature is enabled.
Enabling Auto Manufacturing
To enable auto manufacturing:
- Hover your mouse over the Settings icon
- Select the Account Settings option from the menu that appears. (Find your account settings page)
Scroll down to the Manufactures section and check the 'Auto manufacture when order is created' box.
- Click on Save details.
Configuring only specific products to Auto Manufacture
If you only want to use the auto-manufacture feature for specific products:
- Navigate to your Product edit page (How do I edit a Product?)
- On the form, under the Sale Information heading, ensure that the Auto Manufacture checkbox is ticked.
Note: The checkbox will be disabled and already ticked if you have already turned on Auto manufactures for your account. In this case, you will need to set this to unchecked and then return to the product edit pages you wish to configure.
Click the Save Product button to save the changes.
Configuring only specific variations to Auto Manufacture
If you only want to use the auto manufacture feature for specific variations under a product:
- Navigate to your Variation edit page
- Ensure that the Auto Manufacture checkbox is ticked on the form that appears.
Click the Save button at the bottom of the form.
Note: The checkbox will be disabled and ticked if you have configured auto manufacturing at the account or parent product levels. Ensure you switch off account and product-level auto manufacturing settings and then return to the variation edit page to configure.
Configuring components to Auto Manufacture
When included in product manufacture, components can be set to auto manufacture themselves. This is particularly useful for bundling and kitting situations.
This can be configured for any recipe that includes the component or for each manufacture that consumes the component.
Directly underneath the material on the recipe form, a small wizard wand icon with a checkbox will appear. Check the box if you want each manufacture to set the component to auto manufacture automatically.
Removing Auto Manufactures
After enabling Auto Manufacture, Craftybase can automatically create manufactures for your products when an order is placed.
However, if an order is canceled, you may not want those automatically created manufactures to remain. To return your stock levels back to the amounts prior to a canceled order, you may want to enable the setting to automatically remove auto manufactures.
To enable this feature:
- Hover your mouse over the Settings icon
- Select the Account Settings option from the menu that appears. (How do I find my Account Settings page?)
Scroll down to the orders section and check the Remove auto manufacture(s) when order is cancelled box.
- Click on Save details.
It's important to note that if an order is imported into Craftybase with a status of "canceled," Craftybase will not create an auto-manufacture for the order, even if the auto-manufacture setting is enabled for the products in the order. This prevents unnecessary manufactures from being created for orders that will not be fulfilled.
If an existing order in Craftybase is updated to a status of "canceled," Craftybase will search for any auto manufactures associated with that order.
If auto manufactures are found, they will be removed automatically. This ensures that any manufactures created for the canceled order are deleted, maintaining the accuracy of your manufacturing records.
Note: Enabling this feature will not retroactively remove automanufactures associated with previously canceled orders. Automanufactures dated prior to the date the setting was enabled will need to be manually removed: Remove a Manufacture.
Stock Level Rules for Automanufacturing (Coming Soon!)
This feature will allow you to have more control on when you would like your automanufactures created based on your available stock levels of a product. Get in touch with us to find out more!