Setting up a fulfillment process flow

Support, Troubleshooting, & Help
1

Hello,

We’d like to use Tulip to set up a fulfillment process flow with a shopify integration.
Our customers place orders through our shopify storefront and we’d like to fulfill the orders using a combination of dynamic work instructions and pokayokes in Tulip to ensure that the correct products make it into the customers order.

An example order could contain the items shown in this picture (which would be individually bagged and barcoded, with stock located at the workstation).

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The manufacturing app would show a list of orders in shopify that are of the status type “Unfulfilled”. Operators should have the ability to sort unfulfilled orders by order date, and other characteristics of the order, price, QTY of items in the order, etc.

Clicking on an unfulfilled order should start the fulfillment process flow.

A dynamic work instruction specific to that order should be generated, instructing the operator to scan each product (including multiples) that exist in the order. After the items have all been scanned, the operator should be instructed to print out a shipping label and packing slip for the order.

Regarding shipping labels, is it possible to integrate the shopify shipping label purchasing workflow into tulip, or is that something that is best handled on the shopify platform? In either case, how could the shipping label get from shopify to tulip? Would a PDF of the shipping label be sent over to the tulip manufacturing app, or perhaps the tulip app is simply triggering the printing routine through hooks to the shopify store running on google chrome on the same PC?

At the end of the process the operator would take a photo of the contents of the package as well as the sealed package. Specific workflows for ad-hoc logging of any defective parts that are found during the packing procedure would also be useful.

Regarding the method in which this could be implemented in Tulip, would a good starting point be to create individual “Tasks” for scanning each specific SKU that we plan on offering? Procedures seem to be pre-defined groups of tasks, but in this case each order would result in a unique Procedure and thus a unique collection of tasks, based on the contents of the order.

Any advice on how to best structure the app to handle a fulfillment task like this would be appreciated.

2

hello @bmello, and welcome to the Tulip Community!! this is a great question, thanks for posting. we can certainly provide some thoughts on how to plan the workflow.

as a starting point, I’d recommend reading this Case Study: https://tulip.co/blog/case-studies/double-h/ as Double H integrated Shopify into their workflow and could provide some good insights. @EddyA and @Sagar from Tulip supported with this and can provide additional insight if you’d like.

from a the overall app workflow, I would recommend something along the lines of:

  • using the Tulip Table API (https://support.tulip.co/en/articles/3983173-how-to-use-the-table-api) from Shopify and POST a new Record in your Table every time an order is submitted in Shopify, including all the necessary information.
  • in an app, display an Embedded Table with all the Records with all the Table content. you can also sort & filter this Table to make it easier for the User to select which WO to start working on.
  • when a Work Order is Selected, route to a specific Step Folder that contains the specific work instructions for that version of the build. here, you can build in poke yoke’s as to ensure that the WO is correctly fulfilled.
  • once the App completes, submit a POST request to Shopify indicating that the Order has been fulfilled: https://shopify.dev/docs/storefront-api/reference/orders/

regarding the shipping label, I couldn’t find the API endpoint for this. do you know if it’s provided via a URL?? if so, I can enable a feature for you that allows for webpages (depending on certain security parameters) to be displayed in your Apps which you can then directly print to your network printer.

is this information helpful?? let me know if there’s more context that would be useful!!

finally, I would like to share the following:

  1. this is a great Use Case to discuss in Office Hours. we hold Office Hours every Thursday at 11AM EST and Fridays at 10AM EU. do either of these times work for you?? let me know if you’re interested in joining and I will add you to the invite!! see here for past Office Hours: Tulip Office Hours 11/25/2020 (note: moved to Wednesday due to Thanksgiving)
  2. have you seen that we announced Tulip Vision: https://community.tulip.co/t/intuitive-no-code-vision-capabilities-now-available-with-beta-november-2020/1334?? this could be a really good use case based on what I’m understanding. if you’d like to enter for an opportunity to win a RealSense camera, submit this Use Case here: https://community.tulip.co/t/tulip-community-competition-best-vision-use-case-idea/1353 to enter the competition.

thanks!! and once again, welcome to the Tulip Community.