What is Guided Packing?

The Pack and Ship wizard lets you pack items into containers, but it leaves the choice of container up to you. Guided Packing brings our Boxing Algorithm into the Pack and Ship wizard, so the wizard recommends which boxes to use and which items to pack into each one.

Picking the right box by eye is hard, especially for large orders with many items. Guided Packing takes out the guesswork: packers use the optimal boxes for every shipment, so you avoid oversized boxes and keep your shipping costs down.

Prerequisites

Guided Packing builds on the Pack and Ship wizard and the Boxing Algorithm. Before you follow this guide, please ensure you have:

1. Set up the Pack and Ship wizard by following the Pack and Ship Guide
2. Added Length, Width, Height and Weight to your products, as described in Products Dimensions and Weights
3. Created your boxes with their dimensions, as described in Packages
4. Enabled the Boxing Algorithm on your Custom Address Source, as described in Enable the Boxing Algorithm

Add barcodes to your boxes (optional)

Packers can select a box in Guided Packing by switching on its toggle, or by scanning the barcode on the box. Scanning adds an extra check: packers can only select a box they have physically picked up, so they can't skip the recommended box by mistake.

If you want packers to scan boxes, go to each of your Packages and fill in the Package Profile Barcode field with the barcode printed on that box.

Enable Guided Packing

Guided Packing is enabled on the Custom Address Source that you use for Pack and Ship. Go to the custom address source and scroll down to Wizard Mode. Make sure the Wizard Mode is set to Pick and Pack and that your other Pick and Pack settings are set up the way you want them.

We recommend turning on All Carriers: Pick and Pack: Auto Calculate Weight Total and All Carriers: Pick and Pack: Auto Calculate Value Total, so that each container's weight and declared value are calculated from the products packed into it. See Additional Settings in the Pack and Ship Guide.

Then add a new row for each of the following Guided Packing settings:

Use Guided Packing

Select All Carriers: Pick and Pack: Use Guided Packing. Set it to TRUE.

The Pack and Ship wizard will now open in Guided Packing mode by default.

Auto Focus (optional)

Select All Carriers: Pick and Pack: Auto Focus (Guided Packing). Set it to TRUE.

With this setting on, the wizard works out whether you are scanning a box or a product, so packers can scan faster.

Disable Pack buttons (optional, recommended)

Select All Carriers: Pick and Pack: Disable Pack buttons. Set it to TRUE.

With this setting on, packers can't click Pack or Pack All, so they have to scan each product into the box. Together with barcodes on your boxes, this makes sure packers use the recommended box and that every product is actually packed into it.

Manual Boxing Reason

Sometimes a packer can't use the recommended box. For example, the box might be out of stock, or a product's dimensions in Salesforce might be wrong, so it doesn't fit. In that case the packer can leave Guided Packing and pack manually. The wizard then asks the packer why they are packing manually (see Packing manually below).

We recommend storing that reason on the Shipment, so you can run reports on how often packers can't use the recommended boxes. To do this, create a Text field with a length of 255 on the Shipment object to hold the reason. Then select All Carriers: Pick and Pack: Manual Boxing Reason (Guided Packing) and set it to the API name of that field, for example Manual_Pack_Reason__c.

Save your custom address source.

How Guided Packing works

Once Guided Packing is enabled on your Custom Address Source, the Pack and Ship wizard opens in Guided Packing mode whenever you create a new shipment, whichever object you ship from (for example an Order, Fulfillment Order or Case).

Under Containers, the wizard lists the containers that the Boxing Algorithm recommends for this shipment. Each container shows its name, dimensions and barcode. In the example below, the shipment needs one Large Skincare Box (barcode LAR123) and one Medium Skincare Box (barcode MED123).

To start packing, take one of the recommended boxes from your warehouse stock and scan its barcode into Scan Barcode to Select Container, or switch on the toggle next to the container. This makes it the active container, ready for products to be packed into it. The toggle shows which container is active. If you turned on the Auto Calculate settings, its weight and declared value are filled in automatically as you pack products into it.

The Products to Pack panel then shows the products to pack into the active container, with the Quantity to Pack already filled in.

Next, scan each product from the list into Scan Barcode to Pack into Container. You can also click Pack next to a product, or Pack All to pack every product in the list, unless you have turned on Disable Pack buttons.

Each product you pack is shown under the active container, and Already Packed is updated in the Products to Pack panel. If you pack a product by mistake, use the "Delete" icon next to it to remove it from the container.

If your shipment has more than one container, scan or switch on the next recommended container and repeat these steps until all your products are packed. The Products to Pack panel now shows the products for the new active container.

Once you have finished packing all your containers, click Ship to create the shipment, just as in the Pack and Ship Guide.

Packing manually

Sometimes you can't use the recommended containers. For example, a box might be out of stock, or the products might not fit. In that case, click the red Pack Manually button.

The wizard asks why you are leaving Guided Packing. Select a Reason for manual packing:

• Suggested box unavailable
• Products don't fit in suggested box
• Other

If you select Other, type the reason into Please specify the reason.

Click Continue to Manual Packing. You can then choose your own containers and pack them as described in the Pack and Ship Guide. If you set up the Manual Boxing Reason setting, the reason is saved on the Shipment, in the field you chose:

When Guided Packing can't find a box

If Guided Packing can't find a box combination that fits the products, for example because a product is missing its dimensions, the wizard shows a message and doesn't recommend any containers. Click Pack Manually to continue.

To use Guided Packing for these shipments in future, check that all your products have a Length, Width, Height and Weight, and that you have boxes large enough for them.