The delivery builder has been updated to better integrate with the new centralized inventory and logistics features. It enables you to edit the contents of your delivery, create new farm products, and manage your inventory, all in one place!
Beginning Your Delivery
To use the new delivery builder with centralized inventory, select the checkbox on the "Select Share Deliveries" page. This option is available whether you have selected to create a new delivery or copy an existing one.
Select the delivery date(s) and share(s) that you want to include in this delivery, set a cutoff time, and select whether you would like to send a reminder email to members 2 hours before the customization window closes. This option can help to cut down on those "I just missed the window!" change requests. It is selected by default, but you can disable it here, or on the Adjust Cut-off Time page later.
Click Submit to proceed to Farm Happenings.
Farm Happenings are an update from the farm to keep the members in-the-know and connected to your farm. They love to hear your stories, especially members that never get to visit your farm. These “happenings” are something members enjoy and they are good for retention! Write about anything from new crops growing to funny farm animal stories … with pictures!
Start by choosing an existing farm update OR Create a new one. You can always create the Farm Happening ahead of this delivery build by going to Happenings in the left menu of your admin and follow the directions below. Note: If you don’t want a happening in this delivery, simply click No Farm Happening for this Delivery.
When you save or skip your Happening, you will be directed to the new Delivery Builder page. On the top of the page, you will see the dates, locations, and share sizes included in your delivery.
Setting Up Delivery Products
To add an existing product to your delivery, select it from the dropdown. You will see the details of each of this product's variants, including the image, name, SKU, unit price, and share quantity. In most cases, your products will have only one variant at this time.
Because centralized inventory always works in whole-number increments, any product that was created in the old page with a share quantity that is not a whole number will be rounded to the nearest whole number, or to 1 if the nearest whole number is 0, when adding it here. The price displayed will be the product of the unit price and the share quantity, to give you an accurate view of the price that will be paid by members when that product is in their box.
You can edit some basic settings during this step:
The Allocation Scheme field replaces the star and link icons in the previous version of the delivery builder, as well as the need to add Extras in a separate step. The "Default" option will include this product variant in member's shares with normal priority. Use the "Priority" option to add as many of this item to shares as possible before filling with other products (replaces the star). These items will also appear in the "Featured" section at the top of the member customization page. "Specialty" will make the item available to add or swap at customization, but will not assign it to shares during box building (replaces "unlink"). Choose "Extras" to make this item available only for purchase as an extra.
Delivery Quantity indicates how many of this product variant should be available for the box building algorithm to place in members' shares. It defaults to 0. You only need to edit this field if you have chosen "Default" or "Priority" as the Allocation Scheme. It will be ignored for "Specialty" and "Extras" items, because those are not considered when building boxes. You may choose to set this value to the same as your number of units available in inventory if you would like the algorithm to try to place all of them in members' boxes, or set it lower than the available inventory to ensure that some units are available for members to add during customization.
Check the Include in Delivery box for each variant of the product that you would like to sell in this delivery. For instance, you may pack collard greens by the bunch or the bushel, but only choose to sell them in bunches this week.
When you are satisfied with your product variant settings, click the Add Product button. The table will now display a row for each product variant that you selected to include in your delivery.
Editing Delivery Products
The fields you set when adding the product variants, as well as several additional fields, can be edited in the table.
Name: The name of your Product. This field may be edited at any time.
Image: The image already associated with your chosen product will be used by default, or you may edit or replace it. To change the image for this product, click on the default image. This will open a modal where you can upload a new .jpg or .png file, or select from previously-uploaded files.
To edit a product image, first upload or select the one you want to work with. The tool will automatically crop the image to a square aspect ratio for optimal display to members at customization. Images must be a minimum of 500x500 pixels, and a maximum of 3024x3024 pixels, including after zooming or cropping.
Drag the image to center the portion you wish to display in the focus area, and use your mouse wheel to zoom in or out. You can change the orientation of the image using the "Rotation" slider or the arrow keys on your keyboard. In the "Alt Text" field, enter a brief description of the image. This field is used by accessibility software to describe the image to members with vision impairments. To undo your changes at any time, click the "Cancel" button. To save them and remain in the editor, click "Save and Continue Editing." When you are done editing images for this product, click "Save and Finish."
If you are editing the default image for your product, you will have only the options described above. The first image you upload for any product will automatically be set as the default. The default image is displayed on the standard version of the customization page and when setting preferences. In the new shopping feature (currently in beta), it will be displayed on the catalog page, in the cart, and first on the product details page.
For non-default images, you may also change their "Active Status" or delete them, using the controls on the right. Images set to inactive will remain in the list, but will not be displayed to members. All active images will be displayed on the new product details pages, in the order that you set. To change the order, click and drag the icon in the top-right corner of the image thumbnail. Moving an image to the top of the order automatically makes it the default image.
Pack Order: The default setting for your product will be used, or you may edit it here. This field may be edited at any time.
Tags: Any tags already assigned to this product will be displayed here. Click on this field to select from a list of all available tags. The tags may be edited at any time, and changes will be visible to members in customization.
Producer: Again, this will default to the product setting. It can be edited, but if you frequently source the same product from different producers, we recommend creating a unique product for each one to reduce the effort each time you build a delivery. Read more about producers here. This field may be edited at any time, and changes will be visible to members in customization.
Description: Again, this field will use the product settings. Click in the field to edit. This field may be edited at any time, and changes will be visible to members in customization.
Variant: A given product may have one or many variants. We recommend creating variants when you would like to sell the product in different units, such as milk by the gallon, half-gallon, or quart. You can edit the name of your product variant here. The variant name is displayed on the member customization page, and may be edited at any time.
SKU: A SKU is automatically generated for each product variant, based on its name and unit type. You may edit this field to suit your pack line needs. Each SKU must be unique, and has a maximum length of 16 characters. This field may be edited at any time
Allocation Scheme: This field replaces the Star and Link icons in the previous version of the delivery builder, as well as the need to add Extras in a separate step. The "Default" option will include this product variant in member's shares with normal priority. Use the "Priority" option to add as many of this item to shares as possible before filling with other products (replaces the star). "Specialty" will make the item available to add or swap at customization, but will not assign it to shares during box building (replaces "unlink"). Choose "Extras" to make this item only available for purchase as an extra. This field is only editable in the "Draft estimate" status.
Price: This is the retail value of the product variant, the amount to charge per unit. This field is only editable in the "Draft estimate" status.
On-Hand Quantity: Edit this field to reflect the true number of this product variant that you have on hand, or expect to have on hand when you launch the delivery. You may update this value at any time, and it will affect all deliveries. If your on-hand quantity is less than your delivery quantity (the quantity allotted for the initial box build), you will see a warning alerting you that all of your inventory may be used up by the box building algorithm, leaving none available for swaps. This is only a warning, and the system will not oversell your available inventory. You may proceed past it.
To easily increase or decrease the inventory by a relatively small amount, you may find it easiest to use the arrow buttons that appear on the right-hand side of the field. Found half a dozen pints of strawberries that are past their prime? Click the down arrow 6 times and click save.
Available Quantity: This field represents the amount of the product that is currently available to add to members' boxes. It is the difference of the on-hand quantity and the held quantity, or the amount that is currently in members' boxes. For example, if you launched your delivery with 100 of an item on-hand, and 30 of that item are "held" in boxes, the available quantity is 70. This field is always read-only.
While you cannot set the on-hand quantity to less than 0, it is possible for the available quantity to become negative. The most likely cause of this is that you discover after some members already have the item in their carts, that you have less of the product on-hand than you originally planned. A shortage tool is available to assist you in communicating this to members.
Held Quantity: Indicates how many of this product are currently "on hold" in member boxes associated with all active deliveries. This field works in tandem with the Available Quantity field to illustrate how quickly your inventory for a given product is being used. The sum of these two fields is equal to the total quantity of the product that you have on hand. When a member adds an item to their box in customization or farm stand, the Held Quantity for that product will increase and the Available Quantity will decrease. When you finalize a delivery, the Held Quantity will drop - to zero if the finalized delivery was the only one that included that product, or to the total used in deliveries that have not yet been finalized - because that inventory is now considered to be sold rather than held. This field is always read-only.
Delivery Quantity: Indicates how many of this product variant should be available for the box building algorithm to place in members' shares. It defaults to 0. You only need to edit this field if you have chosen "Default" or "Priority" as the Allocation Scheme. It will be ignored for "Specialty" and "Extras" items, because those are not considered when building boxes. It is also not necessary if you are building a Farm Stand delivery, because everything is purchased a la carte. You may choose to set this value to the same as your number of units available in inventory if you would like the algorithm to try to place all of them in members' boxes, or set it lower than the available inventory to ensure that some units are available for members to add during customization. This field is only editable in the "Draft estimate" status.
Shortage: If it turns out you have insufficient inventory of an item to fill the orders, use this tool before finalizing your delivery to notify your members that the product may be missing or substituted. When you click the field, a modal will appear. Click the checkbox in that window to apply a shortage, and enter a message for affected members in the text field, i.e. “Due to inclement weather we have a shortage of X, we will be substituting Y instead.” This message will be included in the delivery finalization email for members who have that product in their boxes. Click Save when you are satisfied with the content.
If you no longer need to send a shortage message, click in the field again and uncheck the box, then click Save.
Share Quantity: This defines the quantity in which a product can be added to or removed from shares. It will default to one unit, but may be edited as desired. For example, you may track apple inventory by the pound, but pack it in 3lb bags. In this case, you would set this field to 3. This field only accepts whole numbers; when working with products that were created in the old page with a base quantity that is not a whole number, it is rounded to the nearest whole number, or to 1 if the nearest whole number is 0. This field is only editable in the "Draft estimate" status.
Unit Type: This is the unit in which the product is sold. The Share Quantity and Unit Type together will make it clear to the member how much of the product they can expect to receive. This field is only editable in the "Draft estimate" status.
Label Group: All product variants that have not been otherwise set will have "default" in this field. This means that those items should be printed on the standard label for this share. If an item requires a separate label, set a name for that label in this field. The name can be anything you find useful depending on how you pack your products; it is never displayed to the member. For example, if you have multiple cuts of beef in your delivery, and you would like all beef cuts to be packed together, but in a separate box from the vegetables, you might create a Label Group named "beef" and assign it to all of your beef product variants. Once you have created a Label Group, it will appear in the dropdown list when editing other products in this delivery. You may edit this field at any time.
Label Group names are used on the Logistics page, in both the Table and DYMO Labels views. For more information, please visit the Using the Logistics Manager article. They do NOT impact the legacy labels, which are printed from the delivery's Labels and Reports page.
If you no longer wish to include a product in your delivery, click the Remove button at the end of the row. This action is only available in the "Draft estimate" status, because removing a product after boxes have been built can result in issues with member box value and errors when finalizing the delivery.
If you have made edits to the product, Remove will be replaced with Cancel and Save. When you are satisfied with your edits, click the "Save" button. To revert your changes, click "Cancel."
Delivery Product Order: The order in which products are built into boxes, and displayed at customization, is determined by their order in the Delivery Builder. To change this order, click and hold the icon to the left of the product name and drag it to its desired position in the list. A green row with the text "Drop here!" indicates where the item will be placed. When you have placed the item where you want it, release the mouse button. Changes to the product order will be saved automatically.
Creating a New Product in the Delivery Builder
The new delivery builder provides the ability to create an entirely new product, without having to go to the Product List page. Simply type the name of the product you want into the product dropdown, and a prompt will appear to create the product. Click on it to open the Create Farm Product modal.
The modal will appear with the product name you typed already populated, but you may edit it as needed. Fill in the other fields with details to help members make informed decisions while customizing their shares. These fields follow the same guidelines as described in the "Setting up Delivery Products" section of this article. When you are satisfied, click Next. If you change your mind, click Cancel to exit the Create Farm Product process.
On the Upload Image page, click the Add Image button to upload an image for your product. If you do not upload an image, the default image for the parent product you selected in Step 1 will be used. Edit the image as needed, and click Save Image, then click Next to go to the last step.
The Setup Variants step will provide the ability to create multiple variants for your new product in a future version, so that you can easily offer the same product in different units or quantities. For now, edit the Name, SKU, Price, Base Quantity, and Unit to your liking, and then click Finish.
There are a few limitations to be aware of regarding these fields:
- The SKU must be 16 characters or less, and must be unique. If you enter a SKU that is not unique, a number will be appended to the end to differentiate it.
- The Base Quantity must be a whole number.
The Create Farm Product modal will close, and you will be returned to the main Delivery Builder page, where your new product appears at the top, ready for you to set the allocation scheme and delivery quantity and add it to your delivery!
Delivery Metrics
While you are building your delivery, you may find it helpful to refer to the Delivery Metrics section in the lower-right corner. This section provides data to help you evaluate whether you have enough product in your delivery to fill all of your members' boxes, and how much additional product you can sell.
Target value is the total of the goal values for all of the shares to be included in this delivery.
Extras value is the sum of all products allocated as Extras that members in this delivery have ordered. It will be $0 until you launch customization, because extras are not automatically distributed into members' boxes.
Estimated value is the sum of all the products in this delivery that are eligible to be distributed by the box building algorithm. This includes Default and Priority products only, and uses the lesser of Inventory Qty or Delivery Qty for each product, because that is the boundary used in automated box building.
After you launch your delivery, Estimated value will be replaced by Total value, which is the sum of all products in members' orders across all four allocation schemes.
SKU count is the number of unique SKUs, or product variants, you have in this delivery.
Launching Your Delivery
When you are satisfied with your delivery product list, click the Move To Review button to proceed to the next step.
At this time, a series of checks will run to help identify potential setup errors before building members' boxes. If any of the following conditions are found, a popup will appear listing the affected products:
- A product with the price set to $0
- A product with a share quantity of 10 or greater
- A product whose delivery quantity is greater than its inventory quantity
If you wish to launch the delivery as-is, click the "Yes, Continue" button. If you made an error in your delivery products and would like to correct it, click "No, Go Back".
When you continue to the "Estimate review" status, the box building algorithm will run, and you will be taken to the "Preview Shares" page, where you can review the boxes that have been created for your members. If everything looks good, click the Launch Customization Period button to open the customization window and send emails to the members detailing their shares. Click Cancel and Edit Estimate to go back and make further changes to your products or inventory.
If you selected the "customization reminder email" option when building your delivery, members will receive another email 2 hours before the cut-off time reminding them to customize their share and suggesting a few items that are not yet in their share.
Editing Your Delivery During Customization
Once you have launched the customization period for your delivery, it moves to the "Final estimate" status. You can still make edits to your delivery products during this time, but the fields you can edit are limited to those that would not cause unexpected changes to members' box contents or associated charges. Please make all necessary updates via Product Management before adding a product to your active delivery. For more details on which fields can be edited in this status, please review the "Setting Up Delivery Products" section of this document. Click the Edit My Delivery button on the Delivery List page to enter the Delivery Builder and make changes as needed.
Did you accidentally set the wrong customization cut off time? Fear not! Click here for instructions on how to adjust the cut off time!
Finalizing Your Delivery
Once the customization cut-off time passes, it is time to finalize your delivery. The Edit My Delivery button on the Delivery List page will change to Review and Finalize My Delivery. Click it to enter the Delivery Builder. Take a moment to review your product list, and available and used inventory.
Click the Finalize button at the top of the page to begin the finalization process.
If you attempt to finalize before the cut-off time has passed, a popup will appear asking you to confirm this action. If you wish to proceed anyway, click Yes, Continue. To exit finalization and allow members to continue customizing their shares, click No, Go Back.
When you proceed with finalization, you will be taken to the "Labels and Reports" page. You should see a success message saying the payments were processed, that emails were sent, and that the delivery was successfully finalized. It will also provide you with links to print labels, pick lists, and driver reports as well as showing you the final box contents for each member.
At this point, a final email is sent to members which gives them their full share details and acts as a pickup reminder. Payment plans run at this time.
A Note About Farm Stand
The previous Delivery Builder offered the option to open Farm Stand when launching deliveries for your regular share members, to sell any extra inventory you have available. It used the legacy version of Farm Stand, which requires members to purchase a share size first, before they can view or select products. That version of Farm Stand is not compatible with centralized inventory, and is not offered as an option in the new delivery builder.
Instead, if you have additional inventory beyond that needed to fill your members' shares, Harvie recommends that you launch a pop-up delivery using the new version of Farm Stand, or Shop. To use the same product list as your regular delivery, simply use the Copy As Farm Stand option on the delivery you just built. Regardless of whether you copy an existing delivery or create one from scratch, any products that are used in multiple deliveries will share the same inventory pool, defined by the Inventory Quantity field, so you do not need to set it again for each delivery.
See the Farm Stand Setup (V2) article for more information.