First Delivery Walk Through
Step by Step Instructions below:
1. Farmer sets harvest estimate (48 hours minimum before delivery) and cut-off time for the members to make changes to their share.
For example, with a Tuesday delivery, farmer sets cut off time for Monday at 8am because that is when the picklist needs to be finalized for the field crew to start picking. So the latest the harvest estimate should be set in this case is Sunday at 8am because that gives the member at least 24 hours to make changes. Earlier than that is fine too, many farmers set their harvest estimate on Friday before a Tuesday pickup.
2. To create a new delivery from scratch:
Click the “Deliveries” option in the main menu. This will bring you to the Deliveries page, which will be where you can view any previously created deliveries. To start a new delivery from scratch, click the “Add New Delivery” button at the top of the page.
On the next page, choose the date of the delivery you want to create. This will create one delivery for all pickups on a certain date. You are able to do additional dates in one delivery build. In that case, all members in that build will have the same customization period and all harvests will be loaded into one picklist.
After selecting the date, the “Label” field will auto-fill with “Delivery for [chosen date]”. You can modify this if you wish.
Choose a “Customer Adjustment Cutoff Time”. This will be the day/time that customers will have until to make changes to their custom box. You’ll want to make sure you give your customers adequate time to make adjustments but also be sure to give yourself enough time to harvest and pack boxes. Remember: you won’t be able to get a final picklist and packing labels until the customization period is over.
You may also select whether you would like your members to receive a reminder email 2 hours before the end of the customization period, to cut down on those "I just missed the window!" change requests. This option is selected by default, but you can disable it here, or on the Adjust Cut-off Time page later.
The next screen takes you 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.
Choose an image, if applicable.
Write your farm updates in the space provided. Type in your message - we recommend 250 words or less to make it a fun, quick read.
Click Save Farm Happening.
If you start your farm happening but don’t finish it right away, you can go back to it later. Just click the Edit Farm Happenings button to complete your message. This needs to happen before you send out your estimates to your members.
Farm Happenings will appear in Customization Emails, Final Delivery Emails and on the Farm’s
Profile Page on the Harvie site.
After you save your Farm Happening, you will get to the Delivery Builder Screen:
Click the “Add Farm Product” button to add an item to the delivery; choose the product from the dropdown menu that appears. Note: the products that you add first will be added to the boxes first. For each item you need to enter the following:
- Estimated Amount - This is the quantity of the product that you believe you will have available for this delivery day.
- Unit Type - Will this product be available by the bag, by the bunch, by the pound? Make that clear by choosing the proper unit type.
- Price - This is the price of the product per unit, what you would sell it for at retail value.
- Base Quantity (generally you shouldn’t need to change this) - This defaults to a 1 unit measurement. In other cases, say you want to set your total inventory available for a product to show by the pound but pack boxes with base amounts of a fraction or multiple of that (ie if you list 10 lbs of apples but will pack in a 0.5 base quantity, then there are 20 “lots” of apples distributed into boxes. The value will also be set such that you would list the price per pound and half of that in this example would be counted against each box value per lot. If that’s confusing, we usually just call it a “bag” and you’ll know in your process how much goes in a bag and you can track inventory that way. You could also title override (below) to say “Bag of apples, 0.5 lbs” to communicate it.
- Target Value - This is the overall value of products to fulfill this delivery ($/share target value x the number of shares). We recommend going 10 - 20% beyond the target value to allow for adjustments. Target value defaults to the amount the customer paid for the share though we can adjust this up and down by request.
- Title Override (pencil icon) - You can override the default title of the product to give specific details about the product to your members. For example, if you add the generic product “Lettuce” and want to make clear what type of lettuce you have that week, you could click that checkbox and a second field would appear underneath where you could enter “Romaine Lettuce”. IMPORTANT NOTE: Make sure you are overriding products using the same product category - i.e. Purple Carrots as a title override for Carrots, not overriding Eggs as Purple Carrots. If you don't see the product you need when you are building the delivery, go into Products in the left menu bar and add it. Using the wrong base product will erroneously put products in members' boxes based on preferences and create inaccurate reports. If you use the title override feature when building a delivery, a new product will be automatically created for you with these settings when you finalize that delivery, so that you don't have to re-create the same override next time. Any fields that you do not explicitly set here will be inherited from the overridden product.
- Cooking Suggestion Tips (light bulb icon) - We provide cooking tips and anecdotes about the products on a rotating basis. These will be included in both auto-generated delivery emails to members. To view these, click on the light bulb icon next to the farm product. You also have the ability to create your own custom tips and recipes.
- Product Image (photo icon) - We will use our default photo, but you are able to upload your own photo. This works well specifically when you need to title override a product.
- Featured Product (star icon) - if you need to give preference for a product to be sold into shares first, select this option and we will try to get as many of these into shares before filling with other products.
- OPTIONAL Skip Delivery Product Option This is sort of the opposite of "featured" (to toggle this, use the star next to each product in delivery builder) -- featured will force a product into shares unless the member has set a "1 - Never include in my share" preference on that product.
This might be good for less popular items like certain kinds of herbs or if you are a meat producer, maybe you have some really expensive cuts that you would like people to have the option to try, but it does not make sense to try to fit them into shares right away.
You will see a "link" icon next to each product which you can use to toggle "skip" mode for each product. Here is a screenshot:
When you’ve added all the items for the day’s deliveries, click the “Complete Estimate and Review” button to continue to the next step.
3. Once farmer submits the harvest estimate, the Harvie algorithm runs and matches the harvest against each member’s preferences to figure out the perfect box for each member based on the week’s harvest.
Extras: If there are items that are not included as products in the main share that you want to make available for sale, such as value-added products, add-on shares, farm merchandise or specialty produce, you can add these by clicking the “Add Extra” button and following the same steps of giving the product a price, a unit type and a quantity available, and overriding the product name, if necessary. As with delivery products, if you use the title override feature for your extras, a new product will be automatically created for you with these settings when you finalize the delivery, so that you don't have to re-create the same override next time. We definitely recommend offering extras! Its a great opportunity for additional revenue, good product variety for your farm and sale of add-on share products to folks that couldn't commit to the whole season.
On the Extras page, if you don’t want to allow excess inventory of your main box items to be available for sale as add-on extras, you can uncheck the “for sale” checkbox by that item. Otherwise all items by default will be for sale as extras if there is sufficient inventory. FYI, any additional extras can be added during the customization process, as needed.
NOTE: Be sure to check the pricing on the Extras page for any leftover inventory from your harvest estimate to make sure those prices are correct. The pricing in Extras isn't guaranteed to match what you've inputted, especially if the harvest estimate has been changed a few times or if you use the Copy Delivery option.
Once you Save Extras, you will see the Farm Stand page. Here, you will be notified of the extra product value that could be converted into a share for your farm stand subscribers. If there is sufficient inventory available, just select which shares you want to advertise and the locations from which they can retrieve their purchased shares. Then, click Yes, Sell More.
Next, you will have your first opportunity to review the boxes that have been created for your members on the next screen. If everything looks good in your delivery, click Send Member Emails and your members will be sent emails detailing their shares and providing a link to customize them. If you need to make changes to pricing or inventory, click Cancel and Edit Estimate and repeat the process above.
4. After the harvest estimate is complete an email goes to members with share details. They have until the cut-off time to make swaps or add delivery extras, but they do not need to make any changes to their share, if they are happy with it. On average, we see 43% of members making changes to their share on a weekly basis.
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.
If you need to edit a member's share for them, and you are using the new Customization page (currently in Beta), you must impersonate the member to edit the share using the new page, to avoid compatibility issues with the old page used in admin. The buttons to edit a member's share, both on the member's Shares tab and the delivery's Preview Shares page, will automatically impersonate the member for you and redirect to the correct page. For more information about the new Customization page, see Customize Your Share: Version 2
Did you discover after launching your delivery that you have different products or amounts available than anticipated? Click here for instructions on how to edit the estimated amounts!
5. The customer adjustment cut-off time passes which closes down the share for any swaps and delivery extras ordering. At this time, the farm gets an email notification.
Did you accidentally set the wrong customization cut off time? Fear not! Click here for instructions on how to adjust the cut off time!
6. Farmer logs into Harvie admin to download and print finalized pick list, showing totals needed to fulfill shares for delivery.
Optional: You are able to enter inventory as it comes in from the field. The picklist can be taken out to the field during harvest and notes can be made on actual availability, then that information can be entered into the system.
7. The day of share prep, the farmer finalizes the delivery.
To finalize delivery, click the “Review and Finalize My Delivery” button next to the delivery and follow these steps:
- Scan each item in the delivery list and make sure that the number in the “Share Amount” column is available in your harvest inventory. You can also confirm this by reviewing your pick list.
- If it turns out you have insufficient inventory of an item, click the pink [ + ] button. A pop-up window will come up. Click the checkbox in that window and then type up whatever message you want to provide to your members, 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 email sent to members who have that product in their boxes. Note: an asterisk will show on your labels for your shortages and the note will show in their email. The customer can be compensated for this shortage by replacing it with another farm product, which can also be referenced in the message.
- Click the “Finalize Delivery” button. You should see a success message saying the payments were processed, that X 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.
8. Farmer downloads and prints market share report (if operating a market style pickup) and labels for share boxes.
Note: If you need add-on shares to print up on a separate label, this can be adjusted in your settings.
9. Set up pack line in order using the order set on the picklist.
Pack order sets the products in the shares from heaviest, at the top of the label, to lightest, at the bottom of the label. Harvie has smart defaults set in the system for pack order, but each farm may override the pack order by editing that product.
Ford at Sustainable Harvest tours Harvie through his packing process
10. Pack boxes in order of the list on the label. This is important because Harvie has setup the heaviest items first on the list so they can be placed in the box first, as not to damage more delicate products. More importantly though, the label order makes it easier to pack customized shares.
11. Delivery - Labels can be printed in the order you need - email support@harvie.farm and provide the delivery route. The drivers report will also be in this order. This is important because it helps with efficiently packing your delivery vehicle.
Note: for your next delivery estimate, make sure to click “Copy Delivery” from the last delivery so all of your inputs (products and extras) transfer over. This will save you a lot of time!
To copy a previous delivery:
Once you have deliveries created, you can copy them to create new deliveries. Click the “Deliveries” option in the main menu to view your list of existing deliveries. Any completed delivery can be copied; you’ll see a yellow “Copy Delivery” button next to the available deliveries. Copying a delivery copies the main box contents as well as the extras. You’ll be able to add items, delete items and edit items in the delivery using the same steps outlined in the new delivery process. If you copy a delivery in which you used the title override feature, the delivery builder will look for a matching product, and use it if found. If there is no matching product, the delivery builder will create one for you and use it. Note that the last farm happening copies as well so you will need to create a new one and replace the old.