Pick to Tote: Overview

What it is

Pick to Tote lets one picker fill several orders in a single trip through the warehouse. The picker loads empty totes onto a cart, Zenventory assigns one order to each tote, and the mobile app guides the picker from location to location, telling them which tote each item goes into. When the cart comes back to the packing area, each tote already holds one complete order.

This style of picking is often called cluster picking. Because items are sorted into their orders as they are picked, there is no separate sorting step afterward.

How it works

Set up your equipment (web). A manager creates cart types (how many levels a cart has and the size of each one), carts, tote types, and totes, and prints their barcodes. How to set up carts and totes
Claim a cart (mobile). The picker scans or enters a cart's barcode. The cart is now reserved for that picker and no one else can use it.
Load totes (mobile). The picker chooses a level on the cart and scans or enters each tote they place on it.
Zenventory assigns orders to totes. When the picker finishes loading, Zenventory looks for orders that are ready to pick and assigns one order to each tote it fits in. See "How orders are assigned to totes" below.
Pick (mobile). The app builds a route of locations in the order they appear in your warehouse's location list. At a location with picks for several totes, it goes by cart level, then left to right. At each stop, the picker confirms the location, confirms the item, and places the item in the tote shown on screen. How to pick to tote in the mobile app
Submit and drop off (mobile). When the route is done, the picker submits the picks and takes the cart to the packing area.
Pack and ship (web). On the Pack Verify or Ship screen, scanning a tote's barcode opens the order in that tote.
Totes and the cart are freed. Once a tote's order is packed or shipped, the tote becomes Available again. When every tote on a cart is Available, the cart becomes Available too. Which step frees the tote depends on your Auto Pack setting. How to pack and ship an order by scanning a tote

How orders are assigned to totes

Zenventory chooses the orders. The picker does not pick them.

Which orders qualify. A customer order qualifies when it is placed, not on hold, not completed or cancelled, not a Quick Issue order, has at least some stock allocated and not yet picked in your current warehouse, and is not already being picked by someone else.
Partly allocated orders. These can be assigned. Only the allocated, unpicked units are checked for fit and added to the pick route. The rest of the order stays as it is, and the picker doesn't pick it.
Customer orders only. Transfer orders are not assigned to totes at this time.
Order of priority. The oldest orders (by order date) are assigned first. [CONFLICT with ticket ZENV-3380, which describes slotting orders by alphanumeric location sort. The code uses oldest order date. Ticket is a plan, not a note. Confirm which is final.]
One order per tote. Each tote holds exactly one order.
Size check. An order is only placed in a tote if all of its items fit, based on each item's Storage Length, Storage Width, and Storage Height. Zenventory uses the tote's inner length and width, and the height of the cart level the tote sits on. Items can stick up above the tote's rim as long as they fit under the shelf above. Zenventory tries every orientation, including standing items on end, and checks all items on the order together.
Storage dimensions are optional. The size check only uses storage dimensions when an item has them. If none of the items on an order have them, the order is simply assigned to one tote, starting with the smallest.
Smallest tote first. If an order fits in more than one tote, Zenventory uses the smallest one.
Orders that don't fit are skipped. Zenventory moves on to the next oldest order.

Assignment stops when every tote has an order or there are no more qualifying orders. This means a picker can load 10 totes and only get 3 orders. That is expected.

Key things to know

Orders are assigned once. There is no way to check for more orders after orders have been assigned. Totes that don't get an order stay empty for that trip. [CONFLICT, minor: in the code, if no orders at all were assigned, the cart stays Reserved and loading again re-runs the assignment. Once any order is assigned, there's no re-check. Matches the note for normal use.]
Zenventory doesn't check that totes physically fit on a cart. How to set up carts and totes
Requires the Zenventory mobile app and the Picker role for picking. Managing carts and totes on the web requires the Manager role and mobile app version 3.2.1 or higher.

Who should use this

Pick to Tote is built for operations that pick many small orders every day, such as ecommerce and 3PL warehouses, where walking the warehouse once per order wastes time. It works best when most orders have a few items that fit in a tote. If most of your orders are large, bulky, or ship on pallets, or you pick only a handful of orders a day, standard order picking is likely simpler.