Work Templates In Dynamics 365 – The Music of the Warehouse

Close your eyes and listen – no, wait, don’t close your eyes… that’s not really safe, just listen to the warehouse, what song do you hear?  The work being done in a warehouse has a song behind it.  Creating the beat for the song is what Work Templates do in Dynamics 365.

Work Templates direct the actions in the warehouse for each type of process being completed.  Shipping, Receiving, Replenishments… each function has work associated with it and Work Templates tell the user exactly what work is needed to be performed.  In conjunction with Location Directives, Work Templates make up the warehouse recital.

How do Work Templates, well…. work?

Work Templates define the effort needed in each area of the warehouse. Work templates are defined for all the work order types in the warehouse and will specify the expected flow the worker follows to complete the work.  All Work templates must have a Pick and Put defined in the template – pick something up, put something down, sometimes multiple times.

Purchase orders Work Template – Pick up the product from a Truck, Put it down in a staging location.

Sales orders Work Template – Pick up product from storage location, Put down in staging location, pick up from staging location, put down in an outbound dock.

Setting up a work template

Go to Warehouse Management>Setup>Work>Work Templates to set up Work Templates.

Work templates are not location specific but can be associated with a site or warehouse through the Query if needed.   

– Work order Type

Select the type of work from the drop down for the work template being defined.

– Work Template Header:

• Sequence number – Each work template is assigned a sequence number.  This is the sequence the system uses to evaluate each template to determine which something should be assigned to.
• Work Template ID – unique ID for each work template
• Work Template Description – Description of Work Template
• Valid – Once the Work Template is created and has all necessary components then it will be identified with a Valid check
• Automatically Process – select if the work should be automatically processed and action is not physically needed in the warehouse
• Work Pool ID – ID defined to assemble work into specific groups for processing
• Work Priority – used to prioritize work in the workflows for the mobile device

– Work Template Details:

• Line Number – sequence number for processing the work in the template
• Work Type – Type of work to be completed.
• Custom work type – only used if Custom is selected in Work Type
• Mandatory – is the step mandatory to be completed in the workflow
• Stop work – stop the work so another user can pick it up or it can be picked up at another time.
• Freeze
• Directive code – define where the
• Work Class ID – Use this ID to configure the menu in the mobile device

– Work Template Query

Click on Edit Query for in the top ribbon to define the selection for the work that is associated with the work template set up.

Now that you have the song, what are the steps to go along with it.  Figure out how to set up the choreography by reading our next blog post (coming soon!) “Calming the Chaos – How to get Everyone Moving to the Same Beat with Location Directives in Dynamics 365“.

For more information on this or other Microsoft Dynamics AX/365 inquiries or needs visit our Help Desk Support page to see how our experts can help!

Contact Ellipse Solutions at solutions@ellipsesolutions.com or by calling our corporate office at (937)312-1547.