Scenario
I want to be able to sort in Linnworks, either in Open Orders or My Inventory, using Bin Rack, but the order is not useful.
Solution
There is no restriction in Linnworks for how Bin Racks should be labelled. However, they may need to be entered in a certain way in order for Linnworks to order them in a sensible sequence in documentation such as invoices or pick lists. This is because of the way a machine will sort, character by character. When sorted, numbers are sorted based digit and then letter. This leads to the following issue:
| Entered Bin Rack | Linnworks Sort Order |
|---|---|
| 1 | 1 |
| 2 | 10 |
| 3 | 11 |
| 4 | 12 |
| 5 | 2 |
| A1 | 20 |
| A2 | 3 |
| A12 | 30 |
| B5 | 4 |
| 10 | 5 |
| 11 | A1 |
| 12 | A12 |
| 20 | A2 |
| 30 | AA |
| AA | B5 |
To solve this, prefix any numbers in your Bin Rack locations with zeros so that they are the same number of digits. For instance:
| Actual Bin Rack Locations | Linnworks Bin Rack Locations |
|---|---|
| 1 | 001 |
| 2 | 002 |
| 3 | 003 |
| 4 | 004 |
| 10 | 010 |
| 15 | 015 |
| 20 | 020 |
| 30 | 030 |
This would apply to numbers that appear in an alphanumeric sequence such as locations like: A-1 to A-100 should be formatted in Linnworks as A-001, A-002 etc.
Solution
Prefixing numbers with 0s, so that all strings of numbers are the same length, will ensure that they are sorted in the right order.