Outsource Production

Outsourcing production leverages the abilities and equipment of other fulfillment centers to complement your own. You may also offer your fulfillment center as an outsourcing partner to other fulfillment centers as a way to generate more income. This article describes how to set up both of these outsourcing scenarios.

Prerequisites

• You must have administrator access to use this feature

To Configure Outsourcing of Production:

1. Log into your DecoNetwork Website.
2. Browse to Admin > Settings.
3. Select Production & Order Settings, then Outsource Production.

   

   

   Outsourcing works by taking a product from the production node in Business Hub and from there assigning the job to be outsourced. Once the product has been received and gone through the production cycle of the fulfillment center, the product is returned with its status set to production complete, and the product will enter the shipping node.

   Limitations to outsourcing are that it will not manage shipping, either between fulfillment centers or from the fulfillment center doing the production to blind ship the product to the customer. Outsourcing will also not organize the financial aspects of the arrangement which must be handled separately. If you are using outsourcing to cover decoration processes you cannot support in-house, you must still enable the process in Admin > Decoration Processes so products will appear to be available using that decoration process.

   To enter an outsourcing arrangement, the receiving fulfillment center (who does the actual production) must first enable outsourcing inbound. Meanwhile, the fulfillment center that is seeking outsourcing must set up a link outbound to the producing fulfillment center. Once both parties have confirmed their settings, products may commence being outsourced.

   

To Set Up Inbound Outsourcing:

1. Select Configure Settings.
2. Set I want to list my fulfillment center to act as an outsource fulfillment center for other DecoNetwork fulfillment centers to ON.

   Take note of your Outsource ID number as other centers that wish to use you in an outsourcing arrangement must reach you via this number.

3. If you wish to publicize your outsourcing capabilities on your web store, turn on Display my Outsource ID number on my website.
4. When you are done, click Save.

   Fulfillment centers that are requesting you take their production will appear in the main work area with the link type listed as unconfirmed. To accept the link request, click Manage, then click Enable this Link to finalize.

To Outbound Set Up Outsourcing:

1. Select Link to a FulFillment Center.
2. Enter the Outsource ID of the fulfillment center.
3. When you are done, click Save.

   Your outsource link request must then be approved by the fulfillment center which will be conducting production on your behalf. The link will appear as unconfirmed until this happens.

   You may at any time disable or cancel any outsourcing arrangement by clicking Manage from the outsourcing list.

To Make a Product being Ordered Become Outsourced:

1. Log into Business Hub.
2. Click Production.
3. Select the products you wish to outsource.
4. Click Outsource Selected Items.
5. The selected items will then go to the inbound fulfillment center for production, where the products appear in the production node with an outsourced icon next to it. Once production has been completed, the products will move into your shipping node.