2 min read
What others built is a series about real apps and integrations made with Vince Platform. First up: a crossdock app at a Nordic specialty retail chain, which cut receipt and issue from one hour to five minutes.
The problem: crossdock without an overview
Crossdock should be the fast lane. Goods come in from the supplier and go straight out to stores, without going into stock. In M3, it did not feel fast.
To see which inbound purchase order belonged to which outbound store order, warehouse staff had to open individual order lines and find the link. There was no consolidated view. Receipt and issue were both multi-step manual processes, and the team had little idea of the day’s workload before it arrived.
The solution: one screen, one click
The team built a crossdock app in Vince App Builder. It pulls inbound purchase orders from selected suppliers and matches them to the linked outbound store orders, by querying several M3 tables behind the scenes.
Purchase orders to receive, grouped by delivery date and matched to receiving store.
On one screen, warehouse staff can:
- See every crossdock order in one place, filtered by date, supplier and receiving store.
- Receive all inbound orders in one click, or one at a time.
- Issue all allocated outbound orders the same way.
- Plan staffing with an overview of upcoming crossdock volume.
The issue view: allocated outbound orders per store, issued in one click. Screenshots from the Concept Catalog.
The result
| Before | After | |
|---|---|---|
| Crossdock receipt and issue | 1 hour | 5 minutes |
| Finding the inbound–outbound link | Order line by order line in M3 | One view |
| Workload visibility | Little or none | Upcoming volume per day |
There was a bonus the team had not planned for. The app surfaces orders entered with an incorrect departure date, so staff catch and correct them before they cause delays.
Why it works
The app does not replace M3. It reads and writes M3 live, through the same API transactions you already know. What changes is the shape of the work: the app puts the data from several programs on one screen, in the order the warehouse actually works.
That is the pattern behind many of the apps in the series. Find a task where people jump between programs and order lines to answer one question, then give them one screen for it.
Could you build something similar?
Crossdock is a good fit when:
- the link between inbound and outbound orders exists in M3, but is hard to see,
- receipt and issue happen in batches that could be done in one go, and
- the team needs to plan staffing around incoming volume.
With App Builder, you describe the app you want, and it is built on your own M3 data and workflows. You do not need to start from scratch, either. The crossdock app and more than 35 other concepts are in the Concept Catalog.
Get started
Browse the Concept Catalog for ideas from other M3 companies, or book a demo and tell us about the task your team spends too much time on.