Descartes® is pleased to announce the latest Peoplevox release. In this release, we are adding support for picking directly from bulk locations, improving scanning performance in PVX+, and resolving a number of issues with reports and the new print client. Below, you will find a summary of everything included, grouped by category so you can easily focus on what is most relevant to you. For any questions about specific items, please reference the associated number (if provided) when contacting Descartes Customer Support.

Auto-Updating Print Client

🟨 The new Print Client is now generally available, and we encourage you to upgrade to the latest version. This release introduces automatic updates, which will allow us to push fixes and improvements without disrupting your operation. The initial upgrade must be completed manually, but after installation, the client will update automatically. You can find the installation guide and download link for the new print client here.

You can also download the new print client directly from the web application, by navigating to the print client's page, and clicking the download link.

🟪 The new print client installer and its services are now digitally signed. This should resolve situations where anti-virus software prevented the new print client from being installed. (1555137)

Migration to New UI - Returns Setup

🟨 The legacy Return reasons and Return states pages have been removed from the Returns > Setup menu. Both are now configured from the Returns setup page, which has been available for some time. If any of your roles relied on the legacy pages for access to these settings, an administrator may need to grant that role the Returns setup permission. (1563519)

Actions and Action Creation Improvements

🟪 The new Action Creation workflow and Action Profiles now support picking directly from bulk locations for "1 person picks 1 order" actions. This is intended for large wholesale or store replenishment orders, where the quantity required is more than the pick face would normally hold, and where the only option until now has been to move stock into the pick face in order to pick it straight back out again. (1470270)

You will find two new options in the Advanced allocation section: Pick from bulk locations? and Pick from pick locations?. By default only pick locations are used, so existing profiles behave exactly as before. With both options enabled, stock is allocated from bulk first and the pick face covers the remainder. Any zone selections continue to apply to pick locations only. There is no change to the picking workflow on mobile; the operator is simply directed to the bulk location. These options are available where advanced allocation is enabled on your account.

Please be aware of how picking from bulk interacts with replenishment. By default, replenishment is triggered by order allocation. This means that when a large order is allocated from bulk, a replenishment can also be triggered for the same item, and the two may compete for the same bulk stock. You have two options:

1. Keep the default replenishment behaviour, which triggers based on allocation, and accept that conflicts at bulk locations may occasionally occur.

2. Change your replenishment trigger to use the physical quantity in the pick face instead, which avoids these conflicts. This is an account-level setting; please contact Descartes Customer Support if you would like it changed.

We are aware of this limitation and are looking at ways to address it in the future by moving replenishment onto action profiles, so that picking and replenishment can operate on the same shared context.

🟪 Most parameters on the Action Profile and Create Actions screens now have a help icon next to their label. Hover over the icon for a short explanation of what the setting does. (1369358)

🟪 It is now possible to run an Action Profile that uses a filter you do not own and which has not been shared with you. Saving changes to such a profile still requires the filter to be shared with you, and the User Filter field now shows clearly when this is the case. (1510508)

Reporting Improvements

🟪 When grouping a report, datetime columns can now be grouped by their full value, in the same way as text columns, rather than only by a component of the date. This allows you to group on another column while still displaying the full timestamp, for example grouping the new user activity report by session while showing the start time of each session. (1478666)

PVX+ Mobile Improvements

🟪 The PVX+ app now stores a local copy of the product and location reference data used when scanning (barcodes, item codes, names, supplier barcodes and manufacturer part numbers). This allows scans to be validated instantly on the device rather than waiting for a response from the server. The new process significantly improves scanning speed, particularly in Register, Stock take and Cycle count. Transactional data such as inventory continues to be communicated with the server in real time. (1478417, 1459861)

🟪 Item search in the Register, Stock take and Cycle count functions on PVX+ now matches values anywhere within the item's name, code or barcode, rather than only at the start. As a result, you can find an item more easily when its label is damaged or partly unreadable. (1457337, 1478252)

Other Improvements

🟪 The Stock take variance approval screen now allows you to set a default sort order for the variance list, such as most recent first. This default is applied each time you search. Changing the sort order on the page overrides the default for that page. (1546920)

Resolved Issues

🟩 We resolved an issue with the Despatch screen that could display an "unhandled exception" error when the barcode to complete a despatch was scanned twice in quick succession, even though the order was despatched successfully. The second scan is now ignored. (1504828)

🟩 We resolved several issues with the new Print Client that could cause carrier labels to print at the wrong size, offset from the top of the label, or at a lower quality than the previous print client. (1567640, 1571034, 1571222)

🟩 We resolved an issue with reports where a "Not equals" filter also excluded rows in which the filtered column was blank. (1172868)

🟩 We resolved an issue with the report designer where, after using the search box on the columns tab, changing the grouping of a column could update a different column from the one selected. (1436619)

🟩 We resolved an issue with the Picked and not despatched items report that left the Stop ship column empty when viewed in the web application, although the value was present in the exported report. (1499822)

🟩 We resolved an issue on PVX+ where scanning a barcode with the device camera caused the input field to lose focus, requiring the operator to select it again before continuing. This affected Cycle count and a number of other screens. (1457689)

🟩 We resolved an issue where the Unpick list on PVX+ could include items that had already been despatched, and selecting one of them caused the device to stop at "Saving data". (1429819)

🟩 We resolved an issue where a "Storage type does not match" warning could appear on the mobile pick screen after rotating the device, for action types where it should not be shown. (724953)

Preview of Changes Coming Soon

Action Creation Improvements

Action creation continues to evolve as we drive toward more configurable and more flexible options for batching orders and automating manual processes.

🟦 We plan to extend the new action creation (including the scheduling component) to other warehouse activities, including put away, replenishment and more.

Batch and Expiry Tracking

🟦 Batch and expiry tracking has been on our radar for a long time, and we're excited to be in a position to kick off this project soon. The recent work on PVX+ has given us a lot of the foundation that we will need for the mobile changes, and the work that we have been doing on action creation will give us the tools to support things like first-expiry-first-out (FEFO) picking. Keep an eye on release notes for updates and timelines as soon as we have them.

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