Sites, departments and production queues

If all your work happens in one room, you can leave this as it is: you start with one site and one department. When you have separate teams (screen print, embroidery, 3D printing) or more than one unit, give each its own department. Each department has its own production board, its own stages and its own people.

Open Settings > Production. You need the Settings and team permission (Owners and Admins have it). On the production board, Edit stages brings you straight here.

More than one site or department is part of the Business plan. On other plans you have one site and one department: you can rename them, choose what the department makes and change its stages. If you move from Business to a lower plan, the sites and departments you already have keep working, but you can't add more.

Sites

A site is a workshop or unit. Your sites are listed down the left, each with its departments underneath.

• To add one, open Add a site, enter its Name and, if you like, its Address, then click Add site.
• To rename a site or change its address, click Edit next to it, then Save.
• Delete site removes the site and its departments. You can only delete a site when none of its departments has jobs on its board, and you always keep at least one site.

When you have more than one site, the site name is shown after the department name, for example "Embroidery, Unit 4".

Departments

Open Add a department, enter its Name, choose its Site and click Add department. It starts with three stages (To do, In progress and Quality check) for you to rename.

Click a department on the left to change it:

Click Save department. See Production calendar, capacity and scanning for how capacity and working days are used.

Delete department is only possible when the department has no jobs on its board, and you always keep at least one.

Each department's stages

Under Stages in (the department's name) are the columns on that department's board, between Queued and Ready to dispatch.

• Rename a stage by typing over it.
• Use Up and Down to change the order, and x to remove a stage.
• Click Add stage to add one (up to 15 per department).
• Click Save stages.

If you remove a stage that has jobs in it, those jobs go back to Queued.

Where an approved job goes

When a product line is approved (or its file is sent to production), ArtworkDesk puts it in a department's Queued column. It chooses in this order:

1. The product's own department, if you've set Made in on the product and that department is taking new jobs.
2. A department whose What it makes matches the line's decoration (or the product's Usual decoration if the line has none). "Embroidery" matches a line decorated "Embroidery", for example.
3. A department that takes anything (nothing ticked under What it makes).
4. Failing all of those, any department that's taking new jobs.

If more than one department fits, the job goes to the one with the fewest jobs queued or in production.

Choosing a department for a product

Open the product under Products and choose a department under Made in. Approved jobs for that product then always go to that department's board. Leave it as Any department that does its decoration to let ArtworkDesk choose. Made in only appears once you have more than one department. See Products.

Moving a job to another department

On the production board, open Move or assign on the card, choose the department and click Send. The job goes to the Queued column of the new department's board, and the move is noted on the order's timeline.

People in departments

Open Settings > Team. Under each person's name is a link showing their departments (or Not in a department). Click it, tick the departments they work in under Works in, and click Save departments.

• Their production board opens on their department.
• People whose role doesn't include Every department only see the departments they're in. People in no department see them all.

See Your team and roles for roles and permissions, and The production board for using the board.