Ready stock on a project can only go out once. When two people work on the same project’s deliveries at the same moment — one building a dispatch while another commits a picking slip — Evolution makes their saves take turns and checks the quantities again, so the same stock cannot end up held on two dispatches.
Most of the time you will not notice any of this. It only shows when two saves on one project really do meet, and then Evolution tells you what it did.
Saves on a Project Take Turns
Each of these saves checks how much of the project’s stock is still ready to dispatch, then writes its lines:
- adding lines to a dispatch and saving it;
- committing a dispatch;
- Commit & Dispatch on a picking slip, and dispatching a picking slip;
- dispatches scheduled from a runsheet.
Only one of them runs at a time on any one project, from the check right through to the last line written. A second save on the same project waits for the first to finish — usually a fraction of a second — and then checks the quantities again, so it sees what the first one took. Saves on different projects never wait for each other.
If a save cannot get its turn within about ten seconds, it is refused rather than risk doubling up, and you see a message such as:
This dispatch was not saved. Another save on this project (a dispatch, picking slip or commit) was still running. Nothing was changed. Wait a moment and save again.
Nothing was written, so simply save again. The refusal is recorded in the dispatch’s (or picking slip’s) History as “SAVE REFUSED – another save on project … was still running”.
Commit & Dispatch From a Picking Slip
A picking slip can sit for a while between picking and committing. If some of its stock has gone out on another dispatch in the meantime, Commit & Dispatch only sends what is still ready to dispatch:
- a line with less left than was picked is reduced to what is left;
- a line with nothing left is left off the dispatch;
- if nothing on the slip is left at all, the slip is committed but no dispatch is created.
You are told which lines changed and by how much — for example “Some picked quantities were not added to the dispatch. Part of this stock is already on another dispatch”, followed by one line per item. Each change is also written to the history of the picking slip, the new dispatch and the project, as “QTY GATE – … reduced from 10 to 6” or “QTY GATE – … dropped”, so you can see afterwards why a delivery was short.
The goods you picked but could not send are still on the shelf. Check the other dispatch before you put them away: it may be the same delivery entered twice.
Another Dispatch Is Open on the Project
When you open a dispatch that is still a draft or awaiting delivery, Evolution checks the project for any other dispatch in the same state. If there is one, a yellow warning appears near the top of the dispatch listing each one, who last changed it and when.
Stock on an open dispatch is already held, so it is not available to this one. The warning does not stop you saving. Two dispatches on one project are often exactly what you want, for example a delivery split across two trucks. It is there so that you check the other dispatch is not the same goods before you add to this one. If it is, finish one of them and delete the other.
If Something Goes Wrong
“Not saved – another save on this project was still running”
Someone else was saving a dispatch, picking slip or commit on the same project at that moment. Nothing of yours was written. Save again; if it keeps happening, see who else has the project’s dispatches open and check with them.
My dispatch came out short of what I picked
Some of the stock had already gone out on another dispatch. The message after you committed, and the History of the dispatch and the picking slip, list each line that was reduced or left off. Open the project’s other dispatches to see where the rest went.
The picking slip is committed but there is no dispatch
Everything on the slip was already on another dispatch, so there was nothing left to send. The project’s history lists each line. Nothing has left stock twice; find the other dispatch from the project’s Dispatches tile.