There are a few steps involved before you can use the Flower Store In a Box Order Workflow.
These initial steps involve:
You don’t have to do all the steps exhaustively, but you should at the very least have an understanding of how the workflow works.
You can choose to use the workflow in a very simple way or you can create a highly customised process for your business.
Initially you should think about how your business operates and how you manage your online orders currently. If you are a small store with only one location then you most likely only want to use the simplest workflow.
If you are a larger florist with lots of different florists and different locations then you want to use the more advanced workflow.
There are two types of workflow options you can choose from:
Where you have multiple stores or florists that fulfill the orders and you want to allocate the order to a person or store. The Workflow would look like:
Where you are a smaller store and just want to manage the workflow with only one login.
The workflow would look like:
The main difference between the two options is in the advanced version you can set who makes the order and you can choose drivers.
You may choose to have a hybrid version of the two where you have only one florist that “makes the orders” but you might have multiple drivers or use the driver list as driver runs IE:
Morning Driver
Afternoon Driver
To choose whether you want the Advanced or Simple Workflow go to your dashboard:
Click Advanced Settings
Choose Workflow Settings
Check the box “Advanced Workflow”
Click the button “Update Workflow Settings”
Store Workshop Locations have multiple purposes, they can be used as customer chosen locations to pick a floral order up from or they can be a location for a courier / driver location or even a workshop where orders are prepared.
To set up your locations in the dashboard:
Click Checkout Settings
Choose In Store Pickup, Hospital & Nursing Home Locations
Click Add Location
There are two types of locations:
Store
A store is a physical location if you enable In Store Pickup this will be shown in your list of available pickup locations in the checkout.
Workshop
A workshop is a physical location that your orders may be pickup from by a courier booked in the dashboard. A workshop is NOT VISIBLE in the checkout.
How might this work in the real world?
Single retail store
If you have one retail store where you accept in store pickups you would add that address as a “store”.
Multiple retails stores one pickup location
If you had multiple stores but only allow in store pickups from one location you would add this location as a “store” and add the rest as “Workshop”.
Workshop / Workroom only no retail store
If you don’t allow in store pickup instead add the location as a “workshop”
Both in the workflow and in the general dashboard there are a number of user types that you can create. In this guide we will explore the user types specific to the workflow.
To create a workflow florist / driver user:
Click Advanced Settings
Choose Workflow Settings
Click the blue button for Add Florist / Add Driver
Enter the email address
Enter a mobile if you want to send the user sms notifications
Enter the name
Choose the location
Choose the user type.
Click the blue button “Create User”
Workflow has full access to the workflow order management for all stores & locations this includes:
Florist Workflow has limited access to the workflow order management, and can only view and manage their own allocated orders. They can:
Store Workflow has limited access to the workflow order management for their store once allocated, also has access to manual orders, in store pickup and driver lists for the store
View orders allocated to the store they are associated with
A Driver only has access to orders they have been asked to deliver
View orders allocated to them for delivery
A Florist has access to orders they have been allocated to make. They can
Both the Driver & Florist users have a different dashboard screen with limited functionality and specifically designed for a mobile or tablet device.
Choosing what type of user to create
Creating users will be determined by how you operate your business. For example if you are a small self employed florist you might want to just leave the main login as “webmaster” and have access to the entire dashboard. Whereas if you are a large florist with a mix of retail stores and a workshop where you create orders and send them you will have more users.
For the best security you should always provide individual logins for each person using the system. However this is not always practical for small businesses or creates issues for users logging in and out of devices.
Two factor Authentication
If a user is a driver or florist they do not have the option for sms 2 factor authentication. You should also not turn on two factor authentication if there is a generic store login for the workflow.
How might this work in the real world?
Let’s look at a couple of scenarios for setting up users.
Retail Store with 3 employees who work together and a local driver
If you have a single location retail store where multiple staff work at the same time it’s probably easiest to create a single login for all the staff and use the Florist Workflow user type.
You would also set the Workflow as “Simple”
Then create a separate login and user type for the driver and allocate all the jobs to be delivered by this user.
Retail store with many staff, combination of local drivers and couriers
If you have a single location retail store where many staff work and you would like to track who is doing what, create individual logins for each staff member and use the Florist Workflow user type.
You would also set the Workflow as “Simple” rather than advanced. This then allows any staff member to view and make an order and move it through the workflow but does not require specific order allocation.
The reason for the individual logins for each staff member is so there is better tracking of who has done what in the system. For example if an order goes missing or doesn’t get made properly you can review who has changed the status and made the order.
Then create a separate login and user type for the drivers and allocate all the jobs to be delivered by this user.
You would also create the various courier account logins so the order can be booked for pickup to a courier company.
Multiple stores with many staff and a combination of local drivers and couriers
When you have multiple stores or location use the “Advanced Workflow” so you can allocate an order to a specific user at that location and then limit them to only view those orders.
There are three possible ways of setting up users in multiple locations.
Single Login / User for each store location
If you wanted all staff in a store to have one login create a single store login with the user type of “Store Workflow”. Then when an order comes in it can be manually or automatically allocated to the “store login” user.
Multiple Users for each store login and allocate to an individual in the store
If you wanted to have more control over who in each store made an order and also better tracking and visibility then you would create individual logins for each user. You would then need to allocate an order to a specific user.
This can cause issues if the user is not available to complete an order.
User type as Florist / Store Workflow
In this case you could create these users as a “Florist” so they can only see their own orders, or as a “Store Workflow” so they can see all the orders for the store and sort by their own orders.
You could also have one user in the store as a “Store Workflow” to manage all the store’s orders and allocate all orders to this login and this user can then change the allocation to specific florist logins.
This would be a model where there a high number of orders being placed in each store location every day.
Then create a separate login and user type for the drivers and allocate all the jobs to be delivered by this user.
You would also create the various courier account logins so the order can be booked for pickup to a courier company.
Centralised workshop with no retail stores, combination of couriers and drivers.
If you are primarily an online florist with a centralised workshop for making and despatching the orders the “Advanced Workflow” with multiple florists to make the order is the most appropriate.
There would be one user who either has “workflow” or “webmaster” access and they manage the allocation of orders to specific florists. This master user would manage the operations side of the workflow.
Each florist will have their own login and will only be able to see the orders that they have specifically been allocated. They will be able to make the order, view the order details and restrict the order.
A “florist” does not have to be a specific person, some businesses use a login for a specific location in the workroom that multiple people might have access to.
Then create a separate login and user type for the drivers and allocate all the jobs to be delivered by this user.
You would also create the various courier account logins so the order can be booked for pickup to a courier company.
Centralised workshop with retail store/s, combination of couriers and drivers.
If you have retail stores and also have a centralised workshop you would use the “Advanced Workflow”. The volume of orders and what sort of tracking / visibility you would like would like would determine how you would set up the users.
The simplest way to set this up would be to create a single login for each store and choose the “Store Workflow” so the stores can see all the orders for their store.
For the orders in the workroom create individual “florist” users and allocate to these users.
Essentially you can set up the users and use the workflow in any way that works best for you and your business.
The workflow allows an end to end order management including the delivery phase. You can choose to use your own driver or one of the integrated courier companies:
When you make a booking with one of these Go People or Sherpa you will be able to select the booking type in the screen.
When the boking is picked up, delivered or comments added to the booking they will be sent back to the dashboard.
If you use a local or in house driver for your deliveries you can allocate the orders to this driver.
They can then log into a special mobile enabled interface to pickup the order and deliver it.
To set up the integration with the courier companies you will first need to create an account with each one.
There are different requirements from each company, the set up in the dashboard can be found under:
Settings
Manage Detrack Settings
Manage Go People Settings
Manage Sherpa Settings
The following notifications are available for users in the workflow:
Driver Notifications
Send Driver Email on Allocation
Send Driver SMS on Allocation
Florist Notifications
Send Florist Email on Allocation
Send Florist SMS on Allocation
SMS’s are charge at 10 cents per notification.
Depending on how you manage your order workflow, the dashboard can help keep customers in the loop with the following events in the order lifecycle:
Some of the notifications can happen automatically such as when the customer orders or if the order was pre-ordered and a reminder is sent on the day of delivery / pickup. Other notifications are “triggered” by an event in the dashboard such as a status change.
Linking Suburbs to Stores
To enable the automation of orders to a store you can choose the store / location for each suburb / postcode in your dashboard.
To do this:
Choose Checkout Settings from the menu
Choose Delivery Suburbs
Click on the suburb name
Choose the location from the list
Click save
If you have been using Flower Store In a Box for a while you will most likely have orders that have a variety of different statuses. It’s important that you clean up any old data before starting to use the updated workflow.
You should make sure all past orders have the status of either completed or delivered.
Before you start using the workflow you should test the process to make sure it works for you in the way you expect it to.
Create an order and then move the order through the various stages of the workflow. It’s an excellent idea that you ask your users to practice with their logins to see that they understand how to use all the workflow.
Once you have followed all these steps and tested the workflow you are ready to start using the workflow.
Added: 2022-5-30 and last modified: 2022-5-30