Operating work orders

With write access, a connected assistant can run a work order end to end: plan what to build, edit the material list, pick and complete the build, review the quality of what came out, and raise a purchase order for what is missing. This page explains what that covers, and — just as importantly — where the assistant is made to stop and ask.

What it takes
Planning a build
Editing the plan
Moving a work order through its states
Running the build
Quality control and rework
Notes, documents and custom fields
Ordering what is missing
Tagging the orders behind a work order
The lists behind a work order (export templates, QC, tags, assignees)
Assemble tasks
Safety and audit

What it takes

Write access is opt-in. The assistant needs either an API key created with read & write scope or a web-chat connection granted read & write when it was linked. A read-only connection can see work orders but cannot change one. See API keys and Connect claude.ai or ChatGPT.

Running a build additionally needs the Enhanced plan. Everything that moves real stock — starting, completing, cancelling or reversing a build run — is checked against your subscription before it runs, whether it is asked for from the app or from an assistant.

Planning a build

The assistant can preview a build before anything exists: give it the finished goods and quantities you have in mind and it returns the consolidated material list, the split between what comes off the shelf and what has to be built, and the cost — by name, not by id. Nothing is created.

When you are happy with it, the assistant can create the work order, and in the same step take it as far as you want: leave it as a draft, mark it ready, or start it. It records which of those steps it ran, so you can see exactly how far it got.

A work order can be created from four starting points, and it carries exactly one of them: on its own, from a saved flow, from a set of Shopify orders, or from a task. Whatever the starting point, the assistant can also link the new work order to a task — say, a work order built from a task’s flow — and from then on that task’s status follows the work order, exactly as when you use Create work order on the Assemble tasks page. If your store has more than one location and no default is configured, the assistant has to be told which location the build happens at — it will not guess.

Editing the plan

The assistant can edit the header (name, notes, priority, due date, the assignee, the production and consumption locations, tags and labour cost) and the plan itself:

Items — add a finished good or assembly bill, change its planned quantity, remove it. Changing a quantity re-spreads the material list unless you ask it not to, which is how you keep a hand-edited list while changing the target.
Materials — add a material to a specific item, remove one, or edit many at once (quantities, the per-line location, notes, unit cost). Bulk edits are all-or-nothing: if one line is refused, none of them change.
Reset and refresh — unwind operator edits and re-spread from the current targets, or reconcile against the current recipes without touching the prices you already agreed.

If a material has already been consumed by a build, it cannot be removed or reduced below what was consumed. The assistant is told why, and asked to reverse the build first.

Moving a work order through its states

The assistant can move a work order forward, back, or to a named state (draft → ready → in progress → quality control → approved → completed, plus paused and cancelled). It works out the right step itself from where the work order currently is; it never has to be told the internal name of a transition.

A move that is not allowed from the current state is refused with the reason, not attempted.

Running the build

A build run is one pick: the materials leave stock and, when the run completes, the finished units arrive. The assistant can:

Preview a run — what it would take, what is available, and what is short.
Start a run, optionally completing it in the same step.
Complete, cancel or reverse a run. Cancelling a picked run puts the materials back; reversing a completed one unwinds both sides.
Retry a stock update Shopify did not accept, once you have fixed the cause.

Completing a material list in one step. For a Material List Only work order — such as the Materials Order one Assemblified creates for an order — the assistant can do what Complete work order does on the Assemble tasks page: start it, mark every remaining item picked in one run, and complete it, in a single request. It is refused, with nothing changed, for any other kind of work order and for one that is not draft, ready or in progress. A Material List Only work order moves no stock, so neither does this. If something fails partway, the assistant is told how far it got, and asking again picks up from there without picking anything twice.

When Shopify will not accept a line

If Shopify has no inventory record for a material at the location you are building at, the run is refused before anything moves and the assistant is told which lines are the problem. It can then check every line against Shopify and, with your say-so, activate the ones that need it (at zero stock — it never invents a quantity) or skip them, and re-send the run.

It cannot do that silently: asked to fix the lines without being told which to activate and which to skip, it stops and reports them. That refusal is deliberate — activating stock in Shopify on your behalf is your decision, not a detail.

Quality control and rework

The assistant can record a QC review over a completed run: how many units of each line passed and how many failed, with a category and a reason. Failed units become rework items automatically. It can also scrap a rework item — that is final, and it says so — and add a new failure category or defect reason to your catalogue on the way if the one you want is missing.

A completed review cannot be edited or submitted twice.

Notes, documents and custom fields

The assistant can post and delete messages on a work order’s conversation, attach and remove documents (up to 5 MB each), and fill in your custom fields — either one value for a whole material line, or one value per unit, which is how serial numbers and batch codes are captured. It can also save a value back onto the raw material itself so the next work order starts with it.

Ordering what is missing

If your store has the Logistified connection enabled, the assistant can turn a work order’s shortages into a purchase order: preview the lines (everything, or only what stock cannot cover), create the purchase order and link it, replace the lines on an existing one, link a purchase order you already raised, or drop the link.

The line set is always recomputed from the work order itself. You can change the quantities; you cannot add a variant the work order never needed.

Tagging the orders behind a work order

For a work order built from Shopify orders, the assistant can read those orders’ current tags and then add or remove tags on them — the “mark these as in production” step. Each order is handled on its own and reports its own result, so one order Shopify refused does not hide the ones that worked.

The lists behind a work order

Four small catalogues decide how work orders look and read: the export templates, the two quality-control vocabularies, the tag list and the assignees. The first three live on the Work orders settings page (Settings → Catalogues → Work orders) and the assignees have their own (Settings → Catalogues → Assignees). With write access an assistant can maintain all of them. None of them needs the Enhanced plan.

Export templates

A template is a saved column set and display choice, and it is keyed by two things: the kind (pick list, build overview, shortage report) and the format (PDF or spreadsheet). The two are independent — a kind can have one default PDF template and a different default spreadsheet template, and promoting one never disturbs the other.

The assistant can list the templates, create or replace one, promote one to be the default for its pair, and delete one.

Deleting the default of a pair is allowed and never blocked. Exports then fall back to the built-in columns, so promote a replacement first if your chosen column set matters.

Quality-control categories and reasons

A QC review files each failed line under a category (the coarse bucket) and a reason (the specific cause). The assistant can read both lists together, add to either, correct an entry’s name, code, description or colour, and remove one.

Correcting an entry corrects it everywhere at once: reviews point at the row rather than copying it, so a renamed category reads correctly on every review that ever used it.

Removing one is not always a removal. If QC reviews already name it, the entry is retired instead: it stays so those reviews keep reading back, but it is no longer offered for new ones. The answer says which happened. There is no way to bring a retired entry back from an assistant, so treat a retire as final.

Work-order tags

The assistant can read the tag list with how many work orders currently wear each tag, add a tag, rename or recolour one, and delete one.

A rename rewrites the name inside every work order that carries it, which is what keeps the tag filter finding them. It deliberately does not count as an edit to those work orders, so nobody with a work order open loses their place to a tidy-up.

A delete strips the name from every work order carrying it and reports how many that was. Tags are never retired, so that count is the only record of how much the tag was in use — ask the assistant to read the list first if it matters.

Assignees

Assignees are the people a work order can be assigned to. The assistant can read the list — sorted by name, each with how many work orders currently name them — and, with write access, add a person, correct their name, email or phone, remove them and bring a removed one back.

A first name is all it takes to add someone; last name, email and phone are optional. An email another active person already has is refused, with the existing person named — so ask the assistant to look before it adds a duplicate.
Correcting a person corrects every work order at once. Work orders point at the row rather than copying the name, so one fix reads correctly everywhere.
Removing is often retiring. If work orders still name them, the person is retired rather than deleted: those work orders keep reading correctly and the filter for them keeps working, but no new work order can be assigned to them. The answer says which happened, and how many work orders still point there. A retired person can be restored — unless someone took their email in the meantime, which is the one case a restore is refused.

When you ask the assistant to assign a work order to somebody, it resolves them through this list first. Asking for a name that is not in it does not create one silently.

Assemble tasks

Assemble tasks are the lighter half of the same job: a list of things to make or check, without the material plan and stock movements a work order carries. With write access the assistant can work that list end to end.

Find them — search by text, or filter by status, priority or label, exactly as the Assemble tasks page does. It can also read a single task in full. Every task it reads names its linked work order, if any: the work order’s name, short ID, status and kind.
Create one — a title is all it needs. A new task starts as to do at medium priority unless you say otherwise, and it can carry a label, a quantity and a due date.
Change one — the assistant writes only the fields you asked it to change; everything else is left as it was. That also means it cannot blank a field out, only give it a new value.
Move a batch — mark a whole selection done, in progress, cancelled or back to to do in one step. The selection is either the tasks you named or everything matching the current filters, resolved on the server so it means the same thing the list shows you.
Delete a batch — tasks have no dependents, so there is no preview step and nothing to release. A delete is final; ask the assistant to list what it is about to remove first.

Safety and audit

Nothing half-done. Every change that references something else checks it exists first. If it does not, nothing is written and you are told what was missing.
Every state change is recorded on the work order’s activity log with who made it and when — an assistant’s changes appear there exactly like a person’s.
Cost pushes are logged with their reasoning — which basis was used, and whether labour and additional costs were included — so a later “why is this cost what it is?” has an answer.
Background problems surface as warnings on the work order, each naming what to do about it, rather than as a silent failure.
Everything the assistant does is recorded in your access log. See Managing access & security.