Assemble flows

An assemble flow is a saved recipe: a named set of bills, assembly bills and raw materials with quantities, plus the kind of assembly it describes. It used to be the thing you pressed to build. It is not any more.

What a flow still does

Three things, and only these three:

It describes a recipe. Its bill and assembly-bill references, with their quantities.
It seeds a work order. Create-from-flow fills a new work order’s items straight from it. You can adjust or drop any of them before creating; the flow is recorded as the work order’s source.
It labels work. An assemble task can point at a flow to say what the task produces, and an execution log links back to the flow it came from.

What it no longer does: move inventory, pick anything, or produce anything.

Finding the flows page

Flows do not have their own entry in the app nav. You reach the list from:

the Flow link on an assemble task that points at one — it opens that flow’s preview straight away,
the flow link on an execution log,
or the page’s own address under Manufacturing, /app/manufacturing/assemble-flows.

You do not need the list to use a flow: Create from flow in the Work orders page’s More actions menu offers every flow you have, without leaving the work-order list. See creating a work order.

The flows list

All Assembly Flows is a grid of cards, loading more as you scroll, with a count under it (“Showing 12 of 40 flows”). Above it:

Search flows by name or description.
A Show autogenerated switch. Assemblified creates flows of its own while reconciling pre-assembled stock, and older shops also have the Materials Order flows that Auto-generate material list used to create for every order — today that setting creates a work order instead, and the old flows are kept exactly as they were. They are records rather than recipes anybody wrote, so they stay hidden until you ask for them. They are also never offered in Create from flow.
Create Flow, with two paths: Create Empty and Create from Orders.

Each card shows the flow’s name and description, its short ID (click to copy), small counts of the bills, assembly bills and raw materials it references, and a badge for its assemble type. A star in the corner pins the ones you use most. On the right edge: a play button and a delete button.

Deleting asks first and cannot be undone.

Previewing a flow

The preview opens on what the flow would consume and produce, with two views you can switch between:

Component Wise — broken down per component of the flow.
Materials Only — the flat material list.

Show Material Requirements opens a table of Product Name · SKU · Quantity · Cost · Total Cost, and Download saves it. Edit Quantities takes you into the builder.

The dialog’s primary action is Create work order — not Execute. It hands the flow’s items straight to the create-from-flow dialog with the flow already chosen, so you land on a filled-in form rather than an empty one.

A task that points at a flow and has no work order yet offers the same thing from its own row: Create work order in the task’s ⋯ menu opens the create-from-flow steps on the task’s flow, and the work order it creates is linked to the task. See Assemble tasks.

Building a flow

The builder is where a flow is created and edited. You pick components — bills, assembly bills and raw materials — set quantities, choose the assemble type, preview the result, and save.

Saving needs the Enhanced plan. Without it you can still explore and build a flow on screen.

Assemble types

A flow carries an assemble type, and a work order created from the flow’s preview inherits it. It decides what a build does to inventory:

Type	What it does
Pre-Assemble (Physical)	Takes raw materials out of inventory and puts finished goods on the pre-assembled shelf. The ordinary case.
Bundle/Kit Assemble (Virtual)	Raises the raw-material availability behind a bundle so the bundle itself becomes sellable. Useful for restocking bundles.
Disassemble	The reverse: takes pre-assembled stock apart and returns its components to inventory.
Material List Only	Produces a material list and changes no inventory at all. For planning, quotes and reference.

See Shopify sync → what gets skipped, when for what each of these pushes to Shopify.

What replaced flows

What you used to do with a flow	Where it lives now
Press play to build	Start a build run on a work order
Preview what a run would consume	The build run dialog’s own live preview, and the pick list export
See what was built and when	The work order’s Build runs & QC tab and Activity feed
Check the output before it counts	Quality control

A work order does everything a flow did and keeps a record of it. A flow is now just the recipe you start one from.

Creating a work order — the create-from-flow dialog.
Assemble tasks — tasks can point at a flow.
Work Orders overview.