Labor Routing Auto Assignment
How Routings Are Automatically Assigned. Overview. When Wheelhouse creates work orders for an item on an order, it can automatically select the labor routing that should be used to build that item. T…
How Routings Are Automatically Assigned
Overview
When Wheelhouse creates work orders for an item on an order, it can automatically select the labor routing that should be used to build that item. This saves your team from choosing a routing by hand on every order and helps keep production consistent.
This guide explains exactly when a routing is chosen for you, how Wheelhouse decides which routing to use, and what to check if the routing you expect is not being applied.
When a Routing Is Assigned Automatically
Wheelhouse looks for a routing to assign at the moment work orders are generated for an order item. Automatic assignment happens only when the item does not already have a routing selected. If someone has already chosen a routing for that item, Wheelhouse keeps that selection and does not override it.
For an item with no routing yet, Wheelhouse gathers the list of routings that are eligible for that item and then makes a choice based on how many eligible routings it finds.
Which Routings Are Eligible
A routing is considered eligible for an item when all of the following are true:
• It matches the item: it applies to that item, either because it is a general (shared) routing or because it is set up specifically for that item, and
• It is active: the routing is currently active, meaning today falls within its effective date range.
Routings that are inactive or expired, or that belong to a different item, are not considered.
How Wheelhouse Chooses
Once the eligible routings are known, the selection follows a simple set of rules:
• If exactly one routing is eligible: Wheelhouse assigns it automatically.
• If more than one routing is eligible: Wheelhouse assigns the routing marked as the primary routing. If none of them is marked primary, no routing is assigned, and one must be selected manually.
• If no routing is eligible: No routing is assigned automatically, and the item is left without a routing until one is chosen manually.
Quick Reference
Eligible Routings Found | Result |
One | That routing is assigned. |
More than one | The single primary routing is assigned. If none is marked primary, or more than one is marked primary, no routing is assigned and one must be selected manually. |
None | No routing is assigned; it must be selected manually. |
Item already has a routing | The existing selection is kept and is not changed. |
One Primary Routing per Item
To keep automatic assignment predictable, each item can have only one primary routing at a time. When you mark a routing as the primary for an item, Wheelhouse automatically removes the primary designation from any other routing on that same item, so there is never more than one primary to choose from.
When this happens, a brief on-screen message confirms which routing is no longer the primary, so the change is never silent. General (shared) routings are not affected by this rule.
If an item was set up before this rule and currently has more than one routing marked as primary, those existing extras are left in place until a primary is next saved for that item. While an item has more than one primary routing, Wheelhouse treats it as having no clear primary and does not assign a routing automatically, so a routing must be selected manually until the item is cleaned up.
To clean up an affected item, open the routing you want to keep as the primary, clear its Primary checkbox, then select it again. Saving it as the primary automatically removes the primary designation from every other routing on that item, leaving just the one you chose.
If the Expected Routing Is Not Applied
If an item is not receiving the routing you expect, the following are the most common reasons:
- Active dates: The routing is not currently active, or its effective dates do not include today.
- Item mismatch: The routing is set up for a different item, and no general routing applies.
- No single primary: Several routings are eligible for the item but there is no single primary, either because none is marked primary or because more than one is, so Wheelhouse leaves the routing blank and waits for a manual selection. Mark exactly one routing as primary to have it assigned automatically.
- Existing selection: The item already had a routing selected, so Wheelhouse kept that selection rather than choosing a new one.
Recommended Setup
To get predictable results, we recommend keeping each item to a single active routing, or, when more than one routing is needed, clearly marking one of them as the primary routing. This ensures Wheelhouse always assigns the routing you intend.
How did we do?
Creating and Importing a Labor Routing
