Multi-part jobs & locations

Why multi-part

A real order is rarely one thing. Shirts and hoodies. A front print and a back print. With multi-part jobs, each line item moves through production on its own track. The shirts can be on the press while the hoodies still wait on art approval.

The job’s overall status rolls up from its parts: the board shows you the true state at a glance, while the detail underneath stays intact.

When it turns on

Per-part tracking is set at creation, from the shape of the order:

More than one line item, or
Any line item with at least one print location. One location is enough. It doesn’t take several.

That means a single-line-item order with a front print alone still gets the multi-part machinery. Storefront orders are the exception to the location rule: they count line items only, because storefront products don’t carry print locations.

You don’t choose this at the moment of approval. It follows from how the quote was built. But there is one setting you control afterwards: open the edit sheet on a job and you’ll find Worker chooses part order, described as “let workers pick which part to work on next instead of following a fixed order.” Leave it on for a floor that self-organizes. Turn it off to march the parts in sequence.

Print locations

A single line item can carry multiple print locations: front, back, left sleeve, and so on. In production, a worker picks a location and completes it, then moves to the next. A part with locations can’t start until one is selected. When every location on a line item is done, that part is complete.

This is what lets a complicated order, multiple garments, multiple placements, move through your shop without losing track of any one piece.

If a location carries a specialty print add-on from your price matrix, such as puff or glitter, its label shows next to the location everywhere it appears: the quote, the invoice, and the floor. Production sees it as a press instruction, never a price.

Pricing groups: tracked as one print run

Line items can be tied together on the quote for combined pricing: the same design printed across several garment colors, priced once at the run’s combined quantity instead of each color’s own smaller count. That grouping follows the line items all the way from the quote to the invoice to the job.

On the job, a pricing group is one part, not one part per color. That’s because it presses as one unit, same screens, same setup, one pass per location, so tracking each color separately would make a worker pick a location for every colorway of the same run and would count the same press pass more than once in your analytics.

The part shows as Group A, Group B, and so on, matching the letters the quote and invoice already use for the same groups, with a badge showing how many colors are in it.
Picking a print location for the group parks every color that carries that print there at once. A colorway that doesn’t have that print, or already finished it, is left alone.
Advancing, pausing, or completing the group does it for every member together, logged as a single event. A group of four colors still counts as one part in “3 of 5 parts completed” and as one row in Job Analytics, not four.
The line items table on the job page still lists every underlying line item on its own row, for sizing and invoicing. Only the Workflow card and the worker view merge them into one part.

How the job’s status is calculated

The job status you see on the board is derived, not set. Every advance happens on a part, then the job re-reads all of its parts:

If every part is completed, the job is completed.
If every part is cancelled, the job is cancelled.
Otherwise the job takes the furthest-along status any part has, in this order: In Production, then Awaiting Approval, then In Prep, then Approved, then Pending.
The job reads as paused only when every part that isn’t finished is paused. One part still running means the job is not paused.

That priority order explains board states that look wrong at first glance. A job with four parts still pending and one part on the press reads as In Production, because the highest-priority status wins. And a job never shows Completed until the last part lands. Open the job and read the per-part chips when the rollup surprises you.

Assigning the work

There are two levels of assignment, and they behave differently.

The job-level assignee

One person per job. Set it from the Schedule card or from the job’s edit sheet. This is the name the board, the calendar, and the team view all display.

Parts cannot be assigned. A line item has no worker field. If a part has no locations, the only person who can be responsible for it is the job-level assignee.

The per-location assignee

Inside a part, each print location can be handed to a specific worker. Do it in the line items table on the job page, which is the only place this control exists. It’s admin-only, and unlike the schedule’s worker picker it does offer Unassign.

Assigning a location has real consequences:

That worker sees the job in their queue even though the job-level assignee is someone else.
Their view of the job is filtered to their locations only. Parts with none of their locations are hidden from them entirely.
When their locations are all done they get a “Your locations are complete” panel, and the job drops off their today list, even though the job itself is still running.
On the Schedule, the card’s assignment icon switches to a multi-person icon, your signal that more than the named assignee is involved.

Advancing part by part

Both the worker iPad view and the admin dashboard advance a job one part at a time. See Advancing stages.