1. Purpose
Explain how a packaging automation picks a box from the quantity on an order, how to extend a rule to a quantity it does not yet cover, and what to do about orders that genuinely need more than one box.
2. Scope
Covers packaging automations that choose a box based on product and quantity. Building a packaging automation from scratch is covered in SWI-021. Copying an automation to another organization is covered in SWI-011.
3. Roles & Responsibilities
Operations lead: owns the automation and the list of boxes it can choose from.
Packer: chooses a box at the pack bench when no rule matched.
Support: confirms rule coverage against real order volume.
4. When you need this
Orders are shipping in a box that is clearly too small or too large for the quantity.
A quantity range was never given its own rule.
An order needs two or more boxes.
5. Key concept: a rule sets one box per order, not one box per item
What people assume | What actually happens |
|---|---|
The rule picks as many boxes as the order needs. | Each rule sets a single box on the order. No rule can produce two boxes today. |
If no rule matches, nothing is set. | An unmatched order currently still gets a box filled in automatically, and it can be the wrong size. This is being changed so the box is left blank instead. |
Quantity means the quantity of one product. | Total quantity counts every unit on the order, including merchandise and anything else in the basket. |
The product condition matches the product name only. | It matches the product name and the variant title, and it ignores capitalisation. |
6. Procedure — add a quantity branch to a packaging rule
Open Automations from the dashboard menu.
Open the packaging automation you want to extend.
Find the branch closest to the quantity you are adding and add a new branch beside it.
Set the product condition exactly as the neighbouring branches set it.
Add a total quantity condition and enter the quantity.
Choose the box that holds that quantity.
Save the automation.
Add a branch only where a real box holds that quantity. If no single box fits, leave that quantity unmatched on purpose and let the packer choose at the bench. A branch pointing at a box the order cannot fit into produces a wrong label and a wrong rate.
7. Verification
Open a recent order at the quantity you just added and confirm the box now appears on it.
The order's activity shows that the automation was applied.
If the box is still blank, no branch matched. Check the product condition first, as that is the most common miss.
8. Constraints and caveats
One rule sets one box. Orders that need two or more boxes cannot be automated yet.
Total quantity counts every unit on the order, not just the units of the product named in the condition.
Product conditions match against both product name and variant title, and are not case sensitive.
Unmatched orders currently receive an automatically chosen box. This is changing so that they arrive at the pack bench blank, which is more honest but visibly different for packers.
Quantities that need more than one box should be left unmatched rather than pointed at the largest available box.
9. Worked example
A beverage brand shipping multipacks through a 3PL had two boxes and a rule covering quantity 1 and quantity 2 only.
What was observed | What it meant |
|---|---|
Quantity 1 orders shipped in the smaller box. | The first branch matched and set the box correctly. |
Quantity 2 orders shipped in the larger box. | The second branch matched and set the box correctly. |
Quantity 3 and above mostly showed the larger box, which holds 2. | No branch matched, so a box was filled in automatically. The label and rate were quoted against a box the order could not fit into. |
A smaller number of high quantity orders showed unrelated boxes. | Packers had overridden the box at the pack bench. |
The fix was to leave quantity 3 and above unmatched, because no single box in the list holds three multipacks, and to add rules for the merchandise lines that the product condition never covered.
10. Related documents
SWI-021 — Set Package Size and Weight by Product
SWI-011 — Copy an Order Automation to Another Organization