1. Purpose
Make your printed pallet labels the only barcodes the warehouse will accept as a licence plate, so a pallet is recognised as a pallet on the handheld and a mis-scan cannot invent one.
2. Scope
Setting and changing the LPN Barcode Mask on a warehouse. Printing and applying licence plates is SWI-003. Creating the storage locations pallets live in is SWI-001.
3. Roles & Responsibilities
Role | Responsibility |
|---|---|
Warehouse manager | Decides the label format, sets the mask, and keeps it in step with the LPN prefix. |
Operations lead | Verifies that a printed plate scans and that a product barcode does not. |
Warehouse operator | Reports a rejected scan rather than working around it. A rejection usually means the wrong label was scanned. |
4. When you need this
Before printing your first batch of licence plates in a warehouse.
Receiving on the handheld will not accept a pallet label, and behaves as though a product had been scanned.
Licence plates are appearing in the LPNs list that nobody printed, often carrying a carton or product barcode as their number.
You are changing your label format, your prefix, or your label supplier.
You have just added a warehouse. The mask is per warehouse and starts empty on every new one.
5. Key concept: an empty mask is not the same as no restriction
What people assume | What actually happens |
|---|---|
The field is optional, so leaving it blank is the safe default. | Blank is the riskier setting. The mask is what tells Ship Side Kick which barcodes are pallets, and with nothing there it has no definition to work from. |
Blank just means every barcode is accepted. | In Move Inventory and picking, yes. Receiving is the opposite: it can only treat a scan as a pallet when a mask exists, so with none set, receiving onto a pallet does not work at all. |
A mis-scan would be rejected, or at worst do nothing. | With no mask, scanning a carton or product barcode where a pallet is expected creates a brand new licence plate carrying that barcode, and stock lands on a plate nobody printed. |
The mask stands on its own. | It has to agree with the LPN Prefix. Plates are issued as the prefix followed by five digits, so a mask that does not describe that shape makes every plate you print unscannable. |
6. Procedure
Go to Warehouses and open the warehouse.
Note the LPN Prefix. The default is LPN-.
Work out the shape your printed plates take. They are issued as the prefix plus a five digit number, so a prefix of LPN- produces LPN-00001, LPN-00002 and so on.
Click Edit.
In LPN Barcode Mask, enter the pattern. For the default prefix that is ^LPN-\d{5}$, which reads as: starts with LPN-, then exactly five digits, then nothing else.
Save. The field refuses a pattern it cannot read, so a save that goes through means the pattern is at least well formed. It does not check the pattern against your prefix, so do that yourself in the next section.
Tell your operations lead the mask is live, so anyone who hits a rejected scan knows why.
Patterns you are likely to need, one of which will almost always fit:
^LPN-\d{5}$ — the default. Matches LPN-00001 and nothing else.
^PAL-\d{5}$ — the same shape with a PAL- prefix. Swap in whatever prefix you set.
^[A-Z]{3}-\d{5}$ — any three letter prefix followed by five digits, if you run more than one label series in the building.
7. Verification
On the handheld, open Move Inventory and scan a printed licence plate where a location is asked for. It resolves to that plate.
Scan a product or carton barcode at the same prompt. It is refused, with a message saying the barcode does not match the LPN format for this warehouse. A rejection here is the mask working, not a fault.
On the receiving handheld flow, a pallet label is now recognised as a pallet rather than treated as a product.
The LPNs list stops gaining entries nobody printed.
8. Constraints and caveats
The mask and the LPN Prefix have to describe the same thing. Change one and check the other in the same sitting.
Changing the mask does not retire licence plates already created. Plates that no longer match stay in the list and stop scanning, so move their stock off before you switch.
The mask is set per warehouse. Every warehouse needs its own, including any added later.
A warehouse shared down from a parent organisation is read only here. The parent sets its mask.
The mask governs what counts as a licence plate barcode only. It has no effect on location barcodes or product barcodes.
Setting a mask does not create any licence plates. Print them as usual, per SWI-003.
9. Worked example
A warehouse set up licence plates for a bulk pallet run, printed eighteen plates as LPN-00001 through LPN-00018, and left the mask blank because the field was optional.
Observation | Reading |
|---|---|
Move Inventory took the pallet labels and stock loaded onto them normally. | With no mask, any barcode is accepted, so the correct labels worked by coincidence rather than by rule. |
Receiving on the handheld would not take a pallet label, and behaved as though a product had been scanned. | Receiving only treats a scan as a pallet when a mask exists. Blank meant it could never classify one, so the feature looked broken. |
Two extra licence plates appeared in the list carrying case barcodes. | Operators had scanned a carton where a pallet was expected. With nothing to reject it, each mis-scan created a new plate. |
Setting the mask fixed receiving and stopped the stray plates in one change. | One setting does both jobs: it defines what a pallet is for receiving, and it rejects everything else in the other flows. |
10. Related documents
SWI-003 — Create and Apply Pallet License Plates (LPNs)
SWI-001 — Set Up Warehouse Storage Locations
SWI-002 — Move Inventory Between Locations