1. Purpose
Create the bins, pallet positions, staging areas and holding areas that inventory can live in. Every other inventory instruction depends on this one: stock cannot be moved into a location that does not exist yet.
2. Scope
Creating and editing storage locations inside an existing warehouse, one at a time or in bulk by CSV. Creating the warehouse itself, and putting stock into locations, are out of scope — see SWI-002.
3. Roles & Responsibilities
Role | Responsibility |
|---|---|
Warehouse manager | Decides the naming scheme, the location types, and which locations are pickable and sellable |
Operations lead | Creates the locations, prints and applies the location barcodes, verifies they scan |
4. Prerequisites
A warehouse already exists in Shipsidekick.
Your user has access to the Warehouses section.
You have decided a naming scheme before you start. Location names must be unique within a warehouse, and renaming later breaks any label already on the rack.
5. Procedure
5A. Add locations one at a time
Go to Warehouses and open the warehouse.
Click Add Location.
Enter the Name — this is what pickers and the handheld will show.
Enter the Barcode. Use the same value as the name unless you have a reason not to. A location with no barcode can still be chosen from a list, but it cannot be scanned.
Enter the Zone if you group locations by area.
Choose the Type: General, Tote, Cart, Bin, Pallet, Assembly or Other.
Set Sellable and Pickable — see section 5C.
Add dimensions if you want capacity reporting.
Click save. A confirmation appears and the location joins the list.
5B. Add locations in bulk (CSV)
Go to Warehouses, open the warehouse, and click Upload Locations.
Click Download CSV Template.
Fill in the template. The columns are: name, barcode, type, zone, priority, sequence, sellable, pickable, allowMixedIdentifiers, length, width, height, dimensionsUnit, mapX, mapY.
Only name and type are required. Boolean columns accept true/false, 1/0 or yes/no.
Choose the file and click Upload Locations.
If any rows are skipped, click Download Skipped Rows CSV, fix the flagged rows, and re-upload just that file.
Important: a row whose name matches an existing location updates that location rather than creating a second one. Blank cells do not overwrite existing values, so a partial file is a safe way to change one attribute across many locations.
5C. Choosing Sellable and Pickable
Setting | What turning it OFF does |
|---|---|
Sellable | Stock here stops counting toward Available, so it is no longer published to your sales channels. It appears under Safety instead, and can still be allocated to an order. |
Pickable | Stock here cannot be picked for an order at all. It appears under Reserved and is subtracted from Allocatable. |
A holding area for stock you cannot account for — commonly named MISSING, QUARANTINE or DAMAGE — should have both switched off, so the units stay on your books without being sold or picked. Tote-type locations are forced to non-sellable and non-pickable automatically.
6. Verification
The new location appears in the warehouse’s location list with the type, zone and flags you set.
Scanning its barcode on the handheld › Move Inventory resolves to that location by name.
For a bulk upload, the success count matches your row count and no skipped-rows file is offered.
7. Constraints and caveats
Location names must be unique within a warehouse. The bulk upload treats a repeated name as an edit, not a duplicate.
Move stock out of a location before you retire it. A location that still holds inventory should not be removed.
Changing Sellable or Pickable on a location that already holds stock moves that stock between the Available, Safety and Reserved columns immediately. Expect the numbers on the Inventory screen to shift — see SWI-004.
The CSV upload has a file-size limit shown in the dialog. Split very large location sets into several files.
8. Worked example
A client needed a bulk pallet position for eighteen incoming pallets and a holding area for stock that could not be found during the count. Their existing pick faces (C8-06-11, C8-07-11 and so on) were already set up, so only two locations were missing:
Name | Type | Sellable | Pickable | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|
SAMPLE | Pallet | Yes | Yes | Bulk pallet storage that should still count as saleable stock |
MISSING | Other | No | No | Unaccounted stock — stays on the books, never offered for sale or picking |
Both were created with Add Location, barcodes matching their names, before any stock was moved.
9. Records
The warehouse location list, exportable to CSV from the warehouse screen.
The skipped-rows CSV from any bulk upload.
10. References
SWI-002 — Move Inventory Between Locations
SWI-003 — Create and Apply Pallet License Plates (LPNs)
SWI-004 — Read the Inventory Screen