Assign specific totes, print labels and view a tote's history

Once a rental is held or booked, "20 totes" stops being a number and becomes a list of specific units with serials on them. That is what assignment is for: which totes go on which truck, recorded before the truck leaves.

Pre-assign totes to an order

On the order detail page, the Unit manifest section appears once the order is held or booked (serialization has to be turned on for your account). Each line shows how many units are assigned out of how many were ordered, like "4 / 20 assigned."

Three ways to fill it:

1. Click Auto-assign all lines. The system picks available units for every line. This is the fast path, and for most orders it is all you need.

2. On a single line, click Auto-assign to fill just that one.

3. To hand-pick units, open the picker on the line and click Assign on each tote you want. Pick this when you care which serials go where, for example keeping a batch with matching condition together.

You can also assign from the Scan page: scan a tote, open Assign to Reservation, and type the Reservation number. It shows the customer, the dates, and how many of that product are assigned so far ("6 / 20 requested"), so you can scan down a stack and watch the count climb. Location and Notes are optional on each assignment.

An assignment commits the tote. That is why the transfer rules treat assigned totes the same as checked-out ones: they stay where the order needs them.

Print QR or barcode labels

New totes need labels with their codes, and a whole fleet needs a batch. Select totes on the Units tab in Inventory and click Print labels (for a whole selection), or open one tote and click Print label (for a single reprint).

The Print labels dialog has four choices:

• Label stock: the paper it prints on, including Avery 5160 / 8160 (1″ × 2⅝″, 30 per sheet).
• Code: QR code (the default, and what the Scan page reads fastest) or Code 128.
• Show product name: on or off.
• Start at label #: for a partly used sheet, so you do not print over labels you already used.

The dialog renders a PDF. If you ask for more than 1,000 labels, it splits the job into separate sheets instead of one enormous file. The buttons at the bottom of the dialog are per batch: generate each one.

Read a tote's history

Every action on a tote is recorded permanently. Nothing is edited or overwritten. A correction is a new entry, not a rewrite of the old one.

Find a tote two ways:

• Scan the tote, then click View full details → on the result.
• From Inventory, open the tote from the list.

The General section shows the tote's identity and current position: tote code, barcode, QR value, current location, last scanned time, the date it was added, and its status and condition chips. If it is out on an order, a Currently assigned to block shows the reservation number, the customer, and the rental dates.

History is the timeline. Each entry gives the event type, the state change it caused (`available → checked_out`), the location it moved to, the reservation it was tied to, the timestamp, and any notes whoever scanned it left.

Three things it is good for:

• Disputes. A customer says the tote came back clean. The history says what condition was recorded, when, and by which scan.
• Reconciliation. A pool's counts and a tote's history are the same facts from two directions. When the balance looks wrong, the timeline shows where it diverged.
• Repeat damage. A tote that keeps coming back marked dirty or damaged has that pattern written on its own page.

This is also why the Notes field on the scan panels matters. "Chipped lid, front left" is a useful history entry; a blank note is not.

The two failure modes

• Your browser blocked the label PDF. The dialog says so and shows a Download link instead. Use the link.
• Code 128 warns about the tote codes. Very long codes can outgrow the label at Code 128 density. QR codes have no such problem, which is one more reason QR is the default.

Related: Scanning totes out, Checking totes back in, Tote history.