Metafields and Bin Locations

Scan Picker stores extra product information, such as bin locations and packing notes, in Shopify metafields. Metafields are saved on your products in Shopify, so the data belongs to your store and can be edited from Scan Picker or directly on the Shopify product page.

This guide covers enabling the metafields, adding bin locations to your products, and choosing where bin locations show up while you pick and pack.

What Scan Picker stores in metafields

Metafield	Belongs to	What it does
Bin locations	Product	Where the product is stored in your warehouse. A product can have more than one bin.
Variant bin locations	Variant	A different bin for each variant of a product, for example red shirts in A1 and blue shirts in B2.
Packing note	Product	A short instruction shown for the item when checking orders, on picking lists and on packing slips.
Additional barcodes	Product	Extra barcodes that count as this product when scanned.
Batch number support	Product	Asks the packer to scan or enter a batch number for this product.
Package barcodes	Variant	Outer packaging barcodes with a quantity, so scanning a box of 6 counts as 6 units.

Note

You will also see a Bin Location (Legacy) definition. This is the single text field used by older versions of Scan Picker. Only enable it if you were already using bin locations before the list format was introduced. See Moving from the legacy bin location format.

Step 1: Enable the metafield definitions

Settings > Metafields

A metafield definition tells Shopify what the field is called and what type of data it holds. Enabling a definition is what makes the field appear on your Shopify product pages and lets you filter by it.

1. Open Scan Picker settings and go to Metafields.

2. Find Bin Locations in the list of product metafields and click Enable.

3. Choose the options for the definition:

   • Pin this metafield shows the field in the Metafields section of every product page in Shopify, so staff can edit bins without opening Scan Picker. Shopify allows up to 20 pinned metafields per store.
   • Enable admin filtering lets you filter products by bin location in the Shopify admin and in the Scan Picker product list. Shopify allows up to 50 filterable product metafields.

   We recommend keeping both options on for bin locations.

4. Click Enable. Repeat for any other metafields you want to use.

Once enabled, the definition shows an Active badge, along with Pinned and Filterable badges for the options you chose. Filtering can take a few minutes for Shopify to set up. The definition shows Enabling filtering… until it is ready.

Tip

Click the pencil icon next to an active definition to open it in your Shopify settings, where you can change the name, pinning or filtering later.

Caution

Variant metafields cannot be filtered in the Shopify admin. This is a Shopify restriction, so the filtering option is not offered for Variant Bin Locations or Package Barcodes.

Step 2: Add bin locations to your products

There are three ways to add bins. Use whichever fits how you work.

In Scan Picker

Open Metafields from the Scan Picker menu. This page lists your products with a column for each metafield.

• Type a bin name into the Bin locations field for a product and press Enter or click the add button. Repeat to add more bins to the same product.
• Click the x on a bin to remove it.
• Use the search and filters at the top to find products by title, status, tag or bin location.
• Click Edit columns to hide columns you do not use.

Bin names cannot contain a comma. Everything else is up to you, but short consistent names such as A1, A2, B10 sort best. Scan Picker sorts bins in natural order, so A2 comes before A10.

On the Shopify product page

If you pinned the definition, the Bin locations field appears in the Metafields section at the bottom of each product page in Shopify. Add one entry per bin and save the product.

In bulk

Because the metafield has a definition, you can add it as a column in Shopify’s bulk editor from the products list and fill in bins for many products at once.

Note

Scan Picker loads product data when an order is opened. If you edit bins in Shopify while an order is open in Scan Picker, reopen the order to see the change.

Step 3: Choose where bin locations appear

Bin locations are stored once but can be shown in several places. Each one has its own setting.

When checking an order

Settings > Display > Show bin locations

Each item in the scan list shows its bin. Turn on Enable editing bin locations as well if you want packers to be able to correct a bin while they check an order.

To sort the scan list by bin, go to Settings > Functionality > Product sort method and choose By Bin Location.

On picking lists

Settings > Functionality > Picking list sort method

Choose Sort by Bin Location so the picking list follows your warehouse layout. You can add a Secondary sort method, for example bin first and then title. A bin column is added to the picking list automatically whenever at least one item has a bin.

On packing slips

Packing slip template > General

Turn on Show bin location on packing slip to add a bin column. Set Sort items by to Bin location to order the items by bin.

Filtering products by bin

On the Scan Picker Metafields page, use the Bin location filter to list every product stored in a bin. You can enter several bins separated by commas. This filter needs admin filtering enabled on the Bin Locations definition.

The same filter is available in the Shopify admin products list once filtering is enabled.

Variant bin locations

Use variant bin locations when different variants of one product are stored in different places. If all variants share a bin, the product bin is enough and you can skip this section.

1. In Settings > Metafields, tick Enable variant bin locations and save.

2. Optionally enable the Variant Bin Locations definition in the list above the settings. Pin it if you want to edit variant bins on the Shopify variant page.

3. Open the Metafields page in Scan Picker and click the arrow next to a product with variants to expand it. Each variant row has its own bin locations field.

The settings below Enable variant bin locations control how product and variant bins work together:

• Use variant bin locations for all products: products with no variants normally keep using the product bin. Turn this on to use the default variant’s bin for those products too, so every bin is stored at variant level.
• Show product bin when variant bin is empty: if a variant has no bin of its own, the product bin is shown instead, marked as “(from product)“. Useful when only a few variants are stored separately.
• Show both edit options when using fallback: when editing on the check order page, show separate fields for the variant bin and the product bin.
• Update product bin when editing variants: whenever you change a variant bin in Scan Picker, the product bin list is rebuilt from all of its variants’ bins. This keeps the product level filter working, so searching for B2 still finds a product whose blue variant is in B2. This option is not available together with the fallback option above.

Moving from the legacy bin location format

Older versions of Scan Picker stored bin locations in a single text field. The current format stores each bin as a separate entry, which is what makes filtering possible.

If you have products with bins in the old format, a Migrate Bin Locations banner appears at the top of the Metafields page once the Bin Locations definition is enabled. Click the button and keep the page open until it finishes. The migration copies the old values into the new format for every product. Nothing is deleted, and Scan Picker keeps reading the old field as a fallback, but only the new format can be filtered.

Other metafields

Packing notes

Add a note to a product on the Metafields page. Each place a note can appear has its own setting:

• Settings > Display > Show product packing notes for the check order page.
• Settings > Functionality > Show packing notes on picking list.
• Packing slip template > General > Show product packing notes on packing slip.

Additional barcodes

Add extra barcodes to a product when the same item ships under more than one barcode. When checking an order, scanning any of them counts as the product. No setting is needed.

To match additional barcodes in the Inventory Updater as well, turn on Settings > Metafields > Match additional barcodes when scanning in the Inventory Updater. This needs the Additional Barcodes definition enabled with filtering, and it only matches products that have a single additional barcode.

Batch number support

Tick Batch support for a product on the Metafields page, then turn on Settings > Functionality > Record batch numbers while scanning products. Packers will be asked to scan or enter a batch number each time they check that product. Batch numbers are saved against the order and can be searched later on the Batch Number Lookup page, opened from the Orders page in Scan Picker.

Package barcodes

Package barcodes belong to variants and are entered as the barcode and a quantity, for example 5901234123457:6. Turn on Settings > Barcode > Check package barcodes, and scanning the outer barcode will count as 6 units of the product. Enable the Package Barcodes definition if you also want to edit them on Shopify variant pages.

Troubleshooting

• The bin locations field says “Requires definition”: enable the Bin Locations definition in Settings > Metafields.
• The bin location filter finds nothing: check the definition shows a Filterable badge. If it shows Enabling filtering…, wait a few minutes and refresh. If you have older bins, run the migration so they are stored in the filterable format.
• Variant bins do not show when checking orders: make sure Enable variant bin locations is ticked in Settings > Metafields and Show bin locations is on in Settings > Display. For products without variants, also tick Use variant bin locations for all products.
• A bin edited in Shopify is not showing: reopen the order or refresh the Metafields page. Scan Picker loads product data when the page or order is opened.

Packing slips template

Getting started