Work with the inbound grid

The inbound grid is a spreadsheet-style layout for a single inbound document. An inbound document is an incoming order — a purchase order, work order, or manual entry — that you process in Bulk before it becomes production work. The grid lays the whole document out in one vertical flow: the document's fields, its services, and its line items (the individual rows of work) in an editable, Excel-like table. Use it when a document has many line items and you want to edit, fill, and check them quickly rather than opening one item at a time.

This grid is the current inbound document workspace. Open a document that has left the draft stage and Bulk takes you directly to it. Old document links also redirect to the current workspace.

When to use the grid

Reach for the grid when you are working through a document's line items in bulk — for example pasting a column of quantities from a supplier spreadsheet, copying the same routing across a run of identical parts, applying a service to a batch of rows, or marking many rows ready in one pass. All item changes happen inline, while the grid keeps the whole document available around them.

Before you start

You reach the grid by opening an inbound document, so you need access to the Inbound module and to the document itself.

View inbound documents (inbound_documents.view) — required to open a document and see the grid.
Edit inbound documents (inbound_documents.update) — required to change any document field or document-level service.
Create, edit, or delete inbound items (inbound_items.create, inbound_items.update, inbound_items.delete) — required for the matching line-item actions. For example, editing cells and marking rows ready need the update permission; adding or duplicating rows needs create; deleting rows needs delete.
Submit inbound documents (inbound_documents.submit) — required for the Submit to production action.
Delete inbound documents (inbound_documents.delete) — required to delete the document itself.
Put on / release from hold (inbound_documents.put_on_hold, inbound_documents.release_from_hold) — required for the hold actions.
View, create, edit, or delete filled forms (form_instances.view, form_instances.create, form_instances.update, form_instances.delete) — required for the matching Forms-card actions.

Default roles carry different combinations of these permissions, and your site can customise them. Exporting line items additionally needs the Run exports permission, and the service-code picker needs View service codes.

Two things also shape what you can do:

Draft documents can open in the grid. This lets you apply a full document template before the document enters its normal workflow. Other editing rules still depend on the document status and your permissions.
Editing is available while the document is a draft or in progress. Once a document is on hold, being submitted in the background, submitted for approval, approved, in production, completed, or cancelled, the grid becomes read-only. A Ready row can still be returned to Pending for corrections while the document remains editable. A row is permanently locked here once its production job has been created.

The top bar and tabs

The top bar shows the document number with a live save indicator. Print and, when available, Submit to production are direct buttons. The Actions menu groups the other document-level actions that your permissions, the document's status, and its currency setup allow:

Save as template, Apply template, and Clone as draft — reuse the document setup.
Convert currency — change the document currency when the customer supports more than one currency and the document is editable.
Export — export the line items (needs the export permission).
Put on hold / Release from hold — pause the document with a reason, or resume it.
Delete — delete the document.

Inbound document top bar with the Actions menu open beside Print and Submit to production. — Actions groups reuse, currency, export, hold, and delete controls, while Print and Submit to production stay directly available.

The three reuse tools work as follows:

Save as template — choose the document fields, items, and item setup to preserve as a reusable full-document template. Attachments, completed form answers, approvals, history, and production jobs are never saved.
Apply template — add a template to an editable draft. When the draft already has items, choose whether to replace those items or append the template items. Selected dates move relative to today.
Clone as draft — create one new draft from the visible document. Choose which document fields to copy; all reusable item setup is copied, but every new item starts as Pending and the document workflow starts again. Selected source dates are copied unchanged.

The reuse controls open in a context drawer so you can preview warnings and make field choices without leaving the document. Saving or applying a template supports up to 100 items. Clone as draft supports up to 5,000 items; large clones copy in the background and report progress in the drawer. If a saved customer or other shared setting is no longer available, Bulk either blocks the action or warns you which reusable value will be skipped.

Below the top bar are two tabs: General (the document and its items) and Activity (a searchable, filterable log of changes to the document, with a count of recent entries).

The General tab, top to bottom

The General tab stacks everything about the document in one flow:

A hold banner, shown only while the document is on hold.
Any running or failed submission, approval update, or job creation band. These appear before the approval actions so a failure cannot be hidden below a decision card.
Any approval requests awaiting a decision.
Attachments, where you can add or remove source files.
The document fields — customer, PO number, references, dates, priority, notes, and assigned contact — edited inline.
The document's custom fields and any forms attached to the document.
The services panel, where you add services to the whole document, apply a pricing template, or pick from the catalogue.
The Document items sheet — the spreadsheet itself.

The inbound and production order numbers in General info are read-only. Use the copy button beside either number to copy it without selecting the field. The production order number appears only after one has been created.

Attach and complete forms

The Forms card shows the number of attached forms and, when applicable, how many required forms remain open. Select Add form to open the form library. There you can search by form name, code, description, or category; filter by category; and sort alphabetically, by most fields, or by category. Forms already assigned to this document are identified in the library and cannot be added a second time.

After you add a form, its name appears as a tab and the form opens inline. Enter the answers in the document page; they autosave as you work. Switch tabs to move between attached forms. If your permissions and the form state allow it, use the form's three-dot menu to delete that form instance.

Document reuse copies only blank form assignments when that option is selected. It does not copy completed answers: a saved template, applied template, or cloned draft creates fresh blank forms for the new document or items.

Two attached inbound forms with a completed order documentation check open inline. — Switch between attached forms and complete their fields without leaving the inbound document.

The Document items sheet

The sheet is the heart of the grid. Each row is one line item. The columns, left to right, are Status, Item, Job ID, Part, Process, Routing, Qty, Unit (unit price), Services (the calculated service cost), Total, Docs (required-document status), Services (the service tags you assign), and Required (the required-by date). Any per-item custom fields appear as additional columns. You can reorder, resize, and freeze columns, and Bulk remembers your arrangement.

You edit cells directly: Part, Process, Routing, Qty, Unit, the Services tags, Required, and editable custom fields. Status, Item, Job ID, the calculated Services cost, Total, and Docs are read-only. The sheet behaves like a spreadsheet — click or use the arrow keys to move between cells, select a range, copy and paste, and drag the fill handle to repeat a value down a column. Every edit saves on its own; the indicator by the document number shows Saving, then Saved, and flags a cell if a save fails so you can re-enter the value.

The Document items sheet toolbar with a search field and status filter chips above a table of editable line-item columns. — Search and the status filters (All, Ready, Job created, Pending, Not ready) narrow the sheet to the rows you want to work on.

Row statuses and the filters

The Status column and the toolbar filters use the same five states:

Pending — the row is valid but has not yet been marked Ready.
Not ready — the row has a validation problem to resolve.
Ready — the row is complete and has been marked ready. While the document remains editable, return it to Pending before making corrections.
Job created — a production job already exists for the row; it is locked.
All — every row.

Above the sheet, a search box ("Search items by ID, part, or process…") and the status filter chips — each with a live count — narrow the sheet to just the rows you want. The search checks the item number, job number, part number and name, process code and name, and process-type code. It does not search Routing, Services, Required date, or per-item custom fields. Sort by clicking a column header.

This search applies only to items inside the open document. The search on the main Inbound Documents list instead checks document number, PO number, customer reference, customer name, assigned-contact name and email, notes, and document custom-field values. When a custom field matches, the result can show a match badge even if that custom-field column is hidden.

Right-clicking a document on that main list opens its own menu: Open, Open in new tab, Copy document number, Print labels, and Delete. Copy document number copies only the visible document number and confirms Document number copied. Print labels is disabled when the document has no items. Delete is disabled unless both your permission and the document state allow deletion.

One inbound document search result with its row context menu open. — Right-click a document row to open, copy, print, or delete it according to its current permissions and state.

Complete a row and mark it ready

A row can only be marked Ready once its required values are in place — typically Part, Process, Routing, Quantity, and any required documents. If a row cannot be marked ready, the grid flags the missing columns so you can see exactly what to fill in. Fill them, then mark the row ready.

Right-click a row's Item cell (or open its row menu) to Duplicate item, Duplicate multiple…, or Delete row. When the sheet is empty you can add your first line item with Add item.

Quantity may be fixed to 1

If your site is set to use a quantity of one for every job, the Qty column is read-only in the grid and paste or fill skips it. This is a site-wide operating rule, not a per-document setting.

Work with many rows at once

Select rows with their checkboxes to reveal the bulk-action bar. It shows how many rows are selected and lets you act on all of them together:

Mark ready — mark every selected row ready (rows that are not yet complete are reported back to you).
Apply service — add one of the document's services to all selected rows.
Copy values — copy from the first selected row (the source) onto the others. Copy entire row copies every non-empty copyable field: Part, Process, Routing, Quantity, Unit price, Required date, custom fields, and assigned services. It does not copy read-only columns such as Status, Item, Job ID, totals, or document status. You can instead copy a single field such as Part, Routing, or Required date. Empty source values are skipped, so existing values on the target rows are kept.
Delete — remove the selected line items from the document.

Three selected inbound rows with the bulk-action bar and Copy values menu open. — Bulk actions use the first selected row as the source when copying values to the remaining rows.

Delete removes line items

Delete takes the selected line items off the document. Make sure you have the right rows selected before you confirm — deletion is not something you can undo from the grid.

Example: a bracket order at Leeds Fabrication Plant

A production coordinator at Granite Peak Manufacturing's Leeds Fabrication Plant receives a purchase order from the customer Pennine Rail Components for 60 laser-cut mounting brackets spread across four part numbers. The order was captured as an inbound document, so the coordinator opens it from the Inbound list and starts in the grid.

Working down the Document items sheet, they paste the quantity column from Pennine's spreadsheet straight into the Qty column. For the run of identical brackets they select those rows, use Copy values → Routing to fill the same routing down, then use Apply service to add the plant's Deburring service to the batch. As each row's Part, Process, Routing, and Quantity fall into place, they mark that row Ready. With every row marked Ready, the coordinator clicks Submit to production to move the document forward.

The confirmation closes after Bulk safely queues the submission. The grid then becomes read-only and a band at the top reports item checks, approval setup, and item locking. The coordinator can leave the page; the queued work continues. After approval, Creating production jobs reports the saved count until the document reaches In production.

What you should see

Edited cells save on their own and the totals recalculate as you go. Completed rows show a Ready status, and the status-filter counts update to match. Return a Ready row to Pending before correcting it. Once the document is complete and in progress, Submit to production queues the background checks that send it on to approval and production.

Feature state and limits

The inbound grid is generally available.

The grid is the current inbound document workspace. Old document links redirect to it automatically.
The grid can be edited while a document is a draft or in progress and you hold the edit permission. On hold, in approval, approved, in production, completed, and cancelled documents cannot be edited here.
Draft documents open in the draft editor from the main list, but their V2 URL remains available so a full template can be applied before the workflow begins.

Troubleshooting

A row will not mark ready. It is missing a required value — usually Part, Process, Routing, Quantity, or a required document. The grid flags the missing columns; fill them and mark the row ready.
The grid is read-only. The document is on hold or has moved past in progress, or you lack the edit permission. Release the hold (Actions → Release from hold) or check the document's status and your role.
A cell shows a save error. The last save for that cell failed. Re-enter the value to try again; other cells are unaffected.
A submission or approval band needs attention. Use the retry on that band: Retry submission repeats or resumes the submit checks; Retry approval update finishes an already-saved approval decision; Retry job creation continues the same production order without repeating jobs already created. Read Review an inbound document for the exact recovery steps and permissions.
"No production order yet" under the document number. No production order is linked to this document yet. This is expected while job creation is queued or still preparing its first job.

Work with the inbound grid

On this page