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Moving a container in the client app

This document covers moving a container — and everything inside it — to another cell, or handing it to a carrier. The move takes effect the moment you confirm it: no document is created, nothing is reserved, and there is nothing to close afterwards.

To move goods between cells and containers rather than the container itself, see Relocation. To do the same job on the terminal, see Moving a container on the PDT.

Phase 1. Choosing the container to move​

You start from the container itself. Open the Containers list and find it, or scan its code to jump straight to its card.

The card is where the move begins: the Transfer action sits on it, alongside the tabs showing what the container holds and what has happened to it.

Which containers can be moved​

Almost any of them. A container's status does not stand in the way — Active, Closed and Empty containers can all be moved, and moving a closed one is routine.

The one container you cannot move is one that has been taken out of service. The system refuses it and names the code so you know which container it means.

A container inside another container​

If the container is currently sitting inside another one, you move it exactly the same way. You are moving that container, and whatever is inside it travels along — the system does not ask you to unpack anything first.

Phase 2. Choosing where it goes​

The Transfer action opens the Transfer Container dialog. It asks one question first — Target Type — and what it asks next depends on your answer.

To Location​

You pick the cell the container is going to.

The picker offers ordinary cells, plus one extra: if the container carries a Plan Location — the cell the process that created it wants it to reach — that cell is offered too, whatever its type.

This is the everyday choice, and the one the terminal also makes.

To Carrier​

You pick the carrier that will take the container away.

Be clear about what this records. It notes that the container went onto that carrier. It does not put the container into a new cell — its location stays exactly as it was. Use it to register the handover, not to say where the container ended up.

Confirming​

The Transfer button stays disabled until you have chosen a target. Once you press it, the move is done — see Confirming the move for what changes.

Phase 3. What the system checks​

Before a move goes through, the system checks a small number of things. They are the same wherever you record the move.

The container must be in service​

A container that has been taken out of service cannot be moved at all. The refusal names its code, so you can tell which one it means when several are involved.

Nothing else about the container's state matters here — its status does not block a move.

The cell must suit the container's purpose​

Every purpose has a set of cell types it is allowed in. A pick cart moves freely around the working areas — picking, storage, receiving, shipping, cross-dock. A finished unit bound for a customer is the strictest case: it belongs in a shipping area and nowhere else.

Send a container to a cell type its purpose does not allow and the move is refused, naming the type that was rejected. The full table is in Container purposes.

The plan cell is always allowed​

There is one exception, and it is the one that makes the rest work. If the container carries a plan cell, that cell is accepted even when its type is not on the purpose's list.

Without it, a pick cart could never reach a packing station: packing is not a cell type any purpose allows. The plan cell is how a process routes its container to where it is actually needed.

For a carrier, one rule​

Handing a container to a carrier checks one thing: the carrier must be active. An inactive carrier is refused, and the message names it.

Phase 4. Confirming the move​

Confirming takes effect at once. There is no document to close, no approval to wait for, and no second step on the terminal — the move is recorded and finished.

Two things change.

The container's location becomes the cell you chose. Anyone looking at the container now sees it there, and anyone looking at that cell sees the container in it, with everything inside.

One Moved entry is added to the container's log, recorded against you and the moment you confirmed, with Container Transfer as its source. That entry is what the movement log shows later.

Arriving at a packing or sorting station​

One arrival does more than record a move.

If the container reaches its own plan cell, and that cell is a Packing or Sorting area, then a Closed container is reopened automatically. A Reopened entry appears in its log alongside the move.

This is deliberate, and it is how those stations get their work: a closed container arriving at packing becomes workable again, so the packer can open it and carry on. Nobody has to reopen it by hand.

Three conditions have to line up for it, and if any one is missing the status is left alone:

  • the container arrived at its plan cell — not merely at some packing area
  • that cell is a Packing or Sorting area
  • the container was closed

Moving a container anywhere else changes its location and nothing more.