Automating Warehouse Operations in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central: A Smarter Approach to Shipping Efficiency

The Challenge

Each day, warehouse staff were responsible for:

• Creating warehouse shipments for released sales orders.
• Generating warehouse picks.
• Assigning picks to warehouse employees.
• Managing inventory that wasn't immediately available.
• Preventing unnecessary partial shipments that increased freight costs.

Although each task was manageable on its own, together they created significant administrative overhead. Managers spent valuable time coordinating work instead of focusing on warehouse performance, employee productivity, and customer service.

Building an Automated Warehouse Workflow

Using Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, the Siberus team designed an automated workflow driven by four scheduled Job Queues.

• Automatic Warehouse Shipment Creation

Once each day, Business Central automatically reviews all Sales Orders that have reached Released status and generates the required Warehouse Shipment documents.

This eliminates the need for warehouse personnel to manually review orders before fulfillment can begin.

• Automated Warehouse Pick Creation

Every 10 minutes, the system checks for Warehouse Shipments that do not yet have an associated Warehouse Pick.

If one is required, it is created automatically, ensuring the warehouse floor always has the latest work ready without waiting for manual intervention.

• Intelligent Pick Assignment

Creating picks is only half the battle, they also need to be distributed fairly among warehouse staff.

Every 30 minutes, Business Central automatically assigns newly created Warehouse Picks to employees based on their current workload.

To accomplish this, Siberus introduced a lightweight customization to the Warehouse Employee table that tracks the number of active picks assigned to each employee. This allows the system to balance work across the team, helping improve productivity while reducing bottlenecks.

• Overnight Assignment Reset

At the end of each day, an overnight Job Queue clears all existing Warehouse Pick assignments.

This allows supervisors to begin each morning with a fresh workload distribution rather than carrying over assignments that may no longer reflect staffing or operational priorities.

Smarter Shipping Logic Beyond Basic Automation

Simply automating document creation wasn't enough.

The client had specific shipping expectations that required Business Central to make intelligent decisions before creating Warehouse Picks.

Supporting "Ship Complete" Orders

Many of the client's products are manufactured internally through Production Orders or Assembly Orders, while others are purchased from outside vendors.

For Sales Orders containing only manufactured products, the company wanted to avoid shipping partial orders whenever possible.

Siberus implemented logic that identifies these Ship Complete orders.

If the required inventory is not yet fully available, the Pick Creation Job Queue temporarily skips the order and records it in an activity log. Once all inventory becomes available, the warehouse pick is created automatically.

This helps reduce:

• Multiple shipments for a single order
• Additional freight expenses
• Customer confusion from split deliveries

Intelligent Inventory Evaluation Using Bin Types

The warehouse also relies heavily on bin tracking, meaning inventory location plays an important role in fulfillment.

Before creating a Warehouse Pick, the system evaluates inventory stored in three specific bin types:

• Overstock Bins
• Assemble Bins
• Receipt Bins

If inventory exists in any of these locations, Business Central first creates the necessary Warehouse Movement document (if one does not already exist).

Rather than immediately creating a partial pick, the automation waits up to two days for inventory to be moved into standard picking locations. If inventory is still unavailable after that period, the system proceeds with creating a partial Warehouse Pick.

This intelligent process allows the warehouse to prioritize complete shipments while still ensuring customer orders continue moving when necessary.

The Results

By combining automated Job Queues with business-specific warehouse rules, the client transformed a highly manual fulfillment process into an efficient, largely self-managing workflow.

The solution delivered several measurable operational improvements:

• Automatic creation of Warehouse Shipments and Warehouse Picks
• Balanced workload distribution across warehouse employees
• Reduced manual administrative effort
• Fewer unnecessary partial shipments
• Better utilization of warehouse inventory
• Improved adherence to company shipping policies
• More time for warehouse leadership to focus on operations rather than paperwork

Why Warehouse Automation Matters

Every warehouse has unique processes, inventory strategies, and customer expectations. While Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central provides a powerful warehouse management foundation, the greatest value comes from tailoring automation to match the way your business actually operates.

At Siberus, we specialize in extending Business Central with practical automations that eliminate repetitive work, improve operational accuracy, and help warehouse teams scale without increasing administrative burden.

Whether your organization needs automated warehouse workflows, intelligent inventory management, or custom Business Central development, our team can design solutions that align with your operational goals and deliver measurable business value.