Shop production work: the Work page, clearing plates, trays and finishing steps

A printer finishing isn't the end of an order. The plate has to be cleared, the pieces counted against the right order, put somewhere you'll find them again, maybe have supports removed and be inspected, and finally be picked and packed. With a few orders that happens on one bench. With a busy farm and several people on shift, it needs a list.

The Work tab (/panel/shop/work) is that list. This article covers the To do view, scanning, clearing plates and counting pieces, trays and shelves, putting pieces away, finishing steps, rejecting a piece and reprinting, and the All items view.

Table of contents

• The Work page
• Scanning
• Clearing a plate counts the pieces
• Trays, shelves and stations
• Putting pieces away
• Finishing steps
• Rejecting a piece and reprinting
• All items
• Related articles

The Work page

The Work page has one header: Work, a To do / All items switch, Workflows (if you can manage them) and Scan. To do shows its count on the switch.

To do lists only what needs a person right now, each section five rows at a time, with Show 3 more (or however many are left) for the rest. At the top, one line says what is printing, which printer is done when, how many plates are waiting in the queue, and how many items are waiting for a slice. Then:

• Clear plates, oldest first: every printer holding a finished Shop plate that hasn't been cleared, with the item, the order, "plate 1 of 2" and how long ago it finished. Clear plate opens that printer's clear-bed window.
• Steps, grouped by step: the next finishing step for each item, such as "Remove supports". When several items need the same step and all their pieces are in one place, Done for all 4 ticks it for all of them.
• Move on: items whose current stage is done, waiting for someone to move them to the next one.
• Put away: finished pieces that aren't on a tray or shelf yet. If the rest of the order is already on a tray, it says so and offers Put on Tray 12, or Elsewhere.
• Blocked: items someone blocked, with the reason, and Unblock.
• Pack: orders that are ready to pack. Pack opens the order's Pack & ship tab.

When nothing needs anyone: "Nothing needs a person right now."

On a farm where printers eject their own parts (and there are no plates to clear), Put away moves to the top, grouped by each printer's bin.

On a phone, the To do view has a sticky Scan a printer, tray or label bar at the bottom, so it works as a floor device.

Scanning

Scan opens the camera scanner ("Scan a printer, tray or label"). It understands:

Tray and shelf labels are printed from Settings > Shop > Locations (see below).

Clearing a plate counts the pieces

In the Shop there is no separate "accept pieces" step for a normal print. Clearing the plate is the count. When someone clears a printer that printed Shop work, the usual clear bed window gets a Shop section:

• It says which order the pieces are for: "Counts it for Order #1042", and "2 of 6 still needed".
• Where it goes: "Puts it on Packing shelf" (where the next stage happens) or on the tray the rest of the order is on. Change lets you pick another place, scan a tray or shelf, or Decide later, which leaves the piece under Put away.
• If the next stage has steps you can do right there, you can tick them, and add a note for the piece.

If the print wasn't good, choose that, and pick what went wrong: Spaghetti, Came off the bed, Layer shift, Warped or Something else. The piece is counted as rejected and the item owes it again.

After clearing, if another printer is also waiting, a message offers to clear it next.

A few rules about the count:

• One plate counts as one piece, unless the work was released as several plates or is a set counted by its parts.
• Plates cleared by AutoPrint, by the AI bed check or by an automatic clear count as good.
• A print that failed, or was cancelled after it started, counts as rejected.
• A print that finished but whose bed hasn't been cleared counts nothing yet. It shows under Clear plates.

For pieces you count by hand (for example a batch printed outside SimplyPrint), Count printed pieces on the item records finished and rejected pieces, with a location, tray and note.

Trays, shelves and stations

The Shop knows two kinds of place, set up under Settings > Shop > Locations:

• Locations stay put: an area, room, rack, shelf, station or dispatch point. Locations can sit inside each other (a shelf in a rack in a room).
• Containers move with what's in them: an order tray, tote, box or bin. A tray goes on a shelf or a bench, not in another tray. Anything in a tray moves with it.

Each one can have a scan code, and Print labels (or Print label on one row) prints labels to stick on them. Find by scan code looks one up, Move container moves a tray, and Custody history shows what has been where.

Every order page shows where its pieces are, tray by tray, with Move it to move them all at once.

Putting pieces away

Most pieces are put away as the plate is cleared. For the rest:

• Put away on the To do view puts a piece on the tray its order is already on, or Elsewhere.
• The Put a piece away page is for a bench full of parts: Scan a printer or job sheet, then say where it goes. Put several away, one after another keeps the scanner open for a whole round and counts how many you put away.

Scan the part first: a tray or shelf code says where a piece goes, not which piece you're holding. When you put away the first piece of an order, it says so: put it anywhere and tell SimplyPrint where.

A tray or shelf page. Scanning a tray or shelf opens it: its pieces grouped by order, each order with its due date, All here when every piece of it is there, and what's still to come. From there you can Move this tray, select pieces and move them, or Just take them out of a tray (they go back under Put away). When an order is finished and all its pieces are here, Pack #1042 takes you to packing.

Finishing steps

What happens to an item after it's printed is its item workflow, and what happens to the whole order (picking, packing, shipping) is its order workflow. Both come from Workflows, and are chosen under Settings > Shop > Production:

• Default item workflow: for example the Item finishing starter, which moves an item into finishing when its first piece is counted (with Remove supports if supports were used, and Inspect for every piece), and on to ready when every piece and step is done. Or No workflow - an item is done when it is printed.
• Order workflow: for example the Packing & shipping starter, with Ready to pack (pick the items, pack the box), Packed and Shipped. Or No workflow - the order has no steps of its own.

Switch to the starter puts new items on the Item finishing starter, and Manage workflows opens the full editor. A product can use a different item workflow from its own page. Changing a default affects new work only. Nothing is applied to an account automatically.

On an item, each step can be ticked, assigned to someone (Assign to me), skipped or waived with a reason, or blocked with a reason so the next person knows. A step can need a note. A step can also count pieces ("Do this for every piece"): three pieces means three checks, and a reprinted piece reopens it at "1 of 2". Steps at the bench start when the first piece is off the printer.

Rejecting a piece and reprinting

If a piece turns out bad after it was counted (a crack found at inspection), open the item and choose Reject a finished piece. Say how many and what was wrong. It stops counting as made, so the item owes it again. Nothing is reprinted until you ask: "Reprint it now?" offers Reprint or Later.

Reprint adds the work again: the same Project, size and colours from this order, or another Project or file, with a quantity and a reason. When a plate holds several objects, you can choose which ones to reprint; the plate prints whole, but only the objects you chose count. The order can't be packed until the new piece is counted and put away.

Add an item to produce on an order's Production tab adds work that wasn't on the order, such as a spare.

A reprint never becomes a second order.

All items

All items (/panel/shop/work?view=all) is every item being made, searchable and selectable. It shows each item, its progress, its next step and where it is; queue, workflow stage and production status can be turned on. Filter by production state (awaiting slice, not started, partial, complete, rework needed, cancelled) or Assigned to me.

Select items to tick a step on all of them, Move to... a tray or shelf, or Block them with a reason. Each row's menu has Count printed pieces, a note, Open order, Open queue item, Show in queue and Open workflow.

Related articles

• The Shop: run your 3D printing orders from store to shipped
• Shop orders: store orders, manual orders, review and release
• Shop packing and shipping: pack, ship and mark orders shipped in your store
• Shop inventory: stock items, movements, reservations and minimum stock
• Shop settings and permissions
• Clear bed: why SimplyPrint asks after every print, faster ways through it, and when to stop asking
• AutoPrint: put your printers on autopilot

Updated on: 05/11/2026