This week was about the shop floor. A shop that 3D prints its parts can now send plates to its printers from a work order, put the good parts in stock and tell customers when an out-of-stock part will ship. Shoppers got new ways to pay and to name their price.
New this week
3D printing from work orders, with Machine Connect
Machine Connect is our Windows app for the PC beside your printers. Download it from Settings → Printing, connect it with the code it shows, and Manufacturing → Machines lists each printer with its state, progress and loaded material. Printing from work orders is a pilot, available on request.
- Upload a sliced .3mf to a BOM step under Print files. Kaniva reads the printer model, nozzle size, time and filaments, and a plate only goes to a printer it was sliced for, loaded with the right colour
- Someone at the printer taps Mark bed clear before every print, so nothing starts on a full bed
- Inspect each plate as good or rejected. The good parts go on the work order, and the last inspection completes it and puts the parts into stock
- Multi-colour plates print each colour from the right slot
- The printer's page says why a plate is waiting (no PLA #000000 loaded, bed not marked clear)
- After printing, print the part labels or one bag label, and scan a bin to put the parts away
- Auto sends the next plate to the first free printer whose bed is clear. Manual waits for you to press Start
Restock by printing, and when it will ship
Tick Restock by printing on a printed part. When stock runs low, Kaniva makes a work order for whole plates and queues them. The product stays buyable as Printed to order, and orders that are waiting get printed first.
- Manufacturing → 3D Printers and the Live Board show when each work center's queue will clear (clears tomorrow 3:40 PM), and work orders say prints by …
- Set when each work center is staffed under Hours on Manufacturing → Work Centers
- Products can show Ships in about N days when out of stock, worked out from the print queue. Off until you turn it on
- An alert when the backlog gets too long or a work order will be late, and one email a day with what's at risk
Make an offer, or pay what you want
- Fixed price, offers welcome: customers send an offer from the product page. Accept, Decline or Send counter under Sales → Offers, or set amounts that answer offers on their own. An accepted offer holds the stock and emails a Buy now link
- Pay what you want: customers name their price, at or above a minimum you choose. A free download can check out with no card
- Discount codes apply to this product: untick it to keep a product out of discount codes
Apple Pay and Google Pay at checkout
Shoppers who have them set up see a one-tap button above the card field. It pays through your Stripe like a card, and Kaniva sets up your store's web addresses with Stripe for you.
Print labels and slips on your own printers
Settings → Printing picks the printer for shipping labels, product and bin labels and packing slips: a PrintNode printer, or any printer on the PC running Machine Connect, Zebra or office printer. Each computer or phone remembers the printer you last picked, so slips can print at home and at the shop.
- A USB scale on the Machine Connect PC fills in a box's weight on Create label and the Shipping Station
- If a printer can't print, Kaniva tells you and tries another way. Nothing prints twice
Tracking for every box
Each box on an order shows Label created → In transit → Out for delivery → Delivered, with the carrier's latest message and every scan. Orders now move to their last step as soon as every box has shipped, and step emails such as Shipped send a copy to your admin email again. You can change both on Settings → Order steps.
Your store's address and time zone
- Change your kaniva.io address under Store address on Settings → Domain. The old address keeps working and sends people to the new one
- Your own domain now works with and without www
- Set your store's Time zone on Settings → General, so print times, work-center hours and daily emails match your clock
Smaller things that add up
- A code scanned in one store that belongs to another of your stores says which, with a link there
- Items show how many are Short when more is held for orders than is on hand
- A BOM can be saved with no components, for a part that's only printed
- On Trailhead, the main product photo shows whole instead of cropped
- The phone receptionist asks what a call is about before passing it to a person, and keeps the caller's message when it does
Security and reliability
- Payment confirmations that arrive twice no longer make a second set of work orders
- Stock in your bins only changes by scanning or adjustments, and connected apps can't overwrite it
- Packing slips sent to a printer lay out the same as the ones printed from your browser
What's next
Machine Connect for more shops, and more of the shop floor joined up with the store.