WMS Control Tower: Warehouse Dashboard and KPIs

The WMS home screen: four KPI cards for pending inbound, pending outbound, open tasks and expiry alerts, plus the latest inbound receipts, the outbound orders still waiting, and quick actions to start work.

The Control Tower is the WMS dashboard (WMS → Control Tower) — the screen the warehouse team starts the day with. It answers four questions at a glance: how much inbound is still waiting, how many outbound orders are not out the door yet, how many tasks are open, and whether anything is about to expire. Below the numbers it lists the most recent inbound receipts and the outbound orders still pending, so you can jump straight from “how are we doing?” to the document that needs attention.

The four KPI cards#

• Pending inbound — inbound receipts that are not finished yet (anything other than completed, cancelled or closed). “View all” under the number takes you to the full receipt list.
• Pending outbound — outbound orders (shipments) that have not left yet (anything other than shipped, delivered or cancelled). “View all” takes you to the outbound order list.
• Open tasks — warehouse tasks that are still open (anything other than completed or cancelled): picking, putaway, moves and the rest of the work queued for the floor.
• Expiry alerts — how many inventory expiry alerts are currently raised. The number turns red as soon as there is at least one, so expiring stock never blends into the background.

The cards are a headline, not a report: they count work that is still open, so a card dropping during the day means the floor is clearing the queue. For the full picture behind a number, follow its “View all” link (on the inbound and outbound cards) or open the matching list from the two tables below.

Recent inbound receipts#

1. The left table lists the five most recently created inbound receipts, newest first, with document number, status and creation date.
2. The status tag is green once a receipt is finished (completed, cancelled or closed) and gold while it is still being worked on — a row of gold tags in the morning means receiving has a queue.
3. Click a document number to open that receipt and work on it; “View all” in the card corner opens the full receipt list (WMS → Receipts).

Pending outbound orders#

1. The right table lists up to five outbound orders that are still pending — not shipped, delivered or cancelled — with document number, status and who the order ships to.
2. Click a document number to open the order; “View all” opens the full outbound order list (WMS → Orders). Orders that stay in this table are the ones holding up today’s shipping — work them first.

Quick actions: start work from the dashboard#

• New receipt — jump straight to creating an inbound receipt (WMS → Receipts → New).
• New outbound order — create an outbound order without detouring through the list (WMS → Orders → New).
• Make appointment — book a dock appointment for an arriving carrier (WMS → Appointments → Make Appointment).
• Packing station — go to the floor’s packing and shipping screen (WMS → Packing Station).

A two-minute morning check#

1. Read the four KPI cards first. A high pending-inbound number with trucks booked means receiving needs hands early; a high pending-outbound number means picking and packing set the day’s pace.
2. Check the Expiry alerts card: if it is red, deal with the expiring stock before it becomes a picking problem.
3. Scan the two tables for anything created a while ago that is still pending — those are today’s likely blockers — then jump in through the document number.

If the dashboard cannot load its data, it shows an error banner with a Retry button instead of empty cards — retry first; if the error stays, the underlying lists (Receipts, Orders) will show the same problem, which tells you it is not just this page.

Docklify features used in this article#

• WMS Control Tower dashboard (KPI cards, recent inbound, pending outbound, quick actions) — WMS → Control Tower (/wms/control-tower)
• Inbound receipt list and receipt detail — WMS → Receipts (/wms/receipts)
• Outbound order list and order detail — WMS → Orders (/wms/orders)
• Inventory expiry alerts — counted on the dashboard’s Expiry alerts card (WMS → Control Tower)
• Task Monitor for the detail behind the open-task count — WMS → Task Monitor (/wms/task-monitor)