Made-to-order production tracking for D2C brands

For a D2C brand that makes to order, there are days of work between "paid" and "shipped": cutting, stitching, finishing, quality check, packing. The store only knows the order is unfulfilled.

The E-commerce operations hub in TaskSync tracks that middle part. Here is how it works, step by step.

Order flows: the stages your orders go through

An order flow is the list of stages your orders go through, for example Cutting → Stitching → QC → Ready to dispatch → Shipped. Each stage has a kind (Work, Quality check, Handover, Done or Parking / hold), and it can have an owning department and expected hours.

A flow can run on a whole order or on each line item. Gates set what must be done before an order leaves a stage, such as a checklist, photos or an approval. Every move, hold and resume is kept in the order's history.

You can build a flow by hand in Settings → Order flows, or install an operations pack. A pack maps roles such as Production, Logistics, CRM and Finance to your departments and adds a ready flow. Your company can rename, add or remove stages.

Order flows are opt-in. Nothing changes until someone sets up a flow and chooses which stores' orders start it.

Routing: which orders start which flow

Each flow has routes under Which orders start it. A route names a store, says whether the order starts once paid or as soon as placed, and can add conditions such as tags, SKU or product type. Paid orders can start at one stage and cash-on-delivery orders at another, or wait until they are paid.

If you switch on intake checks, each new order is checked for details you require, such as size, variant or full address. An order with gaps waits under Needs info instead of starting the flow, until someone fills it in.

Department sections and hand-offs

Stages that belong to the same department form a section, for example Production (Cutting, Stitching) → Quality (QC) → Logistics (Packing, Shipped). With Hand-offs between departments on, the history shows Handed off to …, the receiving department's head is told, and a department clock starts.

A section can have a department time limit; when an order has been with the department longer, the head is told once. The My department view shows each department its own orders and, for heads, the workload per person.

Job cards on the shop floor

A job card is a printable black-and-white A4 page for an order or a single line. It shows the product image where available, SKU, variant, size and colour in large print, custom properties, the order note, a box per stage and sign-off boxes.

Each card has a QR code. Scanning it opens the order's scan page, where a signed-in person can move the order on, put it on hold, resume it, or pass or fail QC with large buttons.

Quality check and customer photo approval

At a Quality check stage, the person ticks each checklist item as pass or fail, adds photos and a note, then clicks Pass QC or Fail QC…. A fail records what is wrong and sends the order back to the stage that corrects it. After a set number of fails, the order can go on hold and people are alerted.

For custom products, customer photo approval adds one more step. When QC passes, the customer gets a secure link by e-mail, WhatsApp or both, showing the QC photos. They choose Approve — the order looks right or Request changes with a comment. Approval moves the order on; a change request counts as a QC fail. You choose what happens if there is no reply: remind once, count it as approved, or put the order on hold.

Promised dates and late risk

For every open order in a flow, TaskSync works out an expected finish from the expected hours of the current and later stages. It compares this with the promised date: either the store's own date (from an order attribute, a tag or a line in the order note) or a number of working days after the order was paid or placed.

An open order whose expected finish is after its promised date is marked late risk, on Work queue cards, the order page and job cards. The estimate is only as good as your stage hours, so keep them realistic.

Holds and delays

When work cannot continue, Put on hold stops the order at its stage with a reason from the flow's list. The reason can ask for an explanation, a next action and an expected resume date. The Delayed & on hold view lists every held order and every order past its due time, with reason, owner and next action.

Milestone updates for customers

Customer milestone updates send the customer a short e-mail or WhatsApp message when the order reaches a stage you choose, such as In production or Shipped. Each milestone is sent once per order per channel, only to customers who accept service messages, inside the sending hours you set. It is off by default.

The dispatch desk

E-commerce → Dispatch lists every open order at a hand-over stage such as Ready to dispatch, across all flows, with the longest waiting on top.

Logistics opens the order, clicks Dispatch…, ticks every line and enters the courier, AWB / tracking number and dispatch date. Depending on your store rule, the tracking is added to the store. Failed deliveries and returns to origin then show under Delivery (NDR / RTO).

Where to start

Start small: connect one store, install the closest operations pack, set realistic stage hours and print job cards for one department. Add photo approval and milestone updates later.

The E-commerce operations hub is an Enterprise add-on. You can tick it at sign-up and use it free for the 30-day trial, with the Service Desk included for returns and support cases.