Routines
Routines
A routine is a check you want kept up: what to look at, how often, and what counts as needing attention. Each one has its own schedule, its own products, and a record of every run, including runs that found nothing to do. When a run finds work, the work arrives in Tasks.
Routines has its own place in the app rail, beside Tasks and Projects. For the workspace settings around routines (timezone, notifications, where raised orders go, and heads of buying), see Tasks and routines settings.
What a routine gives
Every routine gives one of four things. You choose it in the Gives row when you set the routine up.
| Gives | What each run produces |
|---|---|
| Lines to act on | Only the lines that need action, on a task each run. |
| A review | A task with every line on it (A review of every line), or only the lines that qualify (A review of the lines that qualify). |
| A briefing to read | No task. Twelfth writes a report on your range after each run. |
| A checklist | The same tasks, raised on your schedule. |
A routine that gives lines can also say what it Raises:
| Raises | What goes on the task |
|---|---|
| Review | Lines that qualify, to look at. Nothing is sized. |
| Orders | Order lines, each sized by how much you set: cover a number of days, up to a number of units, a number of cases, to the next run plus lead time, or your cover rules. |
| Moves stock | Moves between two outlets, each sized by how much you set. |
| Sets price | Price changes, each to the price you set: a price figure such as a competitor’s, the RRP, the current price plus or less a percentage, or a margin. |
Routines Twelfth sets up
Some routines are set up by Twelfth for your workspace rather than built by hand. You may see some of these:
| Routine | What it looks for |
|---|---|
| Planned buy | Lines that won’t have enough stock to last until the next planned buy plus the supplier’s lead time, with the quantity to order. One order task per supplier. |
| Daily sell-out scan | Products that will run out before stock can arrive, and what to order. Silent when stock on order, or your next planned buy, lands in time. |
| Slow movers | Lines still in range holding months more stock than they sell, with a suggested price move. One price task per category. |
| Running hot | Products selling faster than expected that will run out within the cover threshold at that pace. A list to look at, not an order. |
| Store transfer check | Stores that will run short before their next replenishment, and the whole packs to send from the warehouse. One task per destination store. |
| Store count list | Store lines with stock on record that should have sold by now, to count and correct if the figure is wrong. |
Twelfth also sets up engine routines that bring its daily reorder, price review and transfer work into Tasks. Their schedule and name can be changed; what they carry can’t. See Supplier orders and price reviews.
The Routines page
The Routines page is a schedule, not a table of settings. Each routine you can see is one row, laid along a shared time axis with Today drawn down through every row.
- On the left: the routine’s name, its schedule, the kind of task it raises and how it groups them (for example “per supplier”), and its owner. A routine with open tasks shows N open, which opens them.
- On the axis: the last run as a filled dot, the next run with its date, and the runs after it as hollow dots. Hover a dot for the run’s result and time.
- A paused stretch is drawn as a hatched gap, from the day it was paused to the day it resumed. A routine that is still paused ends in a Resume button.
- A last run that failed or only partly checked says so beside the name. An ordinary run is just its dot.
If you can change a routine, hover its icon to pause or resume it in one click. Select the row to open its page.
The toolbar has:
- Search routines…, which matches names, what a routine is for, owners and products.
- Today, which brings today back onto the axis (shortcut T).
- The axis view: Year, Quarter, Month or Week (shortcuts Y, Q, M, W). Drag the axis, or shift-scroll, to move along it.
- Display, with Whose (All or Me) and State (All, Active or Paused).
- Buyers, for a head of buying only. See Head of buying.
- New routine.
Archived routines don’t appear here.
Making a routine
New routine opens a builder that starts from a sentence. Under What’s this routine for?, say it in your words, for example “Every Monday, show me what’s at 0 in Penshurst but has stock in the warehouse”, or pick one of the examples, then press Continue. Twelfth reads it and drafts the routine as rows:
- Products: which products it looks at.
- Qualifies: what makes a line need attention.
- Raises: what it puts on the task.
- Each line shows: the columns on each line.
- Gives: one of the four outputs above.
- When · who: the schedule, and whether it is for Just me or the Whole business.
If Twelfth needs something it can’t tell from your sentence, it asks above the rows, and the rows that depend on the answer wait. Select any row to change it. If Twelfth couldn’t read your sentence, every row is open to fill in by hand and your words are kept.
If it ran now shows what the routine would find today, without raising anything: how many lines qualify, example lines with the conditions each met, what it would skip and why, and the closest lines when nothing qualifies. It also shows the next few runs.
Name the routine (Twelfth suggests a name and a colour), then press Create routine, or Create and run now to create it and run it straight away. You can also arrive at the builder from Make this a routine in a chat, which brings the purpose with it.
A routine’s page
The header
The header is one line:
- the routine’s name and colour, with a lock (personal) or globe (global) icon. Select it to copy the link or, if you can change the routine, Change who it’s for;
- Shadow if it is in shadow, and Paused (with the reason, if Twelfth paused it) or Archived;
- the owner;
- when it runs next, such as “Next in 3d”. Select it to see Runs ahead: the next five runs, the schedule and timezone, and the stop date if it has one, with Run now and Pause to hand;
- Run now, and a More actions menu with Pause or Resume, Go live… or Run in shadow…, Archive, and Copy link.
If you can’t change the routine, the header says who set it up: you can work its tasks, but only its owner or a workspace admin can change it.
The page has four tabs: Overview, Tasks, Runs and Setup.
Overview
Overview is the routine’s timeline, newest first, grouped by day. The top of it is the next run. Below that, each entry is one of:
| Entry | What it records |
|---|---|
| Run | A run and its result. It names the tasks the run raised or refreshed. |
| Task | A task the routine raised, as it stands now. |
| Note | A note someone left. |
| Muted / Unmuted | A line muted or unmuted on this routine. |
| Set up | When the routine was made. |
| Rules changed / State | A change to its setup, or a pause, resume or archive. These are hidden until you press Show setup changes. |
Open a run’s entry for its counts, one to a row: Result, Tasks raised, Tasks refreshed, Lines checked, Lines flagged, Muted, Held by a no-action, Data as of and others where they apply. Worth a look lists what the run noticed, and Could not tell lists what it couldn’t judge, such as lines with missing data. From there, Work them in Tasks opens the run’s tasks on this page, See on the Tasks page opens them in Tasks, and Open in Runs finds the run in the history.
Press Note, or hover the gap at the top of the timeline and choose Add a note, to leave context for the next run or for whoever works its tasks. Others can react to a note.
Beside the timeline are the Muted panel (see Muted lines), Reports (the reports this routine has written, if it asks for one), and How it’s set up, a summary of its setup with an Edit link on each row.
Tasks
Tasks lists the tasks this routine has raised that you can see, and opens one in place so you can work it without leaving the routine. It opens on the first open task.
The picker at the top narrows the list to one run (Run of a date) or shows Every run, with each run’s tasks under it and done tasks dimmed. All tasks opens the same tasks on the Tasks page.
Runs
Runs is every run, quiet ones included:
| Column | What it shows |
|---|---|
| Run | When it ran, to the minute in Melbourne time (AEST or AEDT), and whether it was Manual (Run now) or Scheduled. |
| Result | N tasks raised, Work refreshed, No action needed, Checked · data gaps, Partly checked, Tasks still open, Failed, or in shadow Shadow · would raise N tasks. |
| What it found | The run’s own summary, and anything it noticed or couldn’t judge. A failed run says what failed. |
| Tasks | The tasks it raised or refreshed that you can see. Select to open them on the Tasks tab. |
| Data as of | The date of the data it read. |
A routine waits for the day’s data before it runs. How long it waits, and what a run on stale data says, is in A routine waits for today’s data.
Setup
Setup is where the routine is changed. At the top, a strip shows its runs four weeks behind and four weeks ahead; select a past run to open it in Runs.
Under How it’s set up, each row opens in place and saves on its own: Name and colour, What it’s for, the builder’s rows (Products, Qualifies, Raises, Each line shows, Gives, When · who), Runs until and Standing instructions. Only one row is open at a time.
- When you change a row that affects what the routine finds, Setup says what the change does before you save, for example “If it ran now: 214 → 162 lines”, with the lines it adds, drops and changes. A change applies from the next run.
- Runs until stops the routine after a date. Clear it to run with no end date.
- Standing instructions apply to every run and to whoever works its tasks.
- If someone else changed the routine while you had it open, Setup says so and keeps your edit for you to save again.
- When a routine orders or moves stock and some suppliers in scope have no lead time, their products are sized on a 28-day default. Lead times under Products lists those suppliers so you can enter one. Lead times are kept for the whole workspace.
Changes, beside the rows, lists every change to the routine: who made it and when.
An engine routine shows its own form here instead of rows. A routine made before the builder existed shows its settings to read: only its name and colour, stop date and instructions can be changed. To change the rest, set up a new routine.
Run now
Run now runs the routine at once, outside its schedule, and records the run in Runs as Manual. It is there for anyone who can change the routine.
- A paused routine must be resumed first.
- A routine runs one run at a time. While a run is going, the button says Running….
- When the run finishes, the header says what it did, for example “Ran it now. 3 tasks raised.”
- If the run doesn’t report back in time, the page says it may still be going and watches for it. Run now comes back when the run finishes, or after 3 minutes.
- Run now never waits for the day’s data. It says when its data is stale.
Pausing, archiving and handing over
Pause stops the routine running on its schedule. Its history and its open tasks stay. Resume puts it back on its schedule. You can pause or resume from the header, the next-run chip, or the routine’s icon on the Routines page.
Twelfth pauses a routine itself when it can no longer run, for example when its owner no longer has any products in scope. The reason is shown beside Paused and on the timeline.
Archive stops the routine for good. It asks first: “It will not run again. Its history stays available.”
To hand a routine to someone else, select its owner and pick a member. A routine runs over its owner’s products, so a new owner changes what it checks from the next run. A personal routine handed over moves to the new owner’s list and leaves yours.
Personal and global routines
| Personal (Just me) | Global (Whole business) | |
|---|---|---|
| What it checks | Its owner’s products. | The whole range. |
| Who can open it | The owner and people with buying oversight. | Everyone in the workspace. Each buyer sees the tasks in their own scope. |
| Who can change it | The owner. | The owner, or a workspace owner or admin. |
Change it in the When · who row on Setup. Whole business is offered to people who can read the whole business.
Shadow and live
A routine in shadow runs on its schedule and records what it would raise, but publishes nothing: no task reaches anyone. Every tab shows a banner, “Shadow — nothing is published.”, with a link to See what it would raise.
On the Tasks tab, a shadow routine shows What it would raise from its latest run, by action and then by group. Open a group to see its lines, flagged first, with Why each line is there (the cover, demand and stock behind an order, say) and the suggested quantity, price or transfer.
To switch, use Go live… or Run in shadow… in the More actions menu.
- Make this routine live? From its next run it raises and refreshes tasks for real. If an engine routine already raises the same kind of work over the same products, the dialog names it and warns that you may get two tasks for one thing.
- Run this routine in shadow? From its next run it records what it would raise and publishes nothing. Tasks it already raised stay open for you to finish.
Some checks can’t go live yet. When that is the case, switching says why.
How a run raises tasks
A run looks at the routine’s products and judges each line against what qualifies. What happens next depends on what is already open:
- New work goes on a new task. A routine that groups its work raises one task per group, such as one per supplier, category or buyer scope. A transfer routine raises one per destination store.
- Work already open is refreshed rather than raised twice. The open task keeps your review: new lines are added, a line whose suggestion changed moves to the new suggestion (unless you edited it, in which case your value stays), a line that no longer qualifies is withdrawn, and a line you edited that no longer qualifies is marked to recheck. The run’s Open tasks’ lines row counts each of these.
- Nothing to do is still a run. It is recorded with its result, so a quiet routine reads as checked, not broken.
- A checklist raises its tasks again only once the previous ones are closed. Until then the run says the previous tasks are still open.
- A line you closed as Reviewed, no action is held off the routine’s tasks for a while. The run counts these under Held by a no-action.
A run looks at up to 60,000 lines. If there were more, the run says it was capped.
Muted lines
Muting a line tells one routine to leave that product alone for a while. It applies to that product under the check that flagged it, on that routine only. The product still appears everywhere else.
To mute, press Mute on a line of the routine’s task, or Mute a line at the top of the task. Choose how long:
- 1 week
- 1 month
- Until a date (the last day it stays muted)
- Until I unmute it
Choose a Reason: Other reason, or End of life (EOL). An end-of-life mute can also update the product in a connected system, if an admin has set that up in Integrations; the dialog says exactly what it will change before you confirm. Add a note so whoever sees it next knows why.
A dated mute ends on its own: the first run after its last day judges the product again, and the timeline says so.
The Muted panel on the routine’s Overview lists every muted product with the check it is muted under, until when, the reason, and who muted it. If you can change the routine, Change edits the length and reason and Unmute ends it now (Resume checks for an end-of-life mute). Unmuting does not reverse an update already made in a connected system. Each run counts the lines it skipped as Muted.
You can mute a line on a routine you can change. A head of buying can also mute lines on a buyer’s routine tasks.
Who can change what
| You are | You can |
|---|---|
| The routine’s owner | Change, run, pause, resume, archive, hand over, switch between shadow and live, mute and unmute lines, and leave notes. |
| A workspace owner or admin, on a global routine | The same as the owner. |
| A head of buying, on a buyer’s routine | Read it and act on its tasks, including muting lines. You can’t change, pause or run it. |
| Anyone else who can open it | Read it, copy its link, and work the tasks assigned to you. |
Asking Twelfth AI
Twelfth AI can read your routines and their runs. Useful questions:
- “Which of my routines ran this morning, and what did they raise?”
- “Why did my Daily sell-out scan raise nothing this week?”
- “Which routines are paused, and why?”
If an answer doesn’t match the page, check the Data as of date on the run: a run on stale data says so.