Halmar — connecting a furniture wholesaler

Halmar is a furniture manufacturer that ships your orders from its own warehouse. See Wholesaler — someone else stores and ships your goods for an overview of working with a wholesaler. This guide walks through the setup.

Before you start

You need the account details Halmar issues when it gives you access to data exchange:

• login and password;
• GLN number (Global Location Number) — the number Halmar uses to identify your company in an order.

Step 1 — the “Halmar” warehouse

Halmar goods have their own warehouse in the system. Create it before configuring the connection, because you must select it in the connection.

1. Open Configuration → Team and access → My companies and, on the Warehouses tab, click + (Companies, branches, and warehouses — structure).
2. Enter Halmar in Warehouse name.
3. Set Warehouse type to External/3PL. Warehouses of this type do not enter warehouse queues, so your warehouse staff will not try to pick goods from them. The Halmar connection only accepts a warehouse of this type.
4. Leave Active warehouse on, click Create, and confirm with your 2FA code.

Use this warehouse only for Halmar. Do not record stock from other sources in it: the system sets the stock to zero for every product that is not on Halmar’s list (see Halmar stock levels below).

Step 2 — the “Halmar PEKAES” carrier

Halmar books parcels and prints labels itself, using different carriers (Pekaes, DPD, DHL, Pocztex, DB Schenker, Zadbano, and others), but it does not provide the carrier name. The system identifies the carrier from the tracking-link address Halmar sends with the consignment number: a link containing dpd means DPD, dhl means DHL, and poczta-polska means Poczta Polska. The shipment is then assigned the carrier with that name from your carrier list, and the marketplace receives that carrier name with the consignment number.

If the link does not identify a known carrier, or the carrier is not on your carrier list, the shipment is assigned Halmar PEKAES. Do not connect this carrier like an ordinary carrier — it has no keys or labels. Your implementation contact creates it and adds any Halmar carriers missing from the list (for example, Zadbano or Raben). Check under Integrations → Carriers that Halmar PEKAES is listed (Courier list — carrier directory). The Halmar connection will not pass the step 3 test without it.

Step 3 — the Halmar connection

1. Go to Integrations → Integrations, open the Available integrations tab, set the Type filter to Wholesaler, and click the Halmar tile (Integrations list — my connections and the available catalog).
2. Enter a Name, for example Halmar. The Active switch is already on — the connection starts working as soon as it is created, so you do not need to enable it later. Click Create.
3. On the Connection stage, in the Connection section, enter the API login, API password, and GLN number from Halmar.
4. Click Save changes and confirm with your 2FA code (2FA confirmation when changing permissions). The remaining stages are unlocked only after you save the credentials.
5. Go to the Orders stage, Orders to wholesaler section:
   • Halmar goods warehouse — choose the Halmar warehouse from step 1. The list shows only your company’s active External/3PL warehouses.
   • Carrier for Halmar shipments — check that Halmar PEKAES is selected. The list shows only carriers without their own integration.
   • Carriers by tracking link — leave this blank as long as shipments from Halmar are assigned to the right carriers. Use it when a carrier in your list has a different name from the built-in list (for example, “DPD Polska” instead of “DPD”); otherwise, the shipment remains assigned to Halmar PEKAES even though the carrier is listed. Add a line with a fragment of the tracking-link address, an equals sign, and the carrier name from your list, for example dpd=DPD Polska. Your lines take precedence over the built-in list. The system silently ignores a malformed line or a carrier that is not in your list; shipments with that link then use the built-in carrier or Halmar PEKAES. If an added line does not work, check the equals sign and the carrier name character by character.
   • Send the wholesaler its part of a mixed order — off by default; see Mixed orders below.
   • The other fields have preset values. Order number prefix must not end in a digit. Change it later only when no shipment to Halmar is failing; an order being retried will use the new prefix.
6. Click Save changes and confirm with your 2FA code.
7. Click Test in the header. Connection OK means Halmar accepted the login and password and the warehouse, carrier, and prefix are set correctly (the test does not check the GLN number). Do not continue until you see this result.

Why the test shows an error

The test logs in to Halmar again every time, so after changing your password you can immediately check whether the new one works. The message tells you what to fix:

Step 4 — map the Halmar warehouse on sales-channel connections

Warehouse mapping on the marketplace or store connection determines whether an order item is sent to Halmar (Mappings — warehouses, carriers, price lists, categories). Add the Halmar warehouse to every connection where you sell Halmar furniture:

1. Open the sales-channel connection and go to the Stock and products stage.
2. In the warehouse card, click Add warehouse, select Halmar, and click Add. The Edit mapping window opens.
3. In Order fulfilment, leave Fulfil orders from this warehouse on.
4. Set Fulfilment priority to a higher number than your own warehouses — for example, your warehouse 1 and Halmar 10. The system checks lower numbers first, so an item goes to Halmar only when you are out of stock and Halmar has it. If neither of you has stock, the item remains assigned to your warehouse.
5. Under Stock sent to marketplace, enable Include this warehouse in stock sent if your offers should include Halmar stock too. For an External/3PL warehouse, this switch is off initially.
6. Click Done, then Save mapping.

Step 5 — a rule that sends orders to Halmar

An order reaches Halmar through an automation rule with the Send order to wholesaler action (Create and organize rules). The action itself does not change the order status; later actions in the same rule do that.

First create two order statuses: At wholesaler (the order has been handed to Halmar) and Needs decision (the system did not send the order). Add statuses under Settings → Orders, Order statuses tab (Order statuses and how to change them).

Then create a rule under Tools → Automation → Rules:

1. Event: Status changed. Under Trigger on status (pre-filter), choose the status an order enters when it is ready to fulfil, for example after payment (Events — what starts a rule).
2. Condition: Any product from warehouse = Halmar (Workflow conditions — every listed condition must be met). Use Any, not All: mixed orders must reach the action too, so they move to Needs decision instead of remaining on their current status without a trace. If you enable sending the wholesaler’s part of mixed orders, change this rule as described under Mixed orders below.
3. Action 1: Send order to wholesaler; select the Halmar connection in Wholesaler connection. Leave Continue workflow even if this action fails on. If Stop workflow if this action fails is selected, the rule stops on an error and action 3 will not run.
4. Action 2: Change status to At wholesaler. Under Action settings (the gear icon), set Run when to If previous succeeded and Track action to #1.
5. Action 3: Change status to Needs decision, with Run when set to If previous failed and Track action set to #1.
6. Save the rule.

What the action does

• Sends the order to Halmar once. If the rule runs again for the same order, the action succeeds without even asking Halmar; it will not place a second order.
• Halmar receives your order number with the prefix from the connection settings (for example BW-123456), the delivery address, the customer’s phone and email, and the items: each product by its Halmar code or, if it has no code, by EAN. The system remembers Halmar codes when it downloads stock.
• The expected delivery date sent to Halmar is the date the order is sent to Halmar plus the number of days in Expected delivery (days) — not the date the customer placed the order.
• A cash-on-delivery order is sent to Halmar only when Send cash-on-delivery orders is enabled. The COD amount is the full order value including delivery, rounded to the nearest grosz. If it is zero, the order is sent without COD. The Halmar part of a mixed order never has COD, regardless of this setting — your shipment collects the full amount.
• Before checking or placing the order, the action always asks Halmar whether an order with that number already exists. If Halmar’s response was lost in transit, a retry records the order that Halmar already has instead of ordering it twice.
• If Halmar already has the order marked rejected, cancelled, or closed, the action does not send it again. It fails with the Wholesaler: order closed by wholesaler notification.
• If the order is already with Halmar but should not be there — for example, it was cancelled in the meantime — the system still records it as handed over so the withdrawal rule (step 7) and consignment-number checks can see it. The notification says the order is already with Halmar: withdraw it there or let Halmar ship it.
• When the order finally reaches Halmar (or turns out to be there already), notifications for earlier refusals of that order close automatically.
• The system remembers which items and quantities it sent to Halmar. If you change Halmar-warehouse items after sending (split an item, move it to another warehouse, change the quantity, or add an item), Halmar will still ship what it received. The system detects the change when the rule runs again and when the consignment number is saved, and creates a Wholesaler: order items changed after sending notification listing the items sent and the current items. This does not block anything; agree the difference with Halmar.
• If Halmar does not respond, the system retries several times. If Halmar still does not respond, the action fails without a notification and the order moves to Needs decision; see the rule execution history for the reason (Execution history — what really happened).

When an order is not sent to Halmar

The action then creates a notification on the order (Issues — what they are and what they are not) and fails, so action 3 moves the order to Needs decision:

After fixing the cause, move the order back to the status selected in the pre-filter; the rule will send it again. This does not apply to an order closed by the wholesaler: the rule will not send it to Halmar a second time, so you decide what to do next.

Step 6 — send the consignment number to the marketplace and set the shipped status

Halmar does not provide a label; it provides a consignment number when the parcel leaves its warehouse. The system asks Halmar for it and saves it on the order as a shipment (see Halmar consignment number below). To pass the number on:

1. On every sales-channel connection from step 4, enable Send Tracking Numbers (Connection configuration — steps and key settings). The system then creates the Auto: tracking push rule, which sends a shipment number to the marketplace when the shipment is created.
2. On those connections, at the Shipping stage, under Carrier mapping, assign Halmar PEKAES to the delivery methods used only for Halmar furniture, for example a separate “Furniture courier” method (Delivery-method mapping and shipment validation). Without this mapping, orders with those methods get a mapping error. Do not assign it to a method also used for shipments from your own warehouse: Halmar PEKAES cannot print labels, so your parcels using that method would have no label. The Halmar consignment number is assigned to the shipment under the carrier identified from its tracking link (or Halmar PEKAES) regardless of this mapping.
3. Create a Shipped by wholesaler status (Settings → Orders, Order statuses tab) and a second rule (Create and organize rules):
   • Event: Shipment created.
   • Conditions: All products from warehouse = Halmar and Has tracking number.
   • Action: Change status to Shipped by wholesaler.

For a mixed order, this rule will not run; see Mixed orders for its status after shipping.

For the first orders, check that the number reached the marketplace. A marketplace that does not recognise the carrier assigned to the shipment (for example, Halmar PEKAES) will reject the number; the order then gets a Could not send tracking number notification.

Step 7 — a rule that withdraws cancelled orders from Halmar

If a customer or marketplace cancels an order that is already with Halmar, it must be withdrawn before Halmar packs it. A third rule does this (Create and organize rules):

1. Event: Order cancelled.
2. Condition: Any product from warehouse = Halmar.
3. Action: Cancel order with wholesaler; select the Halmar connection under Wholesaler connection.
4. Save the rule.

What the action does:

• If Halmar has not started processing the order, the system asks it to remove the order and checks that it is really gone. From then on, it also stops asking for a consignment number. If Halmar had already rejected or cancelled the order, there is nothing to withdraw and the action succeeds as well.
• If the order is being sent to Halmar at that moment (the rule from step 5 is still running), the action waits for sending to finish and then checks whether there is anything to withdraw.
• If the system has no record that the order was sent to Halmar, it still asks Halmar whether an order with that number exists, in case Halmar’s reply was lost during sending. If it finds the order, it withdraws it as usual.
• If Halmar is already preparing or has shipped the order, refuses to remove it, or does not confirm that it is gone, the system cannot withdraw it. The order gets a Wholesaler: cancel the order with the wholesaler manually notification (including Halmar’s reason, if provided), and the action fails. Contact Halmar. If withdrawal later succeeds, that notification closes automatically. If Halmar ships the parcel anyway, the system records it on the order with a Wholesaler: cancelled order shipped notification (see below).
• The action skips an order that was not sent to Halmar (and is not there) or has already been withdrawn.
• The step 5 rule will not send an order that has been withdrawn to Halmar again; it gets a Wholesaler: order closed by wholesaler notification.

When the Halmar connection is disabled

Disable the connection with the switch next to Test. While it is off:

• Halmar stock is not downloaded, and the system does not ask for consignment numbers; orders waiting for a number continue waiting.
• Rules with Send order to wholesaler and Cancel order with wholesaler do not run at all. Their execution history (Execution history — what really happened) shows SKIPPED. The order remains at its current status — it gets no notification and does not move to Needs decision — and an order cancelled during this time is not withdrawn from Halmar.

Rules involving Halmar also do not run for orders from a disabled sales-channel connection. After enabling it again, rules run for new events, but the system does not catch up on skipped runs: move orders that reached the pre-filter status during the outage to that status again, and withdraw cancelled orders from Halmar yourself.

Halmar stock levels

While the connection is enabled, the system downloads Halmar’s stock list every half hour, at minutes 7 and 37, and saves the quantities in the Halmar warehouse. Halmar refreshes its list every 30 minutes.

• Stock is matched to products by EAN code. Only digits are considered, so spaces and hyphens in the EAN on Halmar’s list do not matter. A product on Halmar’s list with no matching EAN in your catalogue is skipped. Add it to the catalogue with the EAN from Halmar (Product card).
• If several products in your catalogue have the same EAN, the system does not guess which should receive the stock; it skips all of them and leaves their Halmar stock unchanged.
• Negative, unreadable, or greater-than-999 999 stock quantities are skipped: the product keeps its previous quantity, including when stock reset is enabled.
• If Halmar stops returning its product code (or returns the same code for several EANs), the system forgets the old code and sends orders for that product by EAN.
• Offers receive Halmar stock through sales-channel connections where Include this warehouse in stock sent is on for the Halmar warehouse (step 4). Stock then goes to the marketplace like any other stock change (Sending stock to the marketplace).
• The system keeps a record of every stock change from Halmar for 30 days.

Settings are on the Halmar connection’s Stock and products stage, under Stock from wholesaler:

• Download Halmar stock — off: stock is not downloaded, and the Halmar warehouse retains the last quantities recorded.
• Reset stock for products that are not on Halmar’s list — on: a product that disappears from the list gets zero stock in the Halmar warehouse. This applies to every product in that warehouse, which is why it should only be used for Halmar (step 1). Off: stock remains unchanged. The system does not reset anything if Halmar returns an empty list, the download stops halfway, no listed product matches your catalogue, or none has a stock value that can be saved. It also avoids resetting stock if the list changes during download (the same items appear again on the next page, so other items may have been missed); it saves quantities from the list but does not set any product to zero. An interrupted download is retried several times during the next 15 minutes.
• Products per stock request — reduce this value if stock downloads fail.

Halmar consignment number

While the connection is enabled, every half hour — at minutes 22 and 52 — the system asks Halmar about orders it received that do not yet have a consignment number.

• When Halmar returns a number, the system saves a shipment with that number on the order. It uses the carrier identified from the tracking link (step 2), or Halmar PEKAES if it cannot identify the carrier. Parcels from different carriers go on separate shipments, and each parcel is assigned the products Halmar says it carries. In the order’s Shipments section (Order details screen), the number has a tracking link: the carrier’s site when that carrier is in your list, or Halmar’s tracking page when it is not (for example, Halmar PEKAES), provided Halmar supplied a safe address (https).
• Halmar shipments are separate from yours: your packing shipment does not receive Halmar’s number.
• Saving each shipment triggers the Shipment created event: the number goes to the marketplace and the second rule from step 6 changes the order status.
• The system stops asking about the order after that. If Halmar sends it in two transports, the system records the numbers Halmar returned the first time; it will not add later numbers itself.
• For the first 24 hours, the system asks only for the consignment number. After that, it also checks what is happening to the order at Halmar.
• If a check fails — Halmar does not respond, rejects the login, or returns a shipment for another order — the order waits until the next check without a notification. Five failed checks in a row end that half-hourly check; the remaining orders wait for the next one.

If something is wrong with an order, the system creates a notification (Issues — what they are and what they are not) and stops asking Halmar about it. It does not change the order status: for example, the order remains At wholesaler, so you can find these cases in the notifications list:

For an order you cancelled that Halmar will not ship (it rejected or cancelled it, or no longer has it), the system stops checking without a notification because there is nothing to send another way.

The rule will not send an order with one of the first four notifications to Halmar again. If it runs again for that order, the action fails with Wholesaler: order closed by wholesaler, so the rule moves it to Needs decision; you decide what to do next.

Settings are on the Halmar connection’s Orders stage, under Orders to wholesaler:

• Check consignment numbers — off: the system does not ask Halmar for numbers, and orders waiting for one continue waiting.
• How many days to wait for a consignment number — after this many days from handing over the order, the system stops waiting and creates a notification.

Mixed orders

A mixed order has items from the Halmar warehouse and your own. By default it is not sent to Halmar: it gets a Wholesaler: items from other warehouses notification and you decide what to do. When Send the wholesaler its part of a mixed order is enabled on the connection, the order remains one order but travels in separate shipments:

• Halmar receives only items from its warehouse, always without COD — even if Send cash-on-delivery orders is enabled. Your shipment carries COD for the entire order. A COD order with no item from your warehouse therefore cannot send its part to Halmar: it gets Wholesaler: COD without our shipment, and you decide what to do.
• Your items are picked and packed in your warehouse as usual, with your label.
• Halmar’s consignment number is saved on a separate Halmar shipment (see Halmar consignment number). Your shipment and its label stay untouched.
• An item without a fulfilment warehouse still holds up the entire order.

The step 5 rule for mixed orders. After a successful send, it moves the order to At wholesaler — but your part only reaches the warehouse queue from statuses the warehouse picks up. Therefore, when the switch is on, split the rule in two:

1. Keep the step 5 rule with the condition All products from warehouse = Halmar instead of Any — for orders entirely from Halmar.
2. Make a copy of that rule with conditions Any product from warehouse = Halmar and All products from warehouse = Halmar with the NO switch — for mixed orders — and remove action 2 (the status change after success). Action 3 still moves an order the system could not send to Needs decision.

“Shipped” status. The Has tracking number condition is true as soon as the first shipment exists. For a rule that moves mixed orders to a shipped status, use the Shipment created event and the All order items shipped condition. It becomes true when every item has left: your items in your parcels with tracking numbers, and Halmar’s items once its consignment number arrives (Workflow conditions — every listed condition must be met).

The number of consignment numbers a customer sees depends on the sales channel. A channel that does not accept multiple shipments for one order (for example, the GoShop store or Empik) receives one number — from the shipment with more products. The second shipment’s number is not sent there; pass it to the customer manually if needed.

On the order page

On the order page, in Shipments (Order details screen), Halmar’s part appears separately. Our shipments at the top are your packing shipments. Below them, the External shipments heading contains a Halmar row — without a separate card, in the same style as your own shipments. The row appears on every order with an item from the Halmar warehouse, even before the consignment number arrives.

The Halmar row is compact and collapsed by default. From left to right it shows a building icon (hover text: Halmar ships itself, on its own consignment note), the Halmar name with step icons below it, one status badge, one button on the right only when something needs doing, and an arrow. Hover over the badge to see Wholesaler order number: with the order number (for example BW-123456) and the send date. Click the row or arrow to expand it: the Halmar shipments appear with consignment numbers (see Halmar consignment number) and their parcels, or a red box with the reason if there is an error. Before the consignment note arrives, and as long as there is no error, the row has no arrow because there is nothing to expand.

Step icons show how far the order has progressed: Wholesaler → Number in store. Hover over an icon to see the step name and state; see Shipment on the order card — full history and actions for what the icon’s colour and shape mean. If there is an error, its reason is also shown in the Wholesaler icon tooltip.

• Wholesaler — pending until the order has been sent to Halmar; complete once it has; error or withdrawn as shown by the badge.
• Number in store — waiting until Halmar provides a consignment number; then pending until the number is sent to the marketplace (the row has a Send number button; every row that needs it has this button, and one click sends all shipment numbers for the order, so the step is then complete in every row); complete afterwards, with the send date in the tooltip.

A Halmar shipment in the expanded row has no step icons of its own because the Halmar row shows the steps; its details contain only the tracking number with its change history and the date.

There is one button in the row — the next action to take, in this order. It has a short label; hover to see the full sentence with the wholesaler’s name:

1. Send — shown until the order has been sent to Halmar, and only to users who can order goods from the wholesaler (see permissions below). It sends the order like the Send order to wholesaler action: once only, with the same checks. It does not change the order status — the step 5 rule sets statuses. Use it after fixing a refusal. After sending, you see Order sent to wholesaler or Wholesaler already has this order. If sending is refused, the message starts with the notification name, for example Wholesaler: items from other warehouses, and the order gets that notification (see the When an order is not sent to Halmar table).
2. Get consignment note — shown while the order is waiting for the note. It asks Halmar about this one order straight away, instead of waiting for the half-hourly check. When Halmar returns a number, the shipment appears in the row (when expanded) and the message Consignment note saved appears at the bottom of the screen. If the number is not available yet, you see Consignment note not available yet. If Halmar will not ship the order, the same thing happens as during the half-hourly check: a message with the reason and a notification from the Halmar consignment number section.
3. Send number — shown when Halmar’s consignment number has not yet been sent to the marketplace.

You cannot send an order with Error or Withdrawn status a second time from here either; there is no button. If the Halmar connection is disabled, the row shows shipments only, without wholesaler status or buttons, and displays the No connection badge. Its tooltip says: No connection to the wholesaler for this warehouse — you cannot send this part to the wholesaler from here.

A parcel from Halmar’s consignment note. In edit mode (Edit expands all rows), a Halmar parcel has no Add buttons with a carrier name or Send (add document): you cannot add your own label or document to Halmar’s consignment note. Send tracking is available only in edit mode and lets you send the numbers again. It sends all numbers for the order, just like the Auto: tracking push rule. A channel that accepts only one number therefore gets the number for the shipment with more items, which is not necessarily Halmar’s number (see Mixed orders).

Order list. In Orders → Orders (Order list — what you see on screen), the Status column next to the carrier shows a + wholesaler marker when the order already has a Halmar shipment. Hover text says Part of the order is shipped by the wholesaler or collected from the wholesaler’s warehouse. Merely sending the order to Halmar does not add the marker.

Users with Create permission for Orders can see Get consignment note and Send. Send places the order with the wholesaler, so only users who can order goods from the wholesaler see it: a role with Workflow > Action: send orders to wholesaler permission — the same permission that allows adding Send order to wholesaler to a rule (how to grant it: Actions — what a rule can do). Anyone who can see the order can see Send number, just like Send tracking for a parcel in edit mode. The company administrator always sees all these buttons.

Permissions

The Integrations module permission is required for the connection and warehouse mapping; creating the warehouse requires Roles and permissions (Companies, branches, and warehouses — structure). Saving connection settings asks for a 2FA code (2FA confirmation when changing permissions).

In the rule builder, the company administrator and a role with Workflow > Action: send orders to wholesaler permission can see Send order to wholesaler; a role with Workflow > Action: cancel orders with wholesaler permission can see Cancel order with wholesaler (Actions — what a rule can do). The first permission also reveals Send on the order page (see On the order page).