Zones, Sections & Path Sequence
What this does
Every storage location in a Teamship warehouse can be organised in three ways:
| Setting | What it is | Used for |
|---|---|---|
| Zone | The kind of area a location belongs to, such as Regular, Picking or a zone you create | Shown next to the location almost everywhere in Teamship, and used to scope cycle counts |
| Section | A custom group of locations, created in cycle counting | Scoping cycle counts only |
| Path sequence | A number giving the location's position along the walking route | Ordering pick lists, batch pick routes, scan sequences and guided counts |
Setting these up well makes picking faster, counts easier to plan and documents easier to read.
Zones
Each location has exactly one zone. A location created without a zone is set to Regular.
Teamship comes with two zones:
- Regular: general storage
- Picking: pick faces and bins used for ecommerce picking
You can also create your own zones to match your building, such as Frozen, Dry, Mezzanine or Returns. Custom zones are created in the Locations area when managing your warehouse.
The Picking zone is special: a location in the Picking zone is a picking location. Ecommerce orders can only be picked from picking locations, stock moved into one becomes ecommerce stock, and its LPNs become picking LPNs. See Product & LPN Relocate.
Only the Picking zone works this way. Every other zone, including Regular and any zone you create, is a storage location, so a custom zone can't be turned into a picking zone. Apart from that, zones don't change sorting or routing; path sequence controls order.
Wherever a location appears, its zone is shown in brackets, for example A-01-02 (Picking). This includes:
- LPN Lookup, Relocate LPN and Relocate LPN by Scan
- Product Relocate (web and mobile)
- Update Inventory Stock
- Inventory orders: the Products tab, the Location/LPN tab and Receiving Details
- Ship by LPN orders
- Every picking list (as a Zone column)
- The Utilization Report, the Adjustment Report and their Excel exports
If you rename a zone, the new name shows everywhere the next time each page loads.
💡 Older material may say Location Type. It has been renamed to Zone throughout Teamship.
Setting a location's zone
- New location: choose the Zone when adding the location in Warehouse Locations.
- Existing location: in Warehouse Locations, use the Change Location Zone action.
- Many locations: fill in the Zone column of the bulk add/update locations template.
The warehouse-level zone settings are on the warehouse's create and edit pages, under Location Zone.
Showing zones on documents
Warehouse receipts, bulk packing lists and ecommerce packing lists each have a Zone checkbox in their template settings. It is unticked by default. Tick it to add a Zone column to the document.
→ See: Document Templates
Sections
A section is a custom group of locations, such as "Aisles 1–4" or "Back wall racking". Sections let you plan counts around how your team actually divides the floor, even when that doesn't match your zones.
Sections belong to cycle counting:
- They are created inside a cycle count project, not on the warehouse pages.
- They are used only to set the scope of cycle counts.
- Once created, a section can be reused in other cycle count projects.
- Each location can belong to only one section.
Creating sections
In a cycle count project:
- Create a section and give it a name.
- Add locations to it in the project's section screen.
- If you have hundreds or thousands of locations, use the bulk import template in the project to assign locations to sections in one upload.
Choose sections instead of zones when you want to count an area that cuts across zones, or only part of one.
→ See: Cycle Counting
Path sequence
Path sequence is a number on each location that sets its order along the walking route through the warehouse. Locations are visited from the lowest number to the highest.
- It's optional and blank by default.
- It accepts numbers only.
- Several locations can share the same number, for example both sides of an aisle.
Set it when adding a location in Warehouse Locations, or in bulk with the Path Sequence column of the bulk add/update locations template. The current values are shown in the Path Sequence column of the Warehouse Locations directory.
Where path sequence is used
- Batch picking: builds the shortest pick route across a batch
- Pick lists and scan sequences: locations with a path sequence are listed first, lowest first
- Guided cycle counts: leads counters location by location in route order
Locations without a path sequence fall back to other ordering, such as LPN FIFO or location code. Pick routes are noticeably less efficient until path sequences are filled in.
💡 Number locations in steps of 10 (10, 20, 30…). That leaves room to slot in new locations later without renumbering the whole warehouse.
Roles and permissions
Warehouse managers and administrators
- Add locations and set their zone and path sequence
- Create custom zones and change location zones
- Create and manage sections in cycle count projects
Warehouse associates
- See zones next to locations while picking, receiving, relocating and counting
Customers
- Don't manage locations. On some order screens they may filter stock by zone, but they never see individual locations.
Common issues
| Issue | Likely cause |
|---|---|
| A location shows (Regular) but should be Picking | It was created without a zone. Use Change Location Zone. |
| Pick routes zig-zag across the warehouse | Path sequences are missing, or don't follow the walking route |
| Some locations always appear last on pick lists | They have no path sequence |
| Can't change a location's zone away from Picking | The location still holds stock. Relocate it first. |
| An order can't be picked even though stock is in the warehouse | The stock isn't in a Picking-zone location. Replenish it. |
| Can't add a location to a section | It already belongs to another section. A location can be in only one. |
| Can't find sections on the warehouse pages | Sections are created and managed inside cycle count projects |
| No Zone column on a packing list or receipt | The Zone checkbox isn't ticked in that template |