Directed Put-away and Pick is the Location Card setting in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central that hands bin selection to the system: put-away templates and bin ranking decide where stock goes and where it is picked from, and every movement is recorded through a warehouse document or journal. That single toggle changes how handheld scanning, inventory counting, and license plates behave, which is why so many partner questions take the form “does this app support Directed Put-away and Pick?” This article explains the setting, what it changes for warehouse documents, and how each Insight Works app behaves under it.
What is Directed Put-away and Pick in Business Central?
Directed Put-away and Pick is the top level of warehouse configuration in Business Central, and the only level at which Business Central proposes the bin rather than accepting whatever bin a worker types. Microsoft Learn’s page “Design Details: Warehouse Setup” describes the complexity levels leading up to it and the bin, zone, and ranking concepts it relies on (warehouse setup design details for Business Central).
Turning it on brings the rest of the warehouse configuration with it. Microsoft Learn’s warehouse design page lists it as the top complexity level and notes that its “dependent toggles are enabled automatically,” so Bin Mandatory and the four Require settings (Require Receive, Require Put-away, Require Pick, Require Shipment) come on together (warehouse activity design details in Business Central). Treat it as a go-live decision for the location rather than a setting to revisit; changing the warehouse level once stock and warehouse entries exist is a project to plan with your partner. Microsoft Learn’s page “Set up a location card and define transfer routes” covers the fields themselves (Location Card fields in Business Central).
With the toggle on, five configuration objects start doing work:
- Zones group bins by purpose: receive, bulk, pick, ship, quality hold.
- Bin types declare what a bin allows: Receive, Ship, Put Away, Pick, or Put Away and Pick.
- Bin ranking orders bins so the highest-ranked pick bin is emptied first and replenished from lower-ranked bulk bins.
- Put-away templates (Put-away Template Code on the Location Card) tell Business Central how to search for a destination: a bin already holding the item, a fixed bin, an empty bin, a bin with capacity.
- Bin capacity (Bin Capacity Policy, with Maximum Cubage and Maximum Weight on the bin) controls whether Business Central checks or prohibits overfilling.
The result: a Warehouse Put-away line arrives on the floor with a proposed Bin Code filled in, and a Warehouse Pick line arrives sorted by bin ranking with the pick bin chosen.
What does Directed Put-away and Pick change for warehouse documents?
It changes three things: the bin is proposed rather than chosen, movements become documents, and adjustments route through a dedicated bin.
- Proposed bins. Warehouse Put-aways are created from posted Warehouse Receipts with the template-selected bin on each line. Microsoft Learn’s page on warehouse put-aways describes the document and the Put-away Worksheet used to manage them in bulk (warehouse put-away documents in Business Central). Picks are created from Warehouse Shipments or through the Pick Worksheet, and breakbulk lines appear when a pick needs to open a larger unit of measure.
- Movements as documents. Moving stock between bins uses the Movement Worksheet (to generate Warehouse Movements) or the Whse. Item Journal, not the Item Reclassification Journal. Replenishment of forward pick bins from bulk is a Movement Worksheet function driven by bin ranking and the Minimum Qty. on bin content.
- Adjustments through the Adjustment Bin. Quantity changes at a directed location post first to the Adjustment Bin Code named on the Location Card, which Microsoft Learn describes as “a virtual bin with no real items,” then to the item ledger through Calculate Warehouse Adjustment in the Item Journal (counting inventory with journals in Business Central). Counting follows the same two-step path using the Warehouse Physical Inventory Journal.
One first-hand edge case: because Require Receive and Require Shipment come on with the directed setting, the documents at a directed location are the warehouse versions (Warehouse Receipt, Put-away, Pick, and Shipment), not the order-by-order Inventory Put-aways and Inventory Picks. A company that trained on inventory picks at a basic location retrains when it moves a site to directed.
How do Insight Works apps behave under Directed Put-away and Pick?
The apps behave differently because they do different jobs. The table summarizes the position per app.
| App | Behavior at a Directed Put-away and Pick location |
|---|---|
| Warehouse Insight | Executes the Warehouse Receipts, Put-aways, Picks, and Shipments Business Central generates; scans the bin where bins are mandatory; works directed movements from the Movement Worksheet; pick sort order can be overridden by any exposed field; bin inquiry and item inquiry available mid-pick |
| WMS Express | Its Warehouse configuration level works Warehouse Receipts, Put-aways, and Picks; directed movements from the Movement Worksheet, bin inquiry, and license plates belong to Warehouse Insight |
| Advanced Inventory Count | Works across every location setup including Directed Put-away and Pick, with or without lot and serial tracking; count sheets by bin, shelf, item, or custom filter |
| License Plating | Creates a plate against a location and optional bin; plate used in receiving, movement, picking, production, and shipping; an enhancement to Warehouse Insight, not a standalone app |
| Order Fulfillment Worksheet | Creates warehouse picks per location with grouping by zones, bins, or due dates; Send to Movement Worksheet at directed locations; no reservations against non-pickable bins |
The rest of this article takes scanning, counting, and license plates in turn.
How does handheld scanning behave with Directed Put-away and Pick?
Handheld scanning at a directed location confirms the bin Business Central proposed, rather than asking the worker to decide. That is where the accuracy gain comes from.
Warehouse Insight from Insight Works follows the same pattern at every level: choose or scan a document, scan a bin where bins are mandatory, scan an item, enter the quantity, post. At a directed location the bin scan is checked against the proposed bin on the put-away or pick line. Warehouse Insight also works directed movements from the Movement Worksheet, so the replenishment moves generated from bin ranking are executed by scan rather than from a printed list. The feature page on warehouse put-away from a handheld in Business Central shows the put-away flow, and the app page on mobile warehouse management for Business Central covers the full application set, including the Application Designer for changing screens without development work.
A configuration detail matters here. Pick creation is left to standard Business Central, including wave, batch, and combined picks. Warehouse Insight does not generate picks; it executes them. If pick lines arrive in an unhelpful sequence, the fix is in bin ranking, the Pick Worksheet sort, or the handheld’s overridable sort order. “Directed picks based on bin ranking” works the same way: the ranking is Business Central’s, and the handheld honors it.
Does inventory counting support Directed Put-away and Pick?
Yes for Advanced Inventory Count; the standard tools take a different path. Advanced Inventory Count from Insight Works works across every Business Central location setup: no locations, bins optional or mandatory, Directed Put-away and Pick, and any of those with lot or serial tracking. It is licensed per company, and runs standalone or alongside Warehouse Insight.
This matters at a directed location because of the two-step posting path described above. Standard counting there uses the Warehouse Physical Inventory Journal and then Calculate Warehouse Adjustment, and a failure in the second step after a large count is painful. Advanced Inventory Count adds a posting test report that flags blocked items, missing item tracking, and missing posting groups before the batch runs, plus variance-triggered recount sheets with an audit trail. The app page on structured inventory counting for Business Central lists the count sheet options.
A common objection is “we use shelf numbers, not bins.” In Business Central terms, a shelf number is a bin. Turning on Bin Mandatory and loading the shelf numbers as bin codes gives you bin-level counting without going all the way to directed, and Advanced Inventory Count generates count sheets by shelf as readily as by bin. Bin labels for those shelves can be printed from the sample reports in Barcode Generator PowerTool. This is a completely free app from Insight Works for Business Central.
Count sheets are generated by bin, shelf, item, or a custom filter, and a bin range covers most of what a zone boundary would; a directed location’s zones are, after all, groups of bins.
How do license plates behave with Directed Put-away and Pick?
A license plate at a directed location is a container record that carries item, lot, quantity, and location, so one scan of the plate replaces separate scans of every line on it. License Plating from Insight Works creates that record against a location and an optional bin; the plate is then used in receiving, movement, picking, production consumption and output, and shipping. Plates can be nested, and license plate templates with predefined dimensions can be scanned at the start of picking.
The Insight Works article on what license plating means in a Business Central warehouse explains the appeal in one line: “That barcode represents all the information (items, quantity, lot/serials, location) behind the scenes.” At a directed location, where every move is a document and every bin is mandatory, that reduction in scans makes pallet-level handling workable. The feature page on license plating from a handheld in Business Central shows the flows.
Two boundaries apply. License Plating requires Warehouse Insight, is never a standalone recommendation, and is licensed per company. And a license plate is an internal identifier, not an SSCC; an SSCC requires the shipper’s own licensed GS1 Company Prefix, and the plate is the internal record the SSCC label is built from. The knowledge base carries the current prerequisites for pick to license plate; confirm them with your partner before a directed rollout depends on plate-level picking.
FAQ: Directed Put-away and Pick
Does inventory counting support Directed Put-away and Pick?
Advanced Inventory Count does, along with every other location configuration and lot or serial tracking. Standard Business Central counts a directed location through the Warehouse Physical Inventory Journal and Calculate Warehouse Adjustment.
We use shelf numbers, not bins. Does that matter?
No. A shelf number is a bin in Business Central. Load the shelf numbers as bin codes with Bin Mandatory on, and scanning and counting work at shelf level without Directed Put-away and Pick.
Are directed picks based on bin ranking?
Yes. Bin ranking is a standard Business Central setting on the bin. Warehouse Picks are sorted by it, and a handheld executing the pick honors that sequence unless the sort is overridden.
Does Warehouse Insight generate picks at a directed location?
No. Standard Business Central creates the picks, including wave, batch, and combined picks. Warehouse Insight executes them and works the directed movements from the Movement Worksheet.
Can I turn Directed Put-away and Pick off later?
Treat it as a go-live decision. Changing the warehouse level at a location that already holds stock and warehouse entries is a project to plan with your partner, not a setting to flip.
Does License Plating work without Warehouse Insight?
No. License Plating requires Warehouse Insight and is licensed per company as an addition to it.