Why is one worker doing the pick, the put and the load?

Because your work template has four lines and they all carry the same work class. Microsoft's documentation describes exactly that shape, and names the field that separates them.

Four lines, one work class, one worker

Work templates and location directives [GA] (ms.date 2025-08-06) is direct about who decides what a worker is told to do:

"The instructions that warehouse workers receive on a mobile device are determined by the Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management work templates that you set up to define the various warehouse processes and tasks."

Before any of that runs, a wave has to create the work. Per wave templates, "the system creates picking work based on the work template and location directive specified for the warehouse" when a wave is processed.

Wave template — What it decides: Whether and when work gets created · Where it lives: Chapter 4
Work template header — What it decides: When a new work record starts · Where it lives: General tab, Work header breaks
Work template lines — What it decides: The physical tasks, and their work class · Where it lives: The lines grid
Location directive — What it decides: Where each line picks from and puts to · Where it lives: Chapter 6

What a work template is, in the vendor's terms

The shape is a header with lines: "Work templates consist of a header and associated lines. Each work template is for a specific work order type."

The lines are the tasks — "a warehouse worker picks up on-hand inventory in one location and then puts the picked inventory down in another location."

"The system uses the Sequence number field to determine the order that the available work templates are assessed in. Therefore, if you have a very specific query for a particular work template, you should give it a low sequence number. That query will then be evaluated before the other, more general queries."

Each line can also carry a directive code, which "is linked to a location directive, and therefore helps ensure that the warehouse work is processed in the correct location in the warehouse."

The four lines Microsoft describes, which is the whole question

"for an outbound warehouse process, there might be one line for picking up the items in the warehouse and another line for putting those items into a staging area. There can then be an additional line for picking the items from staging and another line for putting the items into a truck as part of the loading process."

Pick, put to staging, pick from staging, put to the truck. Four lines in one work record — and by default a work record is what one worker picks up and completes. Microsoft documents one exception on the same page, and it is the next paragraph.

So the answer to why one person walks the aisle, walks to staging, walks back and loads a truck is that nothing in that template told the system these are different jobs. The default is continuity.

There is a partial brake on the same object. Stop work on a work line means "the worker who is performing the work won't be asked to perform the next work line step. To move on to the next step, that worker or another worker must select the work again."

That releases the work back to the pool rather than assigning the next step to a different kind of worker — a pause, not a split.

Work class is the separator, and it is also the permission

One sentence carries the mechanism: "You can also separate the tasks within a piece of work by using a different work class ID on the work template lines."

The reason that field is more consequential than it looks is what it does on the other side of the system. On set up mobile devices for warehouse work (ms.date 2025-11-20, updated_at 2026-07-30):

"You can control access to the menu item by assigning one or more work classes on the Work class FastTab. The work classes define the work that the menu item can process. Use the work class to grant access to specific user roles or to separate processing for different types of operations."

So the field that splits the loading step off picking is the same field that decides who may do loading. Task separation and access control are one decision in this product, which is why work class is worth more attention than it gets.

Enforcement is explicit for the open work list: "In this work list, users see only work that they have permission to access. You must make sure that users have permission for one or more user-directed menu items that support the specific work class types that they should be able to access."

What the worker is offered next depends on Directed by. Under System directed, "Supply Chain Management controls the type of work that it assigns to a worker and the order that the worker performs the work in", with sorting criteria that "control the order that the worker performs the work in."

Under User directed, "The worker selects the work to perform and the order to perform it in." Same building, same work, opposite experience.

Workers reach any of this only through a menu. Work users at Warehouse management > Setup > Worker sets the top-level menu per worker, and "Workers can only access menu items that are included in the menu that is assigned to their mobile device user account (or a submenu of that menu)."

Header breaks decide what shares one work record

If work class decides who, header breaks decide what travels together. The mechanism is a query field promoted to a grouping field:

"Use the Work header breaks button to define when the system should create new work headers. For example, to create a work header for each order number, select Edit query on the Action Pane, and then add the Order number field to the Sorting tab of the query editor. Fields that are added to the Sorting tab are available for selection as grouping fields. To set your grouping fields, select Work header breaks on the Action Pane, and then, for each field that you want to use as a grouping field, select the check box in the Group by this field column."

Two steps, two screens, and the first looks like sorting. A field that is not on the Sorting tab cannot become a grouping field, which is why header breaks so often do nothing.

This is the most useful setting in the object and almost never discussed, because from the outside a work record looks like something the system decided.

Split criteria decide when one record becomes two

The header also sets limits: "you can set a maximum number of pick lines and a maximum expected pick time. Then, if the work for a sales order picking process exceeds either of those values, that work is split into two pieces of work."

General tab of the work template — work-split criteria "such as Estimated pick time, Volume, Weight, Quantity, and Unit"

Note the hedge, because it is Microsoft's: the list is introduced with such as. Those five are the documented examples, not a closed set.

Units matter more than they look. A Note on the same page: items with multiple units of measure "should be set up with a unit sequence group and relevant conversion ratios", which lets you "create an order using one unit (such as boxes) and then use a different unit (such as pieces) to split the work associated with the order."

How we optimize this, and where we would draw the line

Pick-Path & Slotting Optimizer decides which orders travel together and which item earns which slot, writing the answer back into the wave, cluster and slotting objects Dynamics 365 executes, behind an approval step. Dynamics is the system of record; the optimization above it is a modelling problem.

A working demo exists; it is not off the shelf. We build it against your systems and your constraints on request, and we have no delivered warehouse engagements — so this is a capability, not a report on somebody's building.

Header breaks are the clearest illustration of the boundary. The work template faithfully groups by the field you nominate; which field to nominate, given today's order profile, is the modelling question.

We would not change your work classes. That field is an access-control boundary as well as a task boundary, so editing it reassigns who may do what, and it belongs to whoever owns your warehouse roles.

We would also not propose splitting the load step off picking as a general recommendation. In a small building continuity is cheaper than a handover, and that is a judgement about your floor, not a rule.

What to do this week

Open one outbound work template and count the lines. If it runs pick, put, pick, put through to loading with one work class on every line, you have found your answer. 2. Look at the work classes on those lines. A different work class ID is the documented way to separate the tasks — and the same field controls who may perform each one. 3. Check the header breaks against the Sorting tab. A field can only become a grouping field after it is added to Sorting in the query editor, which is why header breaks so often do nothing. 4. Read the split criteria on the General tab. Microsoft's list is introduced with such as, so treat it as examples rather than the whole set.

About Cognilium Cognilium is the AI optimization layer for Dynamics 365 — complementary apps that optimize the pricing, inventory, warehouse and planning decisions your ERP manages but can't optimize. Built on Power Platform, Dataverse and Azure. https://cognilium.ai · https://www.linkedin.com/company/37180269/

If you are looking at work template design, book a fifteen-minute call and we will read your header breaks and work classes with you — what shares a record, and who is allowed to touch it. No deck. https://cognilium.ai

Why is one worker doing the pick, the put and the load?