The Jobs Queue

Bulk actions in Helm WMS do not run while you wait: they are handed to a background queue so you can carry on working. The Jobs Queue is where those jobs are recorded, and this article covers how to reach it, what each status means, how to retry or investigate a job that did not finish, and how long the history is kept.

Why Bulk Actions Are Queued

When you archive 400 orders, publish a pick, import a product file or generate a report, Helm does not hold your browser open until the work is done. It accepts the request, tells you the job is queued, processes it in the background and notifies you when it is done.

Those notifications are not throwaway. They stay in the list behind the bell, grouped under Jobs In Progress, Ready to Download and Snoozed Problems, and one about a job that went wrong carries a See problems here link to the same failure list the queue opens. What the queue adds is history, and the one action a notification cannot start: retrying a job.

Example scenario: you set a new status on 900 orders at the end of the day. The notification tells you the job is queued, so you carry on. Half an hour later the queue shows it as Error with 12 of 900 skipped. You open See Errors, find all 12 are on hold, release them and run the action again on those orders.

Before You Start

The Jobs Queue is not on the sidebar. Click your name in the top right of any page, then Jobs, then Jobs Queue. The same submenu holds Printing Queue, which tracks documents sent to a printer rather than background jobs.
The list covers your whole company, not just your own jobs. Anything a colleague queued is here too, which is useful when someone is off and their import needs chasing. Use the User filter to narrow it to one person.
Permissions are enforced on the request, not by hiding buttons. System Jobs Listing lets the list load; System Jobs Cancel and System Jobs Retry cover the two actions. Everyone sees the actions on the row, so a missing permission shows up as an Uh-Oh! dialog when you click rather than as an absent button.
History is kept for one month. Older jobs are removed overnight, so this is not a long-term audit trail.
The page updates itself. Statuses change in place as jobs progress, so you can leave it open and watch a long import finish.

How to Read the Queue

Open Jobs Queue from your account menu. Jobs are listed newest first.
Read the row across. Name says which job it is, Type which part of Helm it came from, and Specifics what it was doing.
Narrow the list with Filters: Name, Type, Specifics, User, Date and Status. A combination you use often can be kept with Save as New under Saved Filters, and Clear All Filters resets the list.
Click a column header to sort by it.
Use the search box to find a job by name or by who ran it.

Column	What it tells you
Name	The record's name or number for a movement, inventory check, pick, import, export or report; the action itself for a bulk action.
Type	The area of Helm the job belongs to, for example Order Actions or Import.
Specifics	The exact operation, for example Update Order Status, Publish Pick or Import Inventory.
User	Who queued it. Empty where the job was started by Helm itself rather than a person.
Date	When the job was queued.
Status	Where the job has got to. See the next section.
Actions	What you can do about it, depending on the status.

Search matches the job name as Helm stores it, so it works for anything named after a record: a movement or inventory check number, a pick, an import file or a report. For bulk actions, filter on Type and Specifics instead.

A dash in the Type or Specifics column is not a fault: the job is a newer kind the queue has no name for yet. The Name column still identifies it, and both See Errors and See Logs work as normal.

What the Statuses Mean

Status	What it means	What you can do
Waiting	Accepted and queued, but not started yet.	Cancel it.
In Progress	Running now. The row shows a spinner.	Nothing. Let it finish.
Completed	Finished, with every record processed.	Download the result, if the job produced one.
Error	Finished, but some records were skipped. The status carries the number skipped against the total.	Read the failures with See Errors. Retry is offered here but will be refused.
Failed	The job did not complete, or every record failed.	Retry it, or investigate first with See Errors.
Cancelled	Cancelled before it started, by you or a colleague.	Retry it.

Reports behave differently. A finished report shows how long its file stays available instead of Completed, counting down day by day and turning red on the last day. When the countdown runs out the Status cell goes blank: the report is past its 30 days, so generate it again.

A job that sits at In Progress without moving for over three hours is marked Failed automatically. That is a genuine failure, not a display quirk, so retry it rather than waiting longer.

Cancelling, Retrying & Investigating

The action on the right of each row changes with the status; where a job has more than one option, they sit behind a menu.

Cancel a Job That Has Not Started

While a job is still Waiting, use Cancel on the row. Helm marks the job Cancelled and unwinds what it had set up, which is not the same as putting things back as they were:

Create Batch Despatch cancels the batch shipment and every shipment on it. They are cancelled, not returned to pending, so those orders have to go through a new batch.
Create Pick cancels the pick that was about to be built.
An import or export is closed off and recorded as failed.
Initial Stock Level releases the stock control switch on the warehouse, which Helm holds shut while an opening stock run is queued: the one cancellation that changes a warehouse-level setting.

A cancellation can be refused even while the status reads Waiting: a Create Pick job whose pick has already moved off pending will not cancel, and a permission group without System Jobs Cancel cannot cancel anything. Both come back as the Uh-Oh! dialog. Once a job is In Progress it cannot be cancelled at all, and the notification's cancel link is no different: offered on a running job, refused.

Retry a Failed or Cancelled Job

Open the menu on the row and choose Retry. On a cancelled job the retry button sits directly on the row.
Helm puts the job back to Waiting with the same instructions and records and reprocesses it from the start. Retrying a Create Batch Despatch job also returns the batch shipment and its shipments to pending.
Watch the status. A retry that fails again is telling you the problem is in the data or the settings, not the queue.

Retry is only accepted on a job whose status is Failed or Cancelled. It is still offered on an Error job, where the click produces the same error dialog. An Error job has done most of its work anyway, so read the failures, put those records right and re-run the action on just them. Retry is left off the menu altogether on a Create Batch Shipment job, where See Errors and See Logs are the only options.

See Errors

See Errors is the one to reach for first on anything that did not go cleanly. It opens a list of what was skipped, a row per record with a Reason against each. The title and the link back to the records change with the job:

Job	Dialog you get	Link inside it
Orders	Bulk Problems	See Orders
Inventory	Bulk Problems	See Filtered Inventory
Locations	Excluded Locations	See Location List
Purchase orders	Bulk Problems	See Purchase Orders
Movements	Bulk Problems	Go to Movements
Inventory checks	Bulk Problems	Go to Inventory Checks
Picks	Bulk Problems	See Pick List
Creating a pick	Pick Problems	See Orders
An import	Import Problems	None: the rows carry file row numbers instead.
A report	Report Problems	See Reports

On an import, each row also shows your file's row number wherever Helm captured one, which is what you need to fix the sheet and re-import. A Create Pick job gets two extra options under Actions: Tag as ‘Pick Failed’ and Move to ‘Pick Failed’ folder, which mark the excluded orders so the warehouse can handle them as a batch.

Two jobs skip the dialog. On a Create Batch Shipment job, See Errors takes you to Batch Despatch with that job's orders loaded; on a Create Batch Despatch job it takes you to the batch despatch history instead.

See Logs

See Logs opens the job's entry in Request Logs, on the Settings page under System Settings. It is the technical view, not the operational one, worth quoting to support when a job fails for no obvious reason, and it only appears on jobs that recorded a log.

Download & Go To

A finished export or report shows a Download button on the row: the same file the completed notification offers under Ready to Download. Go to is wired up for Batch Despatch Actions only, where it reads Go to Batch Despatch; elsewhere it is disabled with a Coming Soon tooltip, so open the record from its own list.

What Puts a Job in the Queue

Almost anything acting on more than one record at a time appears here, and the Type tells you where it came from.

Type	What creates a job of this type
Import	Any file imported into Helm: products, orders, customers, suppliers, locations, deliveries, purchase orders, batches and serial numbers.
Export	A list or record exported with Export List or Export Card.
Reporting	A report generated under Reporting.
Order Actions	Bulk actions on Orders: statuses, tags, folders, holds, merges, cancellations, order rules, plus document and label printing.
Inventory Actions	Bulk actions on Inventory: tags, categories, tax groups, stock sync, archive, delete and barcode printing.
Location Actions	Bulk changes to warehouse locations, and location barcode printing.
Pick Actions	Creating a pick, publishing a pick, and bulk actions on Pick Management.
Movement Actions	Creating a movement, and bulk actions on Movements.
Inventory Check Actions	Creating an inventory check, and bulk actions on Inventory Checks.
Batch Despatch Actions	Creating, cancelling or deleting a batch despatch.
Shipment Actions	Creating, cancelling or restoring shipments in bulk.
Purchase Orders Actions	Bulk actions on Purchase Orders, including sending to a supplier and creating deliveries.
Initial Stock Level	Setting a warehouse's opening stock when you first switch stock control on.
Everything else	Delivery Actions, Custom Field Actions, Customer Actions, Supplier Actions, User Actions, Order Folder Actions, Pick Routine Actions, Notification Actions, Tax Group Actions, Job Reasons Actions, Purchase Order Items Actions and Sorting Actions, all working the same way.

Best Practices & Notes

Check the Queue Before Repeating an Action

If a bulk action seems not to have worked, look here before running it again. A job still Waiting or In Progress has not gone missing, and running the same thing twice is how duplicate tags, duplicate picks and puzzling stock figures happen.

Helm helps here. While a job of the same kind is unfinished and covers records you have selected, the bulk action bar refuses to submit and shows Wait for jobs in progress to finish to use bulk actions. If that earlier job ran against a filter rather than a named selection, every selection of that kind is blocked until it finishes.

Print Jobs & the Missing Cancel Link

Four jobs have no cancel link on their notification, because print runs are usually at the printer before anyone reads it: Print Order Document, Print Order Label, Print Location Barcode and Print Inventory Barcode. That is a decision about the notification, not the job: if one is still at Waiting in the queue, the Cancel button on the row works as normal.

Small document runs never reach the queue at all: a print of 25 orders or fewer is produced inside the request and handed straight back. Anything larger is queued like any other bulk action.

FAQ

Why Was My Retry Refused on a Job That Says Error?

Because retrying only accepts Failed and Cancelled, and an Error job counts as finished. The menu still offers Retry there, so the click comes back as the Uh-Oh! dialog. Read the failures with See Errors and re-run the action on the skipped records.

Why Is Retry Still Clickable After Three Attempts?

The menu item only greys out one attempt after the limit takes effect, so the fourth click looks available but is refused. The error dialog is the refusal itself, not a bug.

Why Is the Status Blank on a Finished Report?

Its countdown has run out, so the report is past the 30 days Helm shows it for. Generate it again.

If a job has failed twice for a reason that does not make sense, contact support with its Name, Type and Date, and say whether See Logs was available on the row. That is enough to trace it end to end.

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