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Order Process

The hashtag order (#order) process is our teamwide ordering process, designed to be an easy way for balenistas and the operations team to do procurement for our distributed team.

When do I use this process?​

Whenever you need something for a project, or for anything that enables your workflow that needs to be purchased, the ops team will procure it for you and get it sent to where you are.

For what do I use this process?​

If an item is difficult to get to your country from the UK, US, or Europe and it's much easier to source locally, we would recommend you purchase the item yourself and have it expensed through expensify. In this case, still send through a hashtag order, stating that you've purchased and expensed it yourself, so that the operations team can record it on the hardware ledger (for valuing assets of the company).

If the item is expensive/over £100, it must be approved by the person overlooking the team/project, and in these cases, it’s best to use the hashtag order process.

In general, exercise your good judgment around the process after you’ve understood how it works and why it works in this way.

How does the process work, and how do I use it?​

Hashtag order format is as follows - quantity x item and link to item of a suitable vendor, send to location (ops team has your information, so just write ‘ship to home address,’ or if you're at an office, say, Milan office, for instance), and for what purpose.

As an example, I am in the UK and say I would like to purchase a Raspberry Pi 4 for a tech event I'm attending to do a demo. But it's not just a Raspberry Pi 4, I also need an SD card, card reader to flash my card, and the power supply. So it would look like this:

#order for Catt, for tech event demo in May. Ship to London Office.

It is your responsibility that the links are to the correct items, so double check your links are correct. They must be the right power cable type, the right specs, model, etc. Sometimes websites will be a little glitchy when it comes to specs and links, so also best practice to specify in the description.

Do not send "#order ten card readers" or “#order an RPi” - this is not helpful to the operations team. Of course, we might just have ten card readers sitting around in the office and can send that to you, but through experience, when there are more detailed nuances to specifications and such, it is helpful to specify specs and the proper links, to maintain this good practice so that the operations team can fulfill and carry out orders with exactness.

We trust our team to be budget-conscious in general and find the most suitable item and vendor. Sometimes items need to be sent to an office first before resending based on the countries. If this is your case, also make it clear in the hashtag order thread, or the operations team will notify you of this. We will also notify you when the item you have has problems - for instance, is out of stock or does not have a printable invoice (which we need for our finance/accounting), or that there's a better vendor we'd like you to use.

Once you send a hashtag order through, the ops team will get it in an inbox and assign it accordingly to the individuals on the operations team for which it makes the most sense to process the order. Each hashtag order sends a separate email, so if you have a couple of items, just send an entire order in one block of text.

Sometimes, we have inventory in the office and will send you things from there, for instance, and in these situations, we will inform you via Jellyfish if we need to change the procurement method. This makes it difficult to calculate exactly when you'll receive it, but we always process our front inbox each day.

In the case that you have a very urgent order, tag the relevant operations team member/office manager who will be best to process your order, and we will put it on our highest priority to get that sent through.

Please note that if you edit the entry on Jellyfish, we will not see it in Front. If you make an edit, you must tag (do not resend a hashtag order) the relevant person or people who will process your order (or just the operations team if you're not sure who it would be) in the Jellyfish thread, notifying the edits made.

Once the order has been made, the team member will comment Ordered on the Jellyfish thread and tag you.

Why do we use this process?​

It is a way for us to keep track of what the company owns, have our operations team handle the details for you with orders and what not, and create standardization for team-wide ordering and procurement. We are still in the process of updating this to make it more efficient, scalable, and automated.