Workflow: Managing a No-Choice CSA

The fewer the choices, the fewer the headaches. VeggieCropper saves you time and adds value to your members by simplifying your weekly CSA workflow.

VeggieCropper allows you to combine a basic newsletter with a list of share contents for the week, showing the member's share value with the remaining share value for the season and emailing this directly from VeggieCropper to your members.

You can run multiple share types at the same time through VeggieCropper as well, including combinations of no-choice and choice shares that all show on one harvest list that is automatically updated in real-time.

You can provide a no-choice CSA but allow members to cancel their shares for the week. See the bottom of this help doc for more details.


Read through and set up your customer/member groups here before proceeding.

Setup your online order form for this week's CSA

No Choice CSA Weekly Workflow

A) Configuring your online order form

  1. From the 'Harvests' page, click on the Online Order Form icon beside '+ Harvest'.
  2. Click on '+Online Order Form'.
  3. Complete the fields as required:
    1. The title will show at the top of the order form page as well as the customer's confirmation email
    2. Text box - Engage your members with newsletter content, including photos and if you know some HTML you can code in basic features to dress up the content if you like.
    3. Set your order windows to start once you have finalized the share contents you want members to see. You can close the order window when the week ends. Members can still see the newsletter content in the text box, but the share content won't show.
    4. Phone and address fields - not required as long as your members already have added their details when they signed up, or you do not need them.
    5. Location - This is used to determine the pickup location for this share and will show on every share packed for this online order form.
    6. Ignore minimum, maximum, and payment controls - not relevant for a no-choice CSA
    7. AutoPay with customer credit - Select this box if you are using VC's credit feature. If members have not purchased credit, this feature will still work; their accounts will show a negative credit number until they purchase credit.
    8. 'Confirmation reply email' is the email address in the 'reply to' field members will receive in their order confirmation emails. This email will receive a notification for share cancellations and changes to a share if they are allowed. Emails listed in this box are the account owner and existing crew account emails.
    9. Order confirmation text - You can customize the text members will see when you create their shares in VeggieCropper. Members will also see this text in an e-mail if they are able to cancel their share.
  4. Click 'Save'

B) Setting up your shares for your No-Choice CSA

Once you save your form settings page, you will go to the form setup page. This page allows you to build the shares by clicking + Unit to add a new unit or select an existing unit. Click the pencil icon to get back to the form setup page if needed.

For a no-choice CSA, you have to ensure that the amount available is correct or more than enough to fill all of your shares ordered from this form.

  1. Click 'Save' after adding a few units. 
    1. You can re-order units after clicking save and dragging and dropping using the small 8 dot icon beside each crop unit.
  2. Click on the eye icon to see how the share will appear to the customer.
  3. Adjust as needed.

Sending your members their a farm update and share contents from VeggieCropper

Once your share is ready and you want your members to see it, you can place an order for each customer and send them an email the includes pictures and a farm update; no log-in is required. 


Creating your email to your members

  1. Click the envelope icon beside the pencil icon on the Online Order Form setup page.
  2. Select the customer groups to send this form to
  3. Type an email subject; this is how the subject will appear to the customer
  4. Add e-mail text, consider including:
    1. Order opening and closing times
    2. Farm update
    3. Adding pictures
  5. Customize the link text the customer will see to something like: 'Click here to customize your share'

Nice work! Now you can set up the Auto Order, which will place the editable orders for each of your members and create the unique links they will receive in the email.


C) Creating shares and e-mailing your members with 'Auto Order'


To create the shares in VeggieCropper to be harvested and packed for your members and send them an email:

  1. Click on 'Auto Order'
  2. Determine the amounts of each unit to order for each share.
  3. Click Next to see a confirmation page where you will see the e-mail the customer will receive, including the link they can use to see their order.
  4. Click 'Send & Order'

D) Harvesting for your CSA


As soon as you click 'Send & Order', orders with harvests will be created for each of your members. Your harvest list will now include what you need to harvest for this CSA pickup.


There are a few ways to use VeggieCropper here, select the scenario that makes the most sense for you:

1) Harvesting for my CSA only

2) Harvesting for one or more CSA locations or markets at the same time


To print a harvest list for your CSA only:

  1. Click 'Harvests' at the top of the page
  2. Click the 'Harvests' tab
  3. Click the down arrow beside the magnifying glass to show more filters
  4. Click on the 'Groups' filter and select the customer group you are harvesting for
  5. Click on the small rectangular group icon next to the calculator
  6. Press command or control P to print this page to paper

1) I am harvesting for my CSA only

  1. Click 'Harvests' at the top of the page
  2. Click the 'Harvests' tab
  3. Once your harvest is complete for a crop you can click the checkmark on the right
    1. This will mark the harvest for this crop as complete in all of your CSA shares

2) I am harvesting for one or more CSA locations and or markets

  1. Click 'Harvests' at the top of the page
  2. Click the 'Harvests' tab
  3. To complete a harvest for a CSA pickup for a unit that is also being sold at market, click on the crop unit to go to a filtered view of that crop unit on the current tab
  4. Click the down arrow beside the magnifying glass to show more filters
  5. Click on the 'Groups' filter and select the customer group you have completed the harvest for
  6. Select the bulk edit box beside the pencil icon to select upto 25 members at a time
  7. Select the pencil icon
  8. In the harvest field select 'yes'
  9. Click 'Save'

D) Packing your CSA

To see your packing totals for a specific CSA pickup, whether that is needed to pack individual shares or bulk pack for a pickup where members pack their own shares:

  1. On the Harvests page, select the 'Current' tab
  2. Click the down arrow beside the magnifying glass to show more filters
  3. Click on the 'Groups' filter and select the customer group you have completed the harvest for
  4. Click on the small rectangular group icon next to the calculator

E) Completing the CSA Pickup for the week

Each CSA member has an order in the system every week for their share. You can complete these orders by going to the harvest list tab which is the tab furthest to the left on the harvests page. This tab lists all of the active orders in VeggieCropper at the top.

To complete CSA orders for members in bulk:

  1. Click 'Harvests' in the nav bar
  2. Click the down arrow beside the magnifying glass to show more filters
  3. Click on the 'Groups' filter and select the customer group you want to complete the orders for
  4. Select the bulk edit box beside the pencil icon to select upto 25 members at a time
  5. Select the pencil icon
  6. In the 'Completed' field, select yes
  7. Click 'Save'

Done!

F) A shortcut for smaller CSA's and general tip

Smaller CSA's can create a harvest list based on share contents and harvest everything necessary and then bulk complmete each CSA member's order in E above.

Completing an order automatically marks each crop unit as harvested and packed.

Offer your members the ability to cancel their shares

If you want to provide members with the ability to cancel shares, check out the Choice CSA instructions, and you will need to:

  1. On the online form set up page (click the pencil icon when on the online order form page). Select ' Allow customers to edit their order before the order window closes.'
  2. Set the ordering open and closing dates accordingly; your members will be able to cancel their shares until the ordering window closes but not after.
  3. When building the form crop by crop, make all of your share items required with a maximum value of 1 each. If you want to put two of one thing in the share without choice, you can add another of that crop unit and make required and maximum 1.