Packing Station for WooCommerce

by ateqa

Description

Documentation | Companion Print App | Developer Hooks

Packing Station for WooCommerce is designed for WooCommerce stores that need to process and pack items in a new order. Staff can see and process orders without having to login to wp-admin. Staff log in through a dedicated Packing Station page and manage incoming WooCommerce orders from a focused screen built for operations like kitchens, packing benches, counters, and fulfilment stations that need to process orders.

The optional Packing Station Print App adds local printing without the need for a Cloud subscription.

Who is Packing Station for?

Hotel kitchen — incoming room service and restaurant orders placed through an online menu, with the room number and any special requests shown directly on the order card.
Restaurant or café — a clean order screen for website or QR-code orders, visible to kitchen staff without any wp-admin access.
Bakery, meal prep, or delivery kitchen — a live production screen for orders that need to be prepared, packed, labelled, or collected.
Flower shop or florist — pick, pack, and mark online orders complete for delivery or collection, all from a single screen.
Dark kitchen or delivery operation — a dedicated order processing display that keeps fulfilment staff away from the main admin.
Local retail or speciality store — a simple order handling screen for teams packing physical WooCommerce orders.
Any WooCommerce store — a purpose-built fulfilment station for any operation that processes physical orders and wants to keep staff out of wp-admin.

Order Feed

Live auto-refreshing order feed showing compact cards (order number, status, date/time, customer, item summary, and optional total) with a browser chime for new orders. Filters by date range and order status. Each card has View and Complete buttons.

Order Detail Modal

Full-screen modal showing the complete order in labelled sections: core order details, line items, totals, customer, billing/shipping addresses, and additional fields from other plugins.

Configurable Fields

Go to WooCommerce Packing Station to choose which fields appear in the modal. Three ways to add fields:

Built-in fields — 35+ fields across seven groups (Core Order, Line Items, Totals, Customer, Billing, Shipping, Other). Line item name/qty and item price are separate toggles so you can show quantities without prices, or include both.
Discovered third-party fields — The plugin scans recent orders for extra meta fields from other plugins (room numbers, table references, custom checkout fields) and lists them with sample values.
Custom meta keys — Manually enter any meta_key for fields not yet discovered.

Click Re-scan Orders at any time to refresh discovered fields. Discovery also runs automatically on first activation.

Optional Pages (disabled by default)

Order Control — Lets staff instantly pause all incoming WooCommerce orders in an emergency. Classic checkout and WooCommerce Cart/Checkout Blocks are blocked site-wide until resumed. Enable only if you want packing station staff to have this capability.
Stock Control — Searchable, paginated product list with a one-tap in-stock/out-of-stock toggle, without needing wp-admin access.

Enable either page in the Features section at the bottom of WooCommerce Packing Station.

Print App

The WordPress plugin is fully functional without the companion Print App. The Print App adds local, non-Cloud printing.

When running in a standard browser, staff open the browser login URL shown at the top of WooCommerce Packing Station. This is your site root URL plus /packing-station-login/. Staff log in with a user assigned the Packing Station role, then they are taken to the Packing Station order feed. The Print buttons are hidden and a download hint is shown in their place. Everything else — the order feed, View modal, Complete button, filters, and all admin settings — works the same in both environments.

When the plugin order feed is opened inside the Packing Station Print app instead of a browser, the plugin automatically detects the printing bridge and enables Print buttons on every order card and inside the Order Detail modal. No plugin configuration, API keys, or pairing is needed.

To enable printing, install the Print App on any Android device with an attached printer: a tablet connected to a desktop or label printer, or a POS device with an integrated thermal printer.

Print a packing list (ideal for retail fulfilment or restaurant room service orders), or print a shipping label to stick on the outside. Works with thermal receipt printers, label printers, and standard desktop printers.

The Print App includes 100 free prints so you can fully test your printing setup before committing to a purchase. The app is free to download from https://ateqa.com; a subscription or print pack is required once the free allowance is used. This print allowance applies only to the optional Android app and does not limit the WordPress plugin.

For a setup guide to the Print App, visit the Packing Station wesbite.

Other Features

Connection indicator, browser audio chime for new orders (can be disabled from the Features panel), dark mode toggle, custom “Packing Station” user role, login gate, standalone page template, HPOS compatibility.
Responsive interface — works on desktop, laptop, tablet, and mobile browsers.

Developer Extensibility

The plugin includes a comprehensive set of WordPress actions and filters for store developers who need to adapt the Packing Station workflow without forking the plugin. Hooks are available for order feed queries, prepared order data, selectable print fields, the Android print payload, access checks, order status changes, stock status changes, and order control changes.

The print payload hooks are guarded: after custom code runs, the plugin restores the minimum core keys the Android companion app expects where possible.

See the Developer Hooks documentation for the full hook reference and examples.

Pages Created on Activation

/packing-station-order-feed/ — Order feed
/packing-station-login/ — Staff login
/packing-station-store-open-close/ — Order Control (optional, disabled by default)
/packing-station-stock-control/ — Stock Control (optional, disabled by default)

Installation

Install from the WordPress plugin directory:

Go to Plugins Add New Plugin.
Search for Packing Station for WooCommerce.
Click Install Now.
Click Activate Plugin.

Or install a zip file downloaded from the Ateqa wesbite.

Go to Plugins Add New Plugin, click Upload Plugin, select the zip file, and click Install Now.
Click Activate Plugin.

After activation:

Go to Users Add New User and create a dedicated Packing Station staff account, for example Packer.
Set the new user’s role to Packing Station. Do not change an existing administrator or shop manager account to this role, because the standard WordPress role dropdown replaces that user’s current role.
Go to WooCommerce Packing Station and tick the fields you want in the Order Detail modal.
Click Re-scan Orders at any time to discover fields added by other plugins.
Enable Order Control and/or Stock Control in the Features section if needed.
Click Save Changes.

For normal browser access, give staff the ‘Browser login URL’ shown at the top of WooCommerce Packing Station. This is your site root URL plus /packing-station-login/. Staff log in with the Packing Station role user account created above, then they are taken to the Packing Station order feed.

Screenshots

Order feed — live auto-refreshing cards showing order number, status, date/time, customer, item summary, and total.
Order Detail modal — full order breakdown in labelled sections, opened from the View button on any order card.
Admin settings page — choose which order fields appear in the Order Detail modal and companion app print payload.
Admin settings page — run field discovery, add custom meta keys, and enable optional Order Control, Stock Control, and new order sound features.
Stock Control page — searchable product list with one-tap in-stock/out-of-stock toggle.
Order Control page — dedicated screen to instantly pause or resume all incoming WooCommerce orders.
Packing Station navigation — slide-out menu showing the order feed, optional Order Control, Stock Control, filters, and logout link available to packing staff.

Faq

What user role is needed to access the packing station?

How do I add staff members?

Go to Users Add New User and create a dedicated staff account, for example Packer. Set that new user’s role to Packing Station. Avoid changing an existing administrator or shop manager account to this role in the WordPress admin screens, because the role dropdown replaces the user’s current role.

Does this plugin work with WooCommerce HPOS?

Yes, full compatibility with WooCommerce High-Performance Order Storage is declared.

How do I choose which fields appear in the Order Detail modal?

Go to WooCommerce Packing Station and tick fields in the built-in groups, enable discovered third-party fields, or add custom meta keys manually. Click Save Changes.

What is automatic field discovery?

Clicking Re-scan Orders scans your most recent orders for meta fields added by other plugins and lists them as checkboxes with sample values. Discovery also runs on first activation.

How do I enable the Order Control or Stock Control page?

Go to WooCommerce Packing Station, scroll to the Features section, check the toggle for the page you want, and click Save Changes.

Can I disable the audio chime for new orders?

Yes. Go to WooCommerce Packing Station, scroll to the Features section, and uncheck New Order Sound. This is useful when running the Android companion app (which has its own audio alert) or in a silent display environment. The native Android sound is unaffected by this setting.

Does the interface have a dark mode?

Yes. Click the 🌙 icon in the header bar to switch to dark mode. The preference is saved in your browser and persists across page loads and sessions. Each device or browser can have its own preference.

What does the Order Control page do?

Gives packing station staff a screen to immediately pause all incoming WooCommerce orders in an emergency (power cut, staffing crisis, etc.). Classic checkout and WooCommerce Cart/Checkout Blocks are blocked site-wide until staff resume it from the same screen.

What does the Stock Control page do?

Provides a searchable product list where staff can toggle items in/out of stock with a single tap, without needing wp-admin access.

Is the Android app required?

No. The WordPress plugin works fully in a standard browser without the Android app. The Print App is optional and adds local printing from Android devices with an attached or integrated printer. The app’s free print allowance, subscription, or print pack does not limit use of the WordPress plugin.

How do I enable printing?

Install the Packing Station Print App on any Android device with an attached printer — a tablet connected to a desktop or label printer, or a POS device with an integrated thermal printer. When the order feed is opened inside the companion app, Print buttons appear automatically. Auto-printing of new orders is also supported.

Does the Print App work on different types of Android devices?

Yes, the interface is optimised for POS devices with integrated thermal pronters or tablets mounted at a packing or fulfilment station but works on desktop and mobile browsers too.

What happens when I deactivate the plugin?

Rewrite rules are flushed; all data and pages remain intact so you can reactivate without losing your configuration.

What happens when I delete the plugin?

When the plugin is deleted from the WordPress admin, its uninstall cleanup removes the four Packing Station pages, the custom Packing Station role, and the plugin options psfw_store_closed, psfw_print_fields, psfw_print_custom_meta, psfw_discovered_meta, and psfw_features.

If the plugin files are removed manually by FTP or file manager instead of using Plugins Delete, WordPress does not run the uninstall cleanup.

Reviews

Changelog

1.0.0

Initial release.
Live order feed with 15-second auto-refresh, date/status filters, and compact order cards showing order number, status, date/time, customer, item summary, and optional line-item price.
Order Detail modal — full-detail view with configurable grouped sections (Core, Items, Totals, Customer, Billing, Shipping, Other, Additional Fields).
35+ built-in order fields across seven groups. Line item name/qty and item price are independent toggles.
Automatic third-party field discovery — scans recent orders for meta fields added by other plugins; Re-scan Orders AJAX button refreshes at any time.
Discovered fields panel shows a Field Key / Sample Value column header for easy identification.
_sections structured array in REST API response for Android companion app receipt layouts.
Optional store-name print header sent to the Android companion app via _print_header.
Preserve WooCommerce decimal formatting for item prices, subtotal, discounts, fees, tax, tips, and order totals in Print App payloads.
Developer hooks for order feed query customisation, print payload extension, field registry extension, access checks, and post-update actions.
Order Control page — instantly pause/resume all incoming WooCommerce orders; disabled by default.
Stock Control page — searchable, paginated product list with one-tap in-stock/out-of-stock toggle; disabled by default.
New Order Sound feature flag — enable/disable the browser audio chime from the Features section independently of the Android companion app audio.
Browser audio chime (Web Audio API) for new orders when running outside the companion app.
Dark mode — 🌙/☀️ toggle in the header bar; preference saved per browser via localStorage.
Android printing via the Packing Station companion app; Print and auto-print buttons appear automatically when the order feed is opened inside the companion app.
Custom Packing Station user role with minimal WooCommerce capabilities and dedicated login page.
Standalone full-width page template with slide-out sidebar navigation.
HPOS compatibility declared.