The Custom Shares Dashboard
If you are running a customizable CSA on GrownBy, the Custom Shares page of your dashboard is the place to go for settings and information related to that customization. It’s also the place to go to set your customization to open automatically once you’ve adjusted your inventory for the custom share.
GrownBy staff have to help you set up your Custom Share. Please fill out
this form at least four weeks before the start of your season so that we can gather the necessary information to set things up! If you’d like to talk with us, feel free to schedule with GrownBy staff
here.
Custom Shares Dashboard
The first page looks like this:
Many farms will have a single customization (as shown above) so there will just be one row of information on this page. However, farms that distribute custom shares on different days and want to have different customization windows for those different distributions may have more than one customization and, therefore, more than one row. You can have more than one primary share included in a given customization. So, for example, if you have three sizes and biweekly frequencies for each, you will still only have one Custom Share, and all of those products will be included under one Customization.
These are the sections of this page and how to interpret them:
Primary Shares
Lists all primary shares that are included in a given customization. These primary shares must be in a
CSA Group along with all of the products that you want to be available for customization.
Ordering Opens
The day and time when emails go out and ordering opens each week. You tell us when you would like to open and we set it up. When ordering opens, all customers who have purchased one of the connected primary shares receive an email and/or push notification letting them know it’s time to customize! If they choose to log in during the open window, they will also see a pop-up and a banner with links to the customization.
Ordering Closes
The day and time when ordering closes each week. You tell us when you would like to close at the beginning of the season. When ordering closes, any customers who have one of the included primary shares but have not checked out with a customized order will have a share ordered for them automatically by GrownBy using the remaining inventory and based on their saved preferences, if they have any.
Status
Either Open or Closed, the status tells you where you are in your customization cycle.
Viewing/Editing a Customization
If you click on a Customization, you will see this screen:

The first thing you’ll notice is the red text which either says “Ordering is currently CLOSED” or “Ordering is currently OPEN”. The green text beneath it tells you if Autorun is enabled or not. If Autorun is enabled, the share will open at your Orders Open day and time. If not, you need to enable Autorun before Orders Open day and time arrive.
Note: You will not be able to see the Test Opening and Open Ordering options – these are visible to GrownBy staff only.
You’ll see the days and times when your customization window will open and close for ordering. You can also see when the Next Scheduled Run is – this tells you when you should expect your Orders to Open or Close next.
Included Primary Shares
As mentioned above, multiple shares can be included in a given customization. Under the included primary shares section, you can see the shares in the customization and the value of the share per distribution. You’ll also see the minimum number of products that GrownBy will suggest for the share (this is set on your Product editing screen for each product). This minimum number of products helps GrownBy to suggest diverse shares for your members.
Unspent Share Value
GrownBy suggests shares that are as close as possible to the target share value you’ve specified. However, customers are free to remove things from the order or add additional things. If they add more than their share value, they will pay for the difference at checkout. If their order is less than their target share value, it is up to you whether you want any unused value to remain on the customer’s account to be used in the future.
Toggle the selector next to “Issue unspent value as Farm Credit” to indicate what you’d like GrownBy to do. Fill in the value under “Max. Credit to Award/Distribution” with the value you’d like to roll over. If you leave this field blank, there will be no upper limit on the amount of a given customer’s share that can be rolled over.
Prioritized Products
Here’s where you tell GrownBy what you would like to be prioritized into suggested shares. GrownBy will attempt to put items listed here into all of the suggested shares, depending on saved customer preferences.
Deprioritized Products
Items in Less-Preferred Products will not be placed in suggested shares by GrownBy unless a customer’s preferences suggest that it should. Customers can add and remove products from their shares at will so just because you list a product as Less-Preferred does not mean it is not orderable. If you want a product to be excluded from your Custom Share, remove it from the CSA Group that the Custom Shares are connected to.
Run History
This section provides a detailed history of your current and past customizations. You will notice that before every Open or Close there is a Test Opening and Test Closing.
Tests
The tests run 12 hours prior to the open or close and their role is to catch issues with your customized share before the actual open or close time. Each time a test or actual open or close is run, you will receive an email alerting you to what happened and informing you about any problems that need your attention. Errors will block your customization window from opening. Warnings will not block the opening but should be reviewed.
Test Opening
There may be warnings or errors listed. See the list below to understand those errors. (This is only really helpful after you’ve added your intended inventory for the week!) The test opening allows you to see the suggested shares that GrownBy would build if opening happened right then. These suggested shares are subject to change based on inventory changes as other members customize their shares. This view shows you the value of the share and the contents of the share.
Test Closing
This test runs 12 hours before the window closes. This notice can also provide you with warnings or errors if something is wrong with the share (see list below for interpretations and suggested next steps). The test closing shows you how many customers have not yet ordered.
Customization History
Open Ordering
This may show errors or warnings, see below for more details. If the open ordering is successful, it will show that emails were sent to a certain # of customers.
Close Ordering
When your order window closes successfully, this section will tell you the date and time of close. It will also display the number of orders placed by GrownBy at the time of closing– these are the customers who did not customize. If you allow some unspent value to rollover in the form of farm credit, the close ordering report tells you how many customers had some amount of rollover, the rollover limit, if applicable, and the total amount of farm credit awarded during that customization window.
How to interpret the Messages from GrownBy
Errors
- Type of Error: No customers in customization window
- Error message: "No customers have pickups during this customization window."
- What this means and how to fix it: GrownBy thinks you have a customization window opening, but there aren’t any members with distributions or deliveries during this time frame. If you don’t have a share, you don’t need to do anything. If you should have a share with distributions, please contact support.
- Type of Error: **Insufficient products for ordering**:
- Error messages:
- "No products available to order, cannot close ordering window"
- "Not enough products available to order, cannot close ordering window. ([total inventory]/[total items needed])"
- "Not enough products available to order, cannot open ordering window. ([total inventory]/[total items needed])"
- What this means and how to fix it: You don’t have enough products to fill the shares. Add more products and/or inventory of the products that you have via the Products page. You can add more of individual products if you have them or add new products.
- Type of Error: **Primary share validation**:
- Error message: "[Share name] has a daily distribution which is not allowed for custom shares."
- What this means and how to fix it: Daily schedules are not allowed for customizable primary shares. Remove the daily schedule
- Error message: "[Share name] is not on the custom share CSA."
- What it means and how to fix it: Re-add the share to the correct CSA Group
- Type of Error: *Product availability issues**:
- Error messages:
- "[Product name] does not have any active distributions.
- “No products available for ordering."
- What this means and how to fix it: Make sure that you have added inventory, unhidden the products you want to distribute, and confirmed that all schedules are available for this distribution’s dates.
Warning Messages
- Type of Warning: **Order minimum issues**:
- Warning Messages:
- "Your farms order minimum is more than the value of one of your shares."
- "Your farms order minimum is close to your shares value which may cause difficulty for customers."
- What this means and how to fix it: You can set your order minimum on your Account Settings page. If your order minimum is very close to the value of the share, it can make it difficult for a member to get close enough to the share value without going over. Review and be sure your settings are correct.
- Type of Warning:**Product distribution warnings**
- Warning Messages:
- "[Product name] does not have any distributions at LOCATION NAME."
- "The order cutoff window will block ordering at [location name]. Please shorten the deadline so that products can be ordered up until the end of the ordering window."
- “[Product name] has no pickups within the ordering window at [location name]."
- What this means and how to fix it: The schedule is set incorrectly on the product. Adjust the product’s availability.
- Type of Warning:**Product configuration warnings**:
- Warning Messages:
- “[Product name] is not a global standard product and will be excluded from the ordering options."
- "[Product name] has more than 1 buying option, we will only use the first"
- "[Product name] has no buying options, it will be excluded from the ordering options."
- "[Product name] has a price of $0, it will be excluded from the ordering options."
- What this means and how to fix it:
- Type of Warning:**Customer-specific warnings**:
- Warning Messages:
- "Some customers placed orders but were not on the list to customize ([email list])."
- What this means and how to fix it: These orders should be cancelled. Someone scheduled a vacation but still customized a share that they did not pay for (this can happen if they bookmarked the customization page).
- Order status messages:
- "All customers have placed orders for this week."
- "[count]/ [total] customers have not placed orders for this week."
- "Successfully placed [count] orders. ([order numbers])"
- "[customSharePickups.length] customers will be included in this ordering window."
- "Customization emails successfully sent to [count] customers."
Still have questions?
We have answers. Email GrownBy support directly at
support@grownby.app, or
schedule a one-on-one call with one of our team members. A real human with farming experience will get back to you as soon as possible!