> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.tryoto.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Hubs Management

> Manage every place you ship from, whether a warehouse, a store or a 3PL fulfillment center, as one kind of hub that routing and shipping treat the same way.

> [!NOTE]
>
> **Where to find it:** Settings → Management → Warehouses — [Open in OTO ↗](https://app.tryoto.com/warehouses)

A hub is anywhere you keep stock and can send it from. The useful idea in this module is that a warehouse, a shop and a third party’s fulfillment center are the same object with different settings — so everything else in the platform can treat them identically.

## The problem it solves

Retailers accumulate places to ship from. A central warehouse, then a second one nearer the customers, then the shops — which turn out to hold a third of the stock and be closer to most buyers than any warehouse. Then a 3PL for a market you do not want to run yourself.

Each of those gets added, in most businesses, as an exception. The shops are in a different system. The 3PL sends a spreadsheet. Routing rules grow a special case per location, and the question *can we fulfil this order, and from where?* stops having one answer.

Treating them all as hubs is what prevents that. One object, one set of settings, one place where [routing](https://docs.tryoto.com/modules/omnichannel-oms/order-routing.md) looks.

## Three kinds, one shape

| Type | What it is | What differs |
| - | - | - |
| **Warehouse** | A building whose job is fulfillment. | Full [OTO PACK](https://docs.tryoto.com/modules/warehouse-management/overview.md) operations: bins, zones, waves, pickers. |
| **Store** | A shop that also ships. Configured as a **branch**. | Sells over the counter as well, so stock moves without an order behind it. Usually no bins, and staff who are not full-time pickers. |
| **3PL fulfillment center** | Someone else’s warehouse, holding your stock. | You configure it and see its stock, but you do not run its floor. |

> [!TIP]
>
> **Ship-from-store is the whole argument**
>
> Shops already hold stock, already have staff, and are already closer to the customer than any distribution center. The reason most retailers cannot ship from them is not logistics — it is that the shop is invisible to the system that decides where an order goes.
>
> Making a branch a first-class hub is what turns that inventory from a liability at end of season into the fastest delivery in the network. It is the same argument as [click and collect](https://docs.tryoto.com/modules/omnichannel-oms/order-fulfillment.md), run in the other direction.

## Where it lives

| Screen | Path | What it holds |
| - | - | - |
| **Warehouses** | **Settings → Management → Warehouses** | Fulfilment locations, with their hours, serving radius and preparation SLA. |
| **Branches** | **Settings → Management → Branches** | Stores, configured the same way. |
| **OTO PACK Configuration** | **OTO PACK → Configuration** | Bins, zones, teams and users — all per hub. |
| **Inventory** | **OTO PACK → Inventory** | Stock per hub, and the global roll-up. |
| **Areas** | **Settings → Advanced → Areas** | The delivery zones a hub serves. |

![The Warehouses list in OTO, showing name, code, operational hours, contact, city, address, serving radius, preparation SLA and status columns](https://mintcdn.com/oto/YkJay8Y-1RDv8ciw/images/hub-1-warehouses.png?fit=max\&auto=format\&n=YkJay8Y-1RDv8ciw\&q=85\&s=4f07dcf7fc006bd4a1c2abb89265fc24)

Fig. 1 — Every fulfillment location, with the hours, radius and SLA that make it usable to routing. Map View plots the same list geographically; Upload Multiple Warehouses creates them in bulk from a file.

## Who runs it

| Role | What they do here |
| - | - |
| **Operations lead** | Decides what counts as a hub, what each one serves, and how fast it promises to be. |
| **Warehouse manager** | Owns one hub’s hours, staff, bins and picking method. |
| **Retail operations** | Turns shops into hubs without turning shop staff into warehouse staff. |
| **Integrations** | Maps hubs onto the ERP, POS and sales-channel locations that already exist. |

## Functions in this module

> **[Hub configuration](https://docs.tryoto.com/modules/hubs-management/hubs-management.md)**
>
> *9 features*

## What it connects to

* [Order routing](https://docs.tryoto.com/modules/omnichannel-oms/order-routing.md) — the rules that choose between hubs.
* [Warehouse Management](https://docs.tryoto.com/modules/warehouse-management/overview.md) — what happens inside one.
* [Inventory tracking](https://docs.tryoto.com/modules/inventory-management/inventory-tracking.md) — stock held per hub.

## At a glance

| Function | Features |
| - | - |
| **[Hub configuration](https://docs.tryoto.com/modules/hubs-management/hubs-management.md)** | 9 |


## Related topics

- [Warehouse Management](https://docs.tryoto.com/modules/warehouse-management/overview.md)
- [Core concepts: orders, shipments, stock and hubs](https://docs.tryoto.com/get-started/core-concepts.md)
- [Warehouse picking methods and waves](https://docs.tryoto.com/modules/warehouse-management/picking-methods.md)


This documentation is built and hosted on [Mintlify](https://mintlify.com), a developer documentation platform.