Carriers and connection to facilities
Last updated
Last updated
Courier, Express and Parcel Services (or in Short: CEP) refer to entities, that are in general configured in fulfillmenttools. Depending on each individual setup, different CEP Providers are available.
By default, a freshly created tenant system does not show the available carriers within the Backoffice since most of the carriers are country-specific. Activating a carrier has to be done via API. After that, it can be configured within the Backoffice.
In the carrier configuration properties such as credentials, logo, or the default parcel weight can be specified. One of the most important configurations is the attribute returnLabel. It tells fulfillmenttools whether a return label should be created with every label requested from the given carrier.
Please go to the for more information on how to create carriers and connect them to facilities via API.
In the carrier services related use case a facility is a place where CEP services pick up parcels or interfacility transfers are started / finished.
Users can assign different carriers to one facility. With this information a fencing can be implemented where orders which need to be shipped by a chosen carrier are routed to a facility where this carrier is active. Carrier that are enabled on tenant level must also be enabled for the facilities in which this carrier is available.
The Facility-To-Carrier-Connection covers configurations that allow for frictionless carrier services. The connection covers, amongst others:
| Attribute | Description |
|---|---|
| Value (hour and minute) describe the time when the carrier (usually) shows up to take parcels with him. This information is especially useful when configuring SAMEDAY deliveries as it is crucial to have finished any fulfillment process until the arrival of the carrier. |
| This optional value might be of special interest to Custom Carriers and specific SAMEDAY carriers. It shows which target addresses (identified by an array of ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 conform country codes and their respective postalcodes) can be a valid target to a parcel sent via this carrier from the facility. |
We also set the cutoff time to 16:30, because in our fictive case this is the time when the DHL driver typically arrives to pick up the parcels.
As long as the Carrier and the FacilityCarrierConnection stays in status "ACTIVE", it should be possible to create shipments and in the end also parcels using DHL as a CEP (see Create a shipment with parcels to track) originating from this facility.
A parcel is the digital representation of one physical parcel that is on its way to the consumer. A shipment is the bracket around all parcels sent within a process using the same carrier.
After a parcel was created in status OPENfulfillmenttools is automatically taking care of the actual advising of the parcel label. During the time it takes fulfillmenttools and the CEPs API to negotiate and create a parcel, the status of the parcel changes from OPEN via PROCESSING to finally DONE. The shipment also changes its status to CONFIRMED as soon as all created parcels of the shipment reached the status DONE.
If a special service (e.g., a signature) is required, this can be configured either when creating the parcel or the order. Only services offered by the chosen carrier will be taken when creating a parcel. Providing a service for a carrier which does not offer that service will be ignored.
There are differences in regards to delivery days depending on the carrier. While carrier X only delivers from Mondays till Fridays, carrier Y also operates on Saturdays. In addition, deliveries are usually not made on public holidays. Public holidays again vary from country to country and province to province. To store this information on the platform, it is possible to set up “non-delivery-days” in the respective carrier configurations. The stored information is then taken into account when calculating delivery times and possible delivery days.
Non delivery days can be either specific calendar dates (i.e. 01.01.2025) or weekdays (i.e. SUNDAY). While weekdays are always recurring (recurringNonDeliveryWeekdays), a specific calendar date can be set up as RECURRING or SINGLE by using the nonDeliveryType.
