March & April Update

by Mark Mikkelson

It's been a busy couple of months at Shiptheory for adding additional functionality to the platform.

Integrated Labels

You can now set a different integrated label per channel (or continue to use one for all channels as before).  This means if you have multiple different shops or stores you can now use different layouts to suit the design of each store.

Added Support For The Pallet Network (TPN)

We're pleased to announce we've now added support for The Pallet Network. Connect TPN to your online web store or backend inventory management system, or use our API to book things in with The Pallet Network.


Royal Mail

All UK labels will now look a little different as the format has changed to include routing information and weight.

Summary of changes:

  1. There is now basic UK postcode validation in place. If a postcode cannot be found then you'll get a validation error.
  2. Special Delivery Late Arrival Accepted services have been removed.
  3. Safeplace enhancement is now available on 24/48 services.
  4. Royal Mail labels include State if address line 2 or 3 is empty.
  5. Russian characters have been added.
  6. Email notifications enabled for International Tracked & Tracked Signed.
  7. The Royal Mail manifest can now be edited on a Sunday.
  8. Royal Mail Canada International is now signed only.
  9. International Tracked service to Taiwan and Czech Republic added.
  10. Add International Tracked Large Letter On Account
  11. Added email detail supplement for international shipments.
  12. Added support For eBay's VTN (Virtual Tracking Number) to Royal Mail.
  13. Royal Mail International Tracked and International Tracked signed services now have an email notifications enhancement. This needs to be enabled on the RM account by the account manager for it to work. If it's not enabled then the enhancement will just be ignored.
  14. Royal Mail barcode allocation system improved to prevent depletion of Royal Mail barcodes.


P2P

  1. Added Support For US Military Mail State Codes
  2. State Validation now allows ACT And NT as states
  3. New UNTRAK & TRACKPAK PUDO services added

Shipment View Page

We've added more boxes and changed the layout very slightly, as shown below (before on the left, after on the right).

You can also now retry failed orders directly from the failed message when shipping manually, rather than having to close the popup and reopen before retrying.

Rules

We've made a big change to our rules. This is covered in detail in its own post which you can find here.


Summary of rules changes:

  1. Product Count rule changed to calculate the total quantity of items included in a shipment, not just individual products.
  2. Ability to schedule shipments for a later date, e.g. 'next Monday' or "in 2 days time". Support article regarding this can be found here.
  3. Added ability for rules to update values in of the shipment before it is processed. For example you may want to automatically set the number of boxes on a shipment based on the rule. Read more about how this works here.

Manifests

The Manage Manifest page now shows shipments due to be manifested not just today but also 30 days back and infinitely into the future.

Shopify

You may be familiar with the way Shiptheory processed orders from Shopify previously- each order in Shopify was marked as fulfilled either individually or in a batch. Those fulfillments (shipments) fed through to Shiptheory, ran through our rules and then updated the already created shipment in Shopify.  This is still an option; however, we've also now added the ability to process a Shopify order without it having to be fulfilled first. We'll download the order, run it through the rules, create a shipment in Shopify when it's booked in with the carrier and add a tracking number to the newly created fulfilment. More on how this works can be found here.

We've also added the ability to display product barcodes on integrated labels for Shopify orders/shipments.

Unleashed

  1. Added option to search for shipments according to date modified as well as shipment creation date.
  2. The Comment Box field has been changed to Delivery Instructions.
  3. Added option to use delivery name instead of customer name.

Dashboard

Bolt-on Expiry Update

We've updated the way the expiry date of bolt-ons is calculated to help in these tough times. Instead of being 30 days from the day of the purchase, they will now expire at the end of the next 2 billing periods - a maximum of 60 days and a minimum of 1 month.

Other additions of note that have been implemented in the last couple of months:

  1. TNT Enable in-app tracking button
  2. A direct clickable link to  Xero invoices from within Shiptheory
  3. DPD/DPD local: delivery instructions not including spaces
  4. Fedex insurance enhancement option
  5. Fixed bug where a product would not load when clicked
  6. Fixed bug where Manage Manifest didn't show more than a day's worth of shipments
  7. Parcelforce delivery instructions expanded to more than 25 characters
  8. Added support for Hermes post services
  9. Added "end of day" and airwaybill support to Deutsche Post
  10. Palletforce gazetteer updated
  11. Fixed bug - discrepancy in label size/orientation for CSM
  12. Fixed bug for Hermes Alert Group
  13. TNT - if collection date would fall on a weekend, it now skips to the Monday
  14. Fixed bug for Custom documentation settings where shipping origin country did not save
  15. Fixed bug - WooCommerce tracking email not including tracking number
  16. Updated country code for Kosovo for DHL
  17. APC Horizon update - mobile validation