Tracking
Maria Teller
Last Update 2 years ago
In this article, we'll cover how and where the customers can check tracking events. We learned from the parcels article that opening any parcel in a drawer window, will have a tab called tracking, but this is only one parcel specific. Let's look at other possible options.
When navigated to the tracking view, there is a text box on the right side. This main view is acting similarly to the page "17track": copy-paste the parcel numbers in the right side and when searching for tracking, a collapsed list is provided like this:
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In front of each row, the icon indicates the state. Green ones are delivered and the blue indicates 'in transit'. It's possible to expand all these parcel tracking events to see all events, since this view displays the last event first.
Under "Tracking Export", it's possible to get tracking events in a file (either xlsx or csv format) based on different criteria.
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There are four input options, which could also be used together. For example, it's possible to get all tracking events for up to 5 shipments! If any country codes (2-letter codes) are provided with these shipment numbers, the system would add the destination filter as well. This allows the user to get the tracking from multiple shipments for only the specified country/coutries. It's also possible to get tracking events for just the specified parcels, without adding the shipment number or country codes.
As mentioned before, the file can either be in xlsx or csv option. This filter is left of the export button. There is one more configurable option, which determines the layout of the exported file. The default option is "Last parcel event". This means that per each parcel, only one row with the last tracking event will be in the file.
Next option is "All parcel events", which will show all parcel tracking events. In this case there will be several rows per parcel, which doesn't make it the most convenient to read. This is why we also have pivot options for this layout. The next option is "Pivot event codes", which means that the event codes will be headers, there will be one row per one parcel and the value will be the event date. The second pivot option is with the event messages that might in some cases be more specific than the codes (for example, event code "INFO" is not descriptive without the message). It's called "Pivot event messages". The layout logic is the same as it's for "pivot event codes" only this time the event message will be the header.
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The next tab is called "Tracking import". As the name states, it's possible to import tracking events (i.e create new ones or manually add missing ones). This is not often used, since there is rarely a need to create events manually.
In case the customer should have the need for this, there is a button to "download template file", which can be filled and uploaded.
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The event codes in the file, should match our systems event codes exactly. For this, please take a look at the last tab called "Event codes", where all of our possible tracking events are displayed. These can be downloaded in an excel file from the button located on the right side, above the grid:
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Pre-posting notification event
It can take several days after sending the shipment to OE before getting the first event for the tracking. This often means a long wait for the consignee to see when the goods are shipped. Therefore, a pre-posting event might be crucial for your business.
What is a pre-posting event and how to get it?
“Label printed” as the first event in the tracking indicates to the consignee that the goods are packed, and the label is already necessary – i.e., the goods will be shipped shortly after that.
In our extranet, we have several types of shipments that can be created. For this we have a shipment type called “Labels”. This shipment is there to get labels and all that's necessary, is create a shipment, like this:
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Feel free to be creative with the shipment number or leave it empty and let the system generate it instead.
After the shipment has been created, upload the manifest, that would usually be uploaded to shipment type AWB. As per all shipment types, the shipment number must match with the created shipment number in extranet. In case the system generated the shipment number, it needs to be copy-pasted into the manifest file. Other requirements stay the same – in specific cases where the label comes from the Last Mile’s system, the parcel ID needs to be left empty. The system will communicate with the Last Mile’s system to fetch parcel numbers from them. If offline range is used to get the pre-posting event for these parcels, the parcel ID needs to be filled in the manifest file.
Uploading the manifest will start the process of the system generating labels and the “Label printed” event, which can be made public for the clients account.
NB! Please get in touch with your contact in PostPlus in case you're interested in having this public event. The event can also be set as public when generating the labels through API!