Introduction

Shadow Booking is a feature that lets users access shipment data in nShift Track without needing to book a shipment through nShift Ship. Customers can create shipments just to receive return data and use the nShift Track features. These include generating reports for all shipments and using nShift Track as a status-only service. Additionally, nShift Track offers features like notifications and enhancing shipments with carrier events, depending on the carrier used. 

Implementation

If a shipment is flagged as a shadow shipment, nShift Ship will submit it straight to the Sent section with the status of transmitted. This enables the system to bypass all the logic that occurs during the submit and transmit processes and avoids triggering API or routing calls. Because shipments are injected straight into the database, there will be no check-digit calculation, prefix addition, etc. 

To book shadow shipments using file-drop import, you must include the following fields in your import setup:

• External Booked ->Shipment (Set to 1 - will flag the shipment as a shadow shipment and bypass all carrier validations)
• PackageNo -> Package (the package number) 
• Number -> Shipment (the shipment number)
• Submit Date -> Shipment (date when the shipment was created)
• Transmit Date -> Shipment (date when the shipment data/EDI was sent to the carrier)
• Pickup Date -> Shipment (date when the shipment was picked up)
   

When the field External Booked is set to 1, you create a copy of an existing shipment booked outside nShift. All carrier validations will be disabled, and no labels will be created.

While the above is enough for some carriers, it is usually required to send the same data needed for a full shipment. See the description of our standard file for import here.

Valid shipments go directly to the Sent folder. Invalid shipments will be placed in the Autoprint folder. After loading to production view, shipments can be modified and submitted without the carrier validations. The shipment goes directly to Sent after submit.

Read more about setting up filedrop integration in this article: Getting started with filedrop integration (Import)

Limitations

To successfully update your shadow shipments with carrier events, you must supply the exact information the carrier uses to match shipments in their return data.

• You must supply the correct barcode. If the carrier uses package numbers or another value for events, and you supply the shipment number, we will not be able to match carrier data to your shipment. Note that carriers sometimes add values or send barcodes without check digits. You must supply exactly the same barcode format as the carrier uses for events. 
   
• Some carriers use other parameters to match shipments, such as order number, account number, or other parameters. In these cases, you must send this value in the field Portal Package Number -> Reference or Portal Shipment Number -> Reference. If you do not supply the same parameter as the carrier, nShift will not be able to match the carrier events.
   
• Sometimes customers receive return data in formats not supported by nShift. This could be the case if a carrier only provides customer-specific return data in one format at a time. Customer-specific or old formats used by other book and print software may not be supported by nShift, even if the carrier is part of our carrier library. If the carrier is not able to send different customer-specific formats at the same time, the customer sometimes has to forward the return data and this may not be compatible with nShift's platform. 

If you have any further questions, please do not hesitate to contact our support team.