An nShift Ship solution is organized using a hierarchical tree structure. Features activated at a higher level in the hierarchy will automatically apply to all levels below it. Conversely, features activated at the lowest level will only apply to that specific level.
The table below outlines the different levels within the setup tree:
| Ship On-premises | Ship Cloud | Description |
| Installation | N/A | Installation is the top level that represents the entire nShift book-and-print solution. Only visible to On-premises customers with a local installation. |
| Location | Location | Represents a part of the business such as a specific country, region, department or office. |
| Actor | Actor | Units within a Location such as warehouses, webshops or retail stores. It is standard to have one Actor per carrier account. For example, if you have two UPS customer numbers, you need two Actors. Multiple carrier accounts are required when different legal entities invoice you within the same carrier. |
| Carrier | Carrier | Carrier used for delivering packages and goods. |
| Subcarrier | Product Group | Subsections within a carrier, typically representing specific services (e.g. Express, Ground) |
| Product | Product | Specific shipping services offered by a carrier. |
Use Case Example
The image below shows the setup tree in Ship On-premises but the same structure could apply to a cloud solution.
- The customer has two locations, one in the US and one in Scandinavia.
- The US location has two Actors, a warehouse in New York and a warehouse in Denver.
- The Scandinavia location has two Actors, a webshop in Denmark and a webshop in Sweden.
- Each Actor has several carrier services/products.
FAQ
Q: Should I have one or more Locations?
A: Sometimes one Location with multiple actors is enough. It depends on the complexity of your business, your number of carriers and business rules.
Q: How many Actors do I need?
A: Think of each Actor as an individual unit within your business, each with its own business logic and carrier services. If all your warehouses use the same business logic and carrier services, one Actor might be enough.
Q: Can I use different customer numbers on the same Actor?
A: If you have multiple customer numbers at a specific carrier used for the same services, you need one Actor for each customer number. You usually have multiple customer numbers if you are invoiced by different legal entities within the same carrier.