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nShift ETA

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Malene Tidemann
Updated

What nShift ETA is

nShift ETA is nShift's own estimate of when a parcel will arrive. Instead of relying on a carrier message or a contractual transit time, it predicts a delivery window from historical delivery data across the nShift platform — how shipments like yours, on that route, with that carrier service, have actually performed.

It exists to close a gap. Many carriers do not send a predicted delivery date with their tracking events, and not every account has transit times configured. Those shipments used to show no estimated delivery date at all. nShift ETA gives them one.

In nShift Track reports, nShift ETA is shown in the Estimated delivery source column as nShift AI prediction.

AI-prediction.png

 
A shipment where nShift ETA supplied the delivery window. The source column shows which of the six sources produced the date.
 

Where nShift ETA fits

Track resolves the estimated delivery date from six sources, checked in a fixed order, and nShift ETA is the last of them. It is used only when the carrier has sent nothing, no transit-time configuration applies, and you have supplied no date of your own.

That position is deliberate: nShift does not override the carrier's own data, or dates you chose to provide, with a prediction — even where the prediction might turn out to be closer.

→ For the full order and what each source is, see Estimated delivery date.

 

When the prediction is made

  • A prediction is made only if none of the five higher-priority sources has produced a date for that shipment.
  • It is requested when the first event that opens the delivery clock arrives — the first tracking event with SLA status Open, typically the carrier's first "collected" or "in transit" scan.
  • Until such an event arrives, no prediction is requested. A shipment you have just created, but which the carrier has not yet started moving, will normally show no estimated delivery date.
  • The prediction is made once per shipment and stored. It is not recalculated as later tracking events arrive.

The trigger is the first SLA-open event rather than the registered pickup date, because a parcel is not always collected on the day it is registered. Starting from the event that actually opens the delivery clock produces a more realistic window. The same trigger is used for the shipment report, the shipment view and the Shipment Data API, so all three agree.

If the prediction service is unavailable or cannot produce a result, the field is simply left empty. No fabricated date is shown, and no error is surfaced to you.

 

What the prediction is based on

nShift sends the prediction model a minimal, non-personal set of shipment attributes:

  • The carrier product concept (the service being used)
  • Origin address — city, postcode, country
  • Destination address — city, postcode, country
  • The shipment date
  • The shipment weight

No recipient names, street addresses, contact details or order contents are used.

The model returns a delivery window — a start and an end time, for example 08:00 to 10:00 — rather than a single deadline. It is trained on nShift platform delivery history and retrained periodically as more data accumulates, so accuracy improves over time.

 

How to tell when nShift ETA was used

The Estimated delivery source column in reports shows nShift AI prediction on every shipment where nShift ETA produced the date. Any other value means the date came from the carrier, from your transit-time configuration, or from a reference field you populated.

This is worth watching. If a whole carrier or market shows nShift AI prediction on every row, that carrier is not sending delivery estimates with its tracking events and is not covered by a transit-time configuration — useful to know when you next talk to them.

ETA-mixed.png

How the reports display the Carrier SLA configuration ETA and an nShift ETA window
 
 

nShift ETA in the Shipment Data API

If you pull shipments through the Shipment Data API, the predicted window arrives in the same fields as any other estimated delivery date — deliveryStart and deliveryEnd. What tells you it came from nShift ETA is deliveryWindowSource, which is set to 6, the last position in the source order.

 

{
  "additionalInformation": {
    "deliveryStart": "...",
    "deliveryEnd": "...",
    "deliveryWindowSource": 6
  }
}

 

Treat a window with deliveryWindowSource: 6 as an estimate rather than a carrier commitment. Any other value means the date came from the carrier, from your transit-time configuration, or from a reference field you populated — see Estimated delivery date for the full list of values.

 

What to expect from it

  • A prediction is not a commitment. nShift ETA is a best estimate based on how comparable shipments have historically performed. It is not a carrier service-level agreement.
     
  • It does not affect carrier performance reporting. Carrier performance is still measured against your configured SLA, never against a prediction.
     
  • Accuracy varies by lane. Routes and services with a lot of historical volume are predicted more confidently than rare ones.
     
  • Nothing to set up. Shipments with no other source start receiving a predicted window automatically.
     
  • Your own data is untouched. Reference fields continue to behave exactly as before. Nothing you supply is overwritten or reinterpreted.

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