Custom carriers are made for one customer and are ideal for in-house carriers, printing address labels, or for smaller concept carriers that do not yet have an integration with nShift.
This article will explain how to set up a custom carrier in nShift On-premises:
Activating a new custom carrier
- Go to Setup, right-click on the location where you want to create a custom carrier, and choose Activate carrier.
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Activate carrier is password-protected for security reasons. Contact nShift Customer Service for help entering the control code. (Entering the Password Safezone is always the customer's own responsibility).
- Click Create new carrier.
- Enter name and country and click OK. The complete name will be used on labels and documents, and the short name will be used in the Setup tree in nShift On-premises.
- Select the new carrier on the list and click OK.
- Right-click on the new carrier in the Setup tree and select Activate subcarrier.
- Select Create new subcarrier and click OK.
- Enter a name for your subcarrier and click OK. It is a good idea to choose a name that indicates what it is used for, eg. Domestic / International, Parcel / Pallets, etc.
- Choose the subcarrier on the list and click OK.
- Right-click on the new subcarrier in the Setup tree and select Activate product.
- Select Create new product and click OK.
- Enter a name for the product and click OK. This is also the step where you can choose if the product should support COD and Insurance, be available as a return product, or allow COD at the line level.
- Select the new product on the list and click OK.
- The new product is now available. You can add multiple subcarriers and products and name them to fit your company's needs.
Adding labels and documents
After adding the carrier, you need to set up the labels and documents you want to use with the carrier.
- Select the carrier in Setup, right-click in the pane to the right, and choose New > Document options.
- Click Add custom document.
- Choose the label you want and click OK. Use the esEANLabel if you want a label with a barcode. The other labels have addresses only.
- If you need a document like a waybill, click Add custom document again and go to the Shared documents tab. Here you will find various waybills and documents.
- When you have added a label and documents, you must activate them. This is done by clicking in the Active column and choosing when the document should be printed.
If none of the labels and documents match your needs, you are welcome to contact our Customer Service, who can help you make a special layout according to your specifications. Please note that most of the available custom labels use the Norwegian or Danish language.
Setting up an EAN counter
If you are using a label with barcodes, you need counters. Counters are a series of numbers that are used for the barcodes.
Follow these steps to set up an EAN (SSCC) counter. Please be aware that you will need to contact Customer Service to enter the password safezone.
- Go to Setup and select your subcarrier.
- Right-click in the pane to the right and select New > Counter Profiles.
- Click the Unlock button. Counter Profiles are password-protected for security reasons. Contact nShift Customer Service for help entering the control code. (Entering the Password Safezone is always the customer's own responsibility.)
- Click New next to the Shipment Counter field.
- Enter a name and description. In Counter type, choose EAN (refillable) and click Get range.
- Click OK in the pop-up dialogue and OK in the Counter setup window. Your shipment counter is now set to use the new range.
- Set the Package counter to <Use same as shipment> and click OK.
If you need a custom counter, please contact Customer Service who can help you set this up. Some carriers require the use of special counters with special prefixes or suffixes, but using these also requires the use of custom XML in the subcarrier setup.
Sending EDI
If you are going to use your custom carrier for a carrier that does not have integration in nShift Ship, they may require receiving EDI. By default, a custom carrier can be set up to send a standard text file that includes information about sender, receiver, product, number of packages, weight, and measurements. However, it is also possible to create a custom-made XSL file that can generate an EDI file in the format required by the carrier like XML, EDIFACT, or TEXT.
Setting up standard EDI
This will enable the standard text file.
- Go to Setup and select your subcarrier.
- Right-click in the pane to the right and select New > EDIFACT transmitter.
- Use the transmit method required by the carrier. You can choose SMTP to send the file via email or FTP to deliver the file to an FTP server. Enter the information and click OK. (The required information depends on the carrier - ask the carrier for details). If you need the EDI file for internal use, you can also save it as a file in a specified folder on your computer.
Setting up custom EDI
These steps will enable custom EDI and should be used if your carrier needs EDI in a specific format. Usually, a technical consultant from nShift will make the XSL file needed for a custom EDI format. This example will show a general XML format used by some carriers, but often using custom EDI will require creating a new XSL file, which requires in-depth knowledge of XSL and the structure in nShift On-premises.
- Go to Setup and select your subcarrier.
- Right-click in the pane to the right and select New > Custom EDIFACT transmitter.
- Click More Setup.
- Choose the type of EDI format needed. You can choose between EDIFACT, TEXT and XML and specify the path to your XSL file. You may also modify the file name and ID if needed but do not delete the @.
- Click OK to save.
- Specify the transmit method. You can choose SMTP to send the file via email or FTP to deliver the file to an FTP server. Enter the information and click OK. (The required information depends on the carrier - ask the carrier for details). If you need the EDI file for internal use, you can also save it as a file in a specified folder on your computer.
Below is an example XSL file for generating an EDI file in XML format. To generate the XML file that the XSL file is based on, follow these steps:
- Create a folder named "edilog" in the root of your C: drive.
- Create an empty txt file named "edixml" and place it in the folder.
- Restart the Consignor service.
- Transmit a shipment from Outbox.
- A file named "stack.xml" will now be generated in the "edilog" folder. This file contains data from your transmitted shipment, and it is the XML file that you must transform into the desired EDI format by applying the XSL file.
Example of XSL file used for generating a standardized XML file: