Semi-automate or automate the creation of transport orders, called packages, in Streamliner
1. The use case for the Streamliner supplier.
A supplier facing a high volume of purchase orders within Streamliner must manually select each order individually for placement into the basket before generating a package or transport order. This task not only consumes a significant amount of time but also carries the risk of errors. Nevertheless, it remains an indispensable step to furnish the carrier with all the necessary data for booking time slots.
In order to enhance transparency within the inbound process, the recipient requires visibility into which orders, whether complete or partially fulfilled, will be included in a delivery when a delivery slot is booked.
And the advantage for the supplier is a clear view in the list of orders of a validated state by his customer. As a supplier, you continue to utilize Streamliner for real-time tracking of your carrier and seamless collaboration during the goods reception process, which includes features such as comments and file sharing.
Streamliner can offer an improved workflow if you are able to provide an export from your TMS/WMS or ERP system with a minimum set of data to create these packages. The data is a list of the original order numbers of the purchase orders that you received from your customer, enriched with your data like the reference for your carrier.
Contents of this document
- Chapter 2 the procedure to semi-automate this action.
- Chapter 3: the procedure to automate this action, based upon the same file by using API calls to import file
- Chapter 4: possibilities to use an EDI message in collaboration with Streamliner
2. Creating packages by importing a file.
2.1. Create an export of a transport order.
The action to select the list of orders that are part of one package can be semi- automated without any cost.
Prerequisite: Your IT staff must be able to create a file in a specific format for every transport order that you send to your carrier. Typically, this file is created at the moment that the transport order is sent by mail or EDI to your carrier. This action is executed in your TMS/WMS or ERP.
Streamliner needs a very limited subset of data to help you in this automation.
Required
- A reference: a reference between you and your carrier
- A list of orders that will be delivered.
Non-required but added value.
- An expected delivery date when carriers need to book the slot.
- A N° of single SKU pallets (can be ‘0’)
- A N° of mixed SKU pallets (can be ‘0’)
- A reference to your company: Unique identifier of your company at your client site. This is just for verification, can be your VAT N° or your supplier number at your customer.
- A reference to your carrier. Is the reference for your carrier company that will be set in the Streamliner community. You can use your internal reference, but a VAT N° or GS1 code that is more generic would be more convenient. Communicate this reference to your customer. This is required as soon as you work with more than 1 carrier. This must be the carrier who will book the slot and not the carrier who will forward the goods.
- A reference to the pickup location if more than 1 pickup location is configured at your site.
Prerequisites
- You defined a default carrier if you are working with only 1 carrier.
- You defined a default pickup location if you are not referencing the pickup location.
- You defined a standard pallet type.
2.2. Structure of the file
The file has a JSON[1] format and can contain as many transport orders as you wish, and each transport order can have an unlimited list of linked orders. We observe that the suppliers who have more than 20 orders to ship are the ones who benefit most from this automation.
List of properties of the JSON file
| Label | Description | Type | Required | Your mapping |
| owner_code | Unique identifier of your company at your client site | Alphanumeric | No | |
| carrier_code | Unique identifier for your carrier.[2] | Alphanumeric | No[3] | |
| package_reference | A general reference used in your WMS/TMS and known as reference by your carrier[4] | Alphanumeric | Yes | |
| pickup_address_code | Reference to your pick-up location. The location in your supply chain where carrier will pick up the goods | Alphanumeric | No[5] | |
| delivery_date | Expected Delivery date/time in timezone of location of your customer | Numeric, format YYYYMMDDHHMM [6] | No | |
| quantity1 | Number of single SKU pallets transported | Numeric (default 0) | No | |
| quantity2 | Number of mixed SKU pallets transported | Numeric (default 0) | No | |
|
purchase_orders
|
Fixed tag to start the list of order numbers | Start of list | Yes | |
| Start 0-R | ||||
| order N° 1.. | Alphanumeric | Yes(at least 1) | ||
| order N° 2.. | Alphanumeric | |||
| End 0-R | ||||
| line_info | Info if this is a new, updated or deleted package record since last import. Always ‘C’ | C (Creation) | Yes |
You can download some examples from our support site. Please use the empty JSON structure if you want to copy/paste the values each time you need to import a new list.
In the simplest structure, you have a reference and a list of orders.
Please contact support@streamliner.cloud if you have required info for your carrier that you like to add. Streamliner can also offer assistance from the technical staff if needed, what is offered on 31,25€ for every started quarter.
2.3. Import the file.
This is a manual action.
Login in Streamliner and go to the packages screen.
Select the function ‘Import packages’
Select the JSON file that was exported at your site.
Based upon the contents of the file, the different packages/transport orders are created in Streamliner and the carrier is informed. Your customer can follow up order status. (Order received next state: transport order prepared; carrier informed)
You can still adapt carrier, pickup location, volumes, dates, even order list if required.
2.4. Advantage
We eliminate the need to select the orders manually if you can generate this file. And you still have all the functionality to follow up.
2.5. What if you can’t export a file in the JSON format.
The JSON format is the worldwide standard to communicate via RESTAPI. The JSON format has a limited overhead in comparison with XML and is perfectly suited to build header-detail relations in data. This is not possible in classic CSV file and more difficult in Excel.
Besides the examples we provide an empty JSON file that you can edit with notepad or any basic editor. Simply fill in by copy/paste or other method the list of orders you need to ship and the reference for your carrier. You can download this template on our site: An empty template
Template JSON file
{
"import_packages": [
{
"package_reference": "",
"purchase_orders": [
"",
"",
""
],
"line_info": "C"
}
]
}
3. Automate by API.[7]
If you can produce this JSON file, and if your IT department are willing to work with external API’s, you can go 1 step further to completely automate this task.
Please come back to support and we will provide the full functional specs for your IT department. We charge 31,25€ for every started quarter if assistance is needed from our technical staff. The usage and transactions costs of these API calls are offered completely for free.
4. Can we use existing EDI messages to automate?
Yes, you can. We can support you to review the EDI message that you send to your carrier as a start of the shipping procedure. There are some prerequisites:
- The EDI message to your carrier should include:
- the list of purchase orders
- the needed references. (Your owner code and reference to the carrier)
- and this message is available at least 24h, but better at least 48h before the actual delivery takes place. The carrier must have enough time to book the slot.
We discourage the use of the DESADV/ASN message that you send to your customer when truck loading is at closing.
- It is not sure that the message contains the needed information like original purchase numbers.
- A risk to have a very narrow time window for the carrier to book a slot. The EDI can be sent 4 or 6 hours before trucks must arrive. In many instances, booking a slot may already be restricted or all slots may be fully booked.
If the needed information, see chapter 2, is available in the message, we can analyze how we can receive a copy in Streamliner, transform the message to the Streamliner format and import the packages. This is part of a commercial offer that we are willing to discuss.
But based upon our experience, this is much more costly and takes even more time for your IT department than simply producing a JSON file.
[2] Is the reference for your carrier company that will be set in the Streamliner community. You can use your internal reference, but a VAT N° or GS1 code that is more generic would be more convenient. Communicate this reference to your customer.
[3] If no carrier is provided, Streamliner will check the default configured carrier for you. If no default configured carrier is set, we abort import.
[4] This is normally the reference that your carrier will use to invoice your company for this transport service.
[5] No need if you have only one pickup location or if you set a default location.
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