Proposal summary

We will create an API to send the shipment details to the GEL system from the item fulfillment in the XML format. The response from the system will also be stored back in Netsuite.

Requirement 

We need to integrate with a courier of ours. Setting up the API interface requires a little more work in advance, but largely avoids the manual effort involved in day-to-day business. In this case, the data is transmitted directly to us by your system and labels and consignment numbers can be returned automatically.

Prerequisites

• Access to GEL system/API key
• Test details from Netsuite to send to the GEL system.

Our Solution

We will create an API to send shipment details to the GEL system.

We will send the shipment details when the following conditions are met.

• Item fulfillment Status is changed to packed and  
• Delivery method is either 2man or 48HR TKS

We will be sending the details to the GEL system using the “create shipment“ API in the XML format which will create  Shipment in the GEL system. As a response GEL will return the encoded PDF data for label printing. We will store the label as a file in the Netsuite in a custom field. So that you can download the same from that link. We will also keep a custom field in the IF record to store the response in case of any error.

As a part of authentication we need to create an API key in the GL system.

“create shipment“ API (From the GEL document)

Create shipment A broadcast is generated with the appropriate parameters. If a number is specified for the shipment in the form of a predefined package number, a corresponding shipment must not yet exist, i.e. there is no update to a corresponding shipment. The specification of the consignor reference is not checked as a key. If the shipment is created successfully, the return data will contain the labels. These are appropriately embedded in the “” element (Base64-encoded PDF data: for printing on a label printer (i.e. not in A4 format)).

Call: & function = create 

Parameter: – – Standard parameters for authentication (API key, depot and customer number) function – always “create” The call parameters are:

Assumptions

• We assume that the following delivery method will be set up in the system with the same name.
  • 2man 
  • 48HR TKS
• We will send the details in the XML format to the GEL system via API
• We assume that we need to create an API key in the system if the access is given. Otherwise the GEL system will give the API key directly.
• For testing propose we will create test details and send the same to GEL system
• We will refer to the “create shipment“ API specification from a shared document from GEL. (GEL-Import_API_ger_V21.de.en)

Risks 

We will initiate the API only once when the status becomes packed. We won’t initiate it again in case of any errors. Please let us know whether we need to initiate the API again when the save action of IF, until it becomes successful?