SmartSend Freight Gateway API - Getting Started Guide

Overview

This service helps you streamline freight management for buyers and sellers.
The freight cost quotation service allows you to query real time rates for sending packages anywhere within Australia. The quote service allows you to retrieve the quotation data and display freight costs with any modification and styling that is required.
The booking service provides an extremely simple backend management process that allows automated booking of consignments and returns barcoded carrier compliant consignment labels.
The tracking service allows you to retrieve current package locations and to display this information within your own website or product with your own styling.

Key Concepts

Interested in automating your dispatch processes and delighting your customers with up to date and timely tracking notifications? Here are the things you need to understand.

Quotations

Quotations are the beginning of the process. We want to be able to show freight costs based on the parameters and additional services requested. You can send along discrete items in one call with source and destination information and the set of applicable services with estimated transit times and costings will be returned.
This service can be consumed neatly from a desktop application, a web server, or even a web browser.
Coming soon - send us your individual products (and tell us what packaging you have available) and we'll figure out what boxes to use and provide a quote automatically.

Bookings

When you have some things to send creating a booking is as simple as sending us the same data as in the quote. The booking flow will arrange for payment then carrier compliant booking labels will be generated as PDF documents that you can download and distribute to your dispatch team for printing wherever they are. To make life even easier, the SmartSend freight gateway supports processing multiple bookings in one flow - dispatch as many orders as you need in one easy step.

Tracking

Once a booking is in flight we will send you messages via HTTP every time a package moves. A full history of package movements, any signatures and proof of delivery images become available in real-time.

Making your first call

The following example calls GetQuote which will retrieve the cost of sending an item from Sydney to Melbourne.

1. Collect your parameters

"METHOD=GetQuote
ITEM(0)_LENGTH=5
ITEM(0)_DEPTH=5
ITEM(0)_HEIGHT=2
ITEM(0)_WEIGHT=3
TOPOSTCODE=3000
TOSUBURB=Melbourne
FROMPOSTCODE=2000
FROMSUBURB=Sydney"

2. Make the call

"https://api.smartsend.com.au/?METHOD=GETQUOTE&ITEM(0)_LENGTH=1&ITEM(0)_DEPTH=1& ITEM(0)_HEIGHT=1& ITEM(0)_WEIGHT=1&TOPOSTCODE=3000&TOSUBURB=Melbourne
&FROMPOSTCODE=2000&FROMSUBURB=Sydney "

Try it in your browser

3. Evaluate the response.

All api calls indicate outcome in a standardised way:

"ACK=Success"

Multiple quotes are returned in this instance showing cost, service type and estimated transit times

"QUOTE(0)_TOTAL=18.02&QUOTE(0)_SERVICE=Road&QUOTE(0)_ESTIMATEDTRANSITTIME=1-2%20business%20days& QUOTE(0)_ESTIMATEDTRANSITTIME_MINDAYS=1&QUOTE(0)_ESTIMATEDTRANSITTIME_MAXDAYS=1& QUOTE(1)_TOTAL=30.00&QUOTE(1)_SERVICE=Overnight& QUOTE(1)_ESTIMATEDTRANSITTIME=Next%20business%20day& QUOTE(1)_ESTIMATEDTRANSITTIME_MINDAYS=1&QUOTE(1)_ESTIMATEDTRANSITTIME_MAXDAYS=1& QUOTE(2)_TOTAL=77.21& QUOTE(2)_SERVICE=Overnight%20by%209am& QUOTE(2)_ESTIMATEDTRANSITTIME=Next%20business%20day%20delivered%20by%209am& QUOTE(2)_ESTIMATEDTRANSITTIME_MINDAYS=1&QUOTE(2)_ESTIMATEDTRANSITTIME_MAXDAYS=1& QUOTECOUNT=3 "

Next Steps

Read more about the individual calls in the api reference.
Download an SDK for your language of choice
Email tech@smartsend.com.au for technical assistance with integrations

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