Shipper 3.0 Beta 1

Shipper 3.0 is a high velocity shipment processor for ecommerce websites.

To prepare for this post, I took a look back at the Shipper timeline:

• Shipper for UPS 1.0 was released on July 7, 2004. As you might guess from the name, it only supported UPS and one backend.
• Shipper 1.1 came out almost a year later on June 23, 2005. Most importantly, it was redesigned to support additional backends.
• Shipper 1.2 came out later that same year on October 10, 2005 with support for both UPS and FedEx.
• Shipper 1.3 was released just a month later on November 27, 2005 with support for Endicia.
• There were several incremental versions of Shipper 1.3 adding various features such as support for DHL and more backends, until Shipper 1.4 was released on October 18, 2007.

You wanted more. Shipper 3.0 delivers it.

• You wanted to print labels directly from Shipper. Now you can. Shipper 3.0 uses ShipRush by Z-Firm to print the labels. ShipRush is the same shipping component built into QuickBooks.
• You wanted better support for multiple carriers. Shipper 3.0 no longer requires a separate program for each carrier. Now all you need is ShipRush (which you may already have). One program to learn instead of 4 and almost instant startup.
• You wanted better reports, packing slips, and emails. Shipper 3.0 includes a powerful drag-and-drop report writer. Now you can easily build custom reports and emails.
• You wanted faster performance with high volume websites. Shipper 3.0 downloads new orders almost instantly and uses block downloading to eliminate errors even if there are 1000's of orders.
• You wanted better control over which carrier services to use. Shipper 3.0 allows you to define custom rules based on any shipment field.
• You wanted to control which fields were updated in the store. Shipper 3.0 allows you to pick the fields that are updated.
• You wanted to automatically print reports or send emails when you printed a label. Now you can. Shipper 3.0 allows you to define actions to perform when the shipment is first downloaded or when the label is printed.
• You wanted support for more back-ends. The Shipper 3.0 Agent will be available for soon for AbleCommerce, BV Commerce, and StoreFront. But the really big news is that the source code for Shipper 3.0 Agent will be open sourced. That means you will be free to modify the existing implementations to work with your customized backend, or even create a compatible agent for any other backend.

Today I am happy to announce that the first public beta of Shipper 3.0 is available for testing.

Download

Installing Shipper 3.0 and Shipper Agent

Unzip the download to find 4 files:

Setup.exe and Shipper3.msi for for Shipper 3.0. Run setup .exe to install the pre-requisites (.NET 3.5) and Shipper 3.0 on your desktop computer. You will also need any flavor of ShipRush 6 installed on the same computer. If you do not already have ShipRush installed, I suggest ShipRush for USPS or ShipRush for DHL since both are free. See www.shiprush.com for more information.

ShipperAgentAbleCommerce.exe contains the files for Shipper Agent for AbleCommerce 7. They work with AbleCommerce 7 RC1 and above. ShipperAgentMock.exe contains the files for a Mock Shipper Agent. They work with any .NET 2.0 web site (you don't even need an ecommerce backend).

Shipper Agent is installed on the target website. Copy the files in the bin directory to the bin directory of the website. Then copy the agent directory to your website.

Note: Unlike Shipper Service 1.x, Shipper Agent does not include any built-in security. To protect Shipper Agent from unauthorized access you will need to protect the agent directory with basic authentication. Since basic authentication passes the username and password in clear text, you should also use https in the Shipper Agent URL to encrypt them.

Getting Started

1. Launch Shipper 3.0.
2. Click on Websites.
3. Click on New.
4. Enter the name of your website and the URL to Shipper Agent (i.e. https://www.company.com/agent).
5. If you have protected the agent directory with basic authentication, enter the server username and password.
6. Click on Save and Close.
7. Click on Shipments.
8. Click on Download New Orders.
9. Select a shipment and then click on Print Shipping Label.
10. After the label is printed, click on Upload Shipment.

Stuff Might Change...if you want them to

There is still plenty of time to many aspects of Shipper 3.0 and I am counting on you to tell me what you want. Here are some suggestions for things to think about while you kick the tires:

• The quick start above does not even touch on processing rules (which allow you to automatically assign services, print documents, and even upload completed orders). Are the features in Shipper 3.0 discoverable? If not, what would help you discover them?
• Right now ShipRush is a separate install because some (most?) people have some flavor of ShipRush already. Did you? Were you able to find the ShipRush downloads? What would make the ShipRush install easier?
• The integrated report writer has a lot of features. Is it overwhelming? I have included 2 sample reports. Do they help give you ideas of what is possible and how to do it? Will you use the report writer?
• In this beta, Shipper Agent is implemented as a SOAP service. I have been debating whether to switch to a more REST-like service. If you are considering your own Shipper Agent, would one or the other be easier?

Feedback

Please send your feedback to support@structured-solutions.net. I will try to respond to each comment or question within a day. Thank you for taking a look.

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