Ship Methods (Shipvia)

As the orders are entered, decisions about the carriers to use are made. When the order is shipped, in UPS Online, the default information is available and does not need to be entered by the shipper. As part of the installation, many of the standard methods of shipment have been added. When entering an order the options will be provided and can be selected from a pop up list if entered incorrectly. The options are added to the standard lookup table for ease of maintenance.

Some additional choices have been added to the customer maintenance screen also to make it easier when entering orders. The default shipping method and FOB policy are two of the fields added.

The technical guide lists the fields in the database called SYSONL.DBF. Any of the extra fields can be changed to NULL in UPS if preferred. In each case the field created is listed and the field in UPS to map it to has been included in the description.

Before using the system the first time, go to Sales Order and change the system setup. It will provide a new option to enter the directory where the UPS online system will look for the data to import. The UPS system will also need to be changed to map the fields between the systems.

The customer file maintenance has been changed to include the default shipping method and FOB. A lookup table has been added to keep track of the shipping methods (shipvia). During the installation of this enhancement, the suggested fields will be added to the file automatically. The UPS choices must be in the format noted if the level of service is to be passed to the UPS Online Professional system.

During Sales Order entry the header information has been changed. The zip code, city and country are all kept in separate fields in order to transfer the information correctly to the UPS system. The same is true in the maintenance functions. A new lookup has been added to the shipvia field to provide the service link to the UPS system. If not forwarding shipping service level to the UPS system it is not necessary to keep the shipvia lookup. If eliminated, the field in UPS should be changed to NULL.

As the orders are created they are added to a database in the system directory called SYSONL.DBF. If any changes are made to the order they will be reflected here. Once the orders have been sent to the UPS system, they can no longer be changed.

The system can be run in batch or online. If the online method is used, the orders are available to the UPS shipping system as they are entered. To send the orders to UPS, when using the batch method, a new selection has been provided in the Extension menu. It will copy all sales orders to the UPS system and empty the file so it is ready for the next batch.

The remainder of the setup is in the UPS system. The Professional system uses DbaseIII import file structure when importing in batch. If the online method is used the transfer is accomplished with ODBC linking.

Modules