Accessing your Shipping Rules 


To set up your shipping rules; you will first need to navigate to the shipping rules page, which can be found on your account drop down:



From this page, you can then choose to add new rules or manage any existing rules. 


To add a new rule click the "add new rule" button:



Setting up your Shipping Rule


There are three main parts of setting up a rule:



Select a carrier: This allows you to choose from the list of carriers you have set up within your Shiptheory account. Make sure you choose the most suitable carrier for the purpose of the rule.


Select a service: Now that you've chosen your carrier, you will need to select one of the services they offer. Please bear in mind that some services have restrictions on weight, value etc. so make sure the orders you hope to match with your shipping rule meet the conditions of the service.


Edit Formula: The formula of your rule is what allows you to place your own set of conditions against your shipments. Ultimately allowing you to map how orders are processed and booked with specific carriers. You can place multiple conditions against each rule, making them as simple or as intricate as you wish.


Conditions of your rules


Shipping rules are often created using the following conditions:


  • Country - The country you are sending your shipment to. You can choose either "in" or "not in", meaning you can prevent particular carriers/services being used for certain countries if you wish.

  • Shipping Method - Not to be confused with shipping service! The shipping method is information that will be passed through to Shiptheory from your channel, usually specified by your customers upon purchase. You can use custom shipping methods in order to match a rule within your Shiptheory account, but please bear in mind that the shipping method selected for the shipment must match exactly with your rule in order to process successfully.


  • Channel Name - The Channel Name you are sending your shipment from. You can choose either "in" or "not in", meaning you can prevent particular carriers/services being used for certain Channels if you wish.

  • Value - The monetary value of the shipment being sent.

  • Weight - The weight of the shipment; often causing a heavy impact on the shipping services available to you.

  • Postcode/Zipcode - The postcode/zipcode you are sending the shipment to. Similar to 'country', you can select either "in" or "not in" when developing this condition.

  • Boxes - The number of boxes that make up the shipment you are sending. It is important to note that this condition is not supported by all carriers and channels.

  • Recipient Company - This is the name filled out in the "Company" field in the order in Shiptheory.

  • Product SKU - The specific product code of your shipment.

  • Product Count - This is the amount of products that are being sent in that order. This can only be used if you specify your products from your channel.


  • Product Name - Specific Product names in your shipment.

  • Delivery Instructions - The delivery instructions specified, these can also be known as "Special Instructions".

  • Recipient Email - For specifying rules for a specific customer, you are able to use the customer email specified in the order.

  • Sender Country - This is the country specified either in your Shipping Location in Shiptheory, or your sender address if you are able to specify from your channel.

  • Sender Postcode - This is also from the sender information, and is either specified from your channel or in the Shipping Location page in Shiptheory.

  • Sender Company - Again, this is the last option from the sender information, the shipper company that is either specified in your channel or in the Shipping Location page in Shiptheory.

  • Day of the Week - If your orders go with different services depending on the day, you can specify here the day of the week in which the order comes into Shiptheory.

  • Time - You can specify a certain time period for orders to match to this rule, such as "after 15:00". This is often used for customers who have cut-off times on their carriers. One important thing here is to ensure your time zone set in Shiptheory matches up to your current time, this can be found in the "Advanced" and then "Personal Details" in your main Shiptheory dropdown. 
  • Shipping Price- With some channels, you're able to specify the shipping price of the order on the channel side and have that send through to Shiptheory. This can be used as a criteria for the rules. However, it's worth double checking your channel's advanced settings first to see if this is something that's supported.

  • Rules Metadata- This is a field specifically built to be used with the rules rather than to be sent on to carriers. When sending through the API, there's a "rules_metadata" field which can be used to match orders up to specific rules without changing what is sent on to carriers. For more information on this, please see here.

  • All Product Weights - This is when all of the products within the order must follow the criteria, rather than the order as a whole follow the criteria. Example: This would mean that if an order came in with 6 products, each individual product would need to be less than the criteria specifies regardless if the order as a whole weighs more than the criteria.

  • All Product SKUs - When the All Product SKUs rule is in place, all product SKUs must match the condition which has been set. For example, if you specified that "All Product SKUs" must be IN the list 15*, 16* then all of the products in your shipment must have their SKUs prepended with 15 or 16.

  • All Products Shortest Dimension - This rule is used to define what the maximum value is for the shortest products length.

  • All Products Middle Dimension - This rule is used to define the maximum value allowed for the middle dimension side for this product.

  • All Products Longest Dimension - This rule is used to define the maximum length allowed for your products. This means that for each product if the rule is set to 8 for the longest length, the product must not exceed this value.

  • Total Product Volume - This is the total quantity of products that are in the order.

  • Any Product Weight - This is when a specific product within the order must comply with the criteria rather than all of the products.

  • Any Product SKUs - This rule is used to match a shipment that which contains any product within a given set of SKUs. (Multiple SKUs should be in a comma (,) separated list.

           


Rule Importance


Within our advanced settings, you are also able to specify the importance level of each rule, essentially allowing you to assign a higher priority to one shipping rule over another. This feature should be utilised and is particular useful when a shipment meets the conditions of multiple rules within your Shiptheory account. 


As mentioned, rule importance is located within the advanced settings of your account. You can access this through the cog in the bottom left corner of your screen, as shown here:




Remember the higher the number assigned to a rule, the more important it will be. Bigger numbers take priority.




Save, save, save!


Once you've finished setting up your rule, please don't forget to save your work!




If you have any issues or extra questions during this process, please don't hesitate to contact support.