Shipping

• Introduction
• Usage
• Charges
• Billing Weight
• Labels
  • Label URLs
  • Retrieving Decoded Labels
  • Storing Labels
  • Rotating Stored Labels
• Options

#Introduction

The Shipping Api allows you to register shipments, including return shipments.

The shipping flow consists of two steps:

• Confirm: Send information to UPS to get it validated and get a digest you can use to accept the shipment.
• Accept: Finalize the shipment, mark it as will be shipped. Get label and additional information.

#Usage

This is a basic example of how you can create a shipment through UPS. Your use case might demand more or less information to be sent to UPS. Please consult the developer documentation to see what can all be sent.

{tip} All entities, like Shipment can be found in Rawilk/Ups/Entity.

// You can get this a different way if you have it stored somewhere else.
$shipperNumber = Config::get('ups.shipper_number');

$shipment = new Shipment([
    'shipper' => new Shipper([
        'shipper_number' => $shipperNumber,
        'name' => 'Your business name',
        'address' => new Address([
            'address_line1' => 'Your business address',
            //'address_line2' => '',
            'city' => 'San Diego',
            'state' => 'CA',
            'postal_code' => '12345',
            'country_code' => 'US',
        ]),
    ]),

    'ship_to' => new ShipTo([
        'company_name' => 'Ship To Company Name',
        'attention_name' => 'Ship To Attn Name',
        'address' => new Address([
            'address_line1' => 'Consignee address',
            'city' => 'San Diego',
            'state' => 'CA',
            'postal_code' => '12345',
            'country_code' => 'US',
        ]),
    ]),

    'ship_from' => new ShipFrom([
        'company_name' => 'Ship From Company Name',
        'attention_name' => 'Ship From Attn Name',
        'address' => new Address([
            'address_line1' => 'Your company address',
            'city' => 'San Diego',
            'state' => 'CA',
            'postal_code' => '12345',
            'country_code' => 'US',
        ]),
    ]),

    'description' => 'Shipment description',

    // Uncomment for return shipment
    // 'return_service' => new ReturnService, // defaults to ReturnService::PRINT_RETURN_LABEL for the 'code'

    // Payment info - for other options, see the developer docs
    'payment_information' => PaymentInformation::prepaidForAccount($shipperNumber),

    'packages' => [
        new Package([
            'packaging_type' => new PackagingType, // Default: Customer supplied package
            'description' => 'Package description', // Required for return shipments
            'reference_number' => new ReferenceNumber([
                'value' => 'My reference',
                // 'barcode' => true, // Uncomment to have outputted as barcode on bottom of label
            ]),
            'package_weight' => new PackageWeight([
                'weight' => '5.0', // UOM defaults to LBS
            ]),
            // 'is_large_package' => true,
        ]),
    ],
]);

// Note: By default, a "Service" entity is created on a shipment, using the "Ground" service option. You can
// change the service used by passing in your own "Service" entity on the "service" attribute.

// If you have negotiated rates enabled, you can specify you want to use it like this:
if (Config::get('ups.negotiated_rates')) {
    $shipment->rate_information = new RateInformation([
        'negotiated_rates' => true,
    ]);
}

{note} For return shipments, only one package is allowed per shipment, so you will need to create multiple return shipments for more than one package.

Once you have your shipment entity created with all the necessary information, you need to generate a shipment digest with UPS.

try {
    $response = (new ShipConfirm)
        ->withShipment($shipment)
        ->withLabelSpecification(LabelSpecification::asGIF()) // omit if you don't need the label
        ->getDigest();
} catch (\Rawilk\Ups\Exceptions\RequestFailed $e) {
    // Handle the exception
    dd($e);
}

// Get the new shipment's identification number
$response->shipment_identification_number;

// Get the shipment digest
$response->shipment_digest;

Once you have your shipment digest, you need to finalize the shipment:

try {
    $response = (new ShipAccept)
        ->usingShipmentDigest($shipmentDigest)
        ->createShipment();
} catch (\Rawilk\Ups\Exceptions\RequestFailed $e) {
    // Handle the error.
}

// Get the new shipment's identification number
$response->shipment_identification_number;

// Returns a collection of packages returned from the api
// Wrapped in our \Rawilk\Ups\Entity\Shipment\PackageResult entity.
$response->packages;

// Each package has a tracking number
// The first package's tracking number should match the shipment identification number.
$response->packages->first()->tracking_number;

#Charges

Any charges from UPS will be available through the ShipAcceptResponse::charges attribute. You will receive a collection of Rawilk\Ups\Entity\Payment\Charge instances.

$charge = $response->charges->first();

$charge->monetary_value;

$charge->description;

#Billing Weight

The billing weight can be retrieved through the ShipAcceptResponse::billing_weight attribute.

$weight = $reponse->billing_weight;

$weight->weight;
$weight->unit_of_measurement->code; // LBS

#Labels

A label is created for each package. You can retrieve the label's off each PackageResult entity instance.

$image = $package->label_image;

// Base 64 encoded graphic image
$image->graphic_image;

// Base 64 encoded html browser image rendering software. This is only returned for GIF image formats.
$image->html_image;

// This is only returned if the label link is requested to be returned and only at the first package result.
$image->url;

#Label URLs

To receive a URL of the label, you can request it through shipment service options in the shipment confirmation phase.

$shipment->shipment_service_options->label_delivery = new LabelDelivery([
    'label_links' => true,
]);

#Retrieving Decoded Labels

When a label is returned from UPS, it is base64 encoded. As of version 2.1.0, the package can return the decoded version of the image label for you off of each PackageResult entity.

$image = $package->getDecodedImageContent();

If you want to decode it yourself, you can do it like this:

$image = base64_decode($package->label_image->graphic_image);

#Storing Labels

If you would like, as of version 2.1.0, you can have each PackageResult entity instance storage an image of the generated shipping label automatically for you instead of having to base64_decode and store the image yourself. All that is required providing a storage disk name in the configuration file (defaults to default), and then telling each package result to store the image.

$fileName = $package->storeLabel();

The storeLabel method will return the name of the file created on your configured disk, which defaults to: TRACKING_NUMBER.png

{note} This will store the label as a .png file, regardless of the image format you requested from UPS.

I personally prefer to configure a storage disk for most items. Here's an example of a custom storage disk in config/filesystems.php:

'disks' => [
    // ...
    'shipment-labels' => [
        'driver' => 'local',
        'root' => storage_path('app/shipment-labels'),
        'url' => env('APP_URL') . '/shipment-labels',
    ],
],

'links' => [
    // ...
    public_path('shipment-labels') => storage_path('app/shipment-labels'),
],

{tip} Be sure to add your custom disk name to the label_storage_disk key in the package configuration.

#Rotating Stored Labels

I personally prefer to rotate stored shipping labels vertically. If you have the Imagick extension installed, you can have the PackageResult entity do this automatically for you by setting the package configuration key rotate_stored_labels to true.

#Options

For the ShipConfirm api phase, you can either validate the addresses, or skip the address validation. We have it defaulted to not validate since we usually are validating any addresses before we create a shipment in our own workflows. You can change this behavior by doing this:

// With validation
(new ShipConfirm)->withAddressValidation();

// Without address validation
(new ShipConfirm)->withoutAddressValidation();