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Verify Your Carrier Settings and Shipping Workflow

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ShipWorks Content Team

Updated

A little time spent now reviewing your carrier settings and configuring your shipping workflow will shave seconds off of every shipment you create in ShipWorks and will help to avoid any issues with your labels printing once you get started.

Configure Your Shipping Settings

Use more than one carrier?

Do you use more than one shipping carrier? If so, please be sure to repeat the below steps for each shipping carrier with which you will be processing shipments.

  1. Click Setup Automated Shipping Rules on the Quick Start screen. This will open the Shipping Settings screen.

    Setup automated shipping rules

    Shipping Settings

    Did you know that you can also open the Shipping Settings screen by clicking on the Manage tab and then on the Shipping Settings button? You can. The Shipping Settings screen is where you go to modify your shipping carrier settings and defaults.

    ShipWorks Manage tab > shipping settings button

  2. Select the shipping carrier. (For this example we will be using UPS. The available settings may differ depending upon the carrier you select.)

    UPS selected in shipping settings

    You may have noticed that once a carrier is selected there are four tabs on the Shipping Settings screen. So that you can get up and running as quickly as possible we will be focusing on the Settings tab so that you can configure the default carrier settings and configure your shipping workflow.

    Want to learn more about the Shipping Settings screen? Visit our Support Portal and search for topic(s) about which you would like more information.

  3. Verify that the Settings tab is selected. Then, scroll down through the available options and configure them for your specific workflow.

    While each shipping carrier has options unique to the services it offers, there are several options that are universal across all shipping carriers in ShipWorks:

    • Use the next business day as the Ship Date for shipments processed after: - If your shipping department has a shipping cut-off time, configuring this setting tells ShipWorks to automatically select the next business day as the ship date when creating shipments after the configured cut-off time.

    • The Accounts Dialog - Used to Edit accounts, Add new accounts or to Delete accounts from ShipWorks.

    • Available Services - Streamline the shipping process by configuring ShipWorks to only show the service types that are important to you.

    • Available Package Types - Streamline the shipping process by configuring ShipWorks to only show the package types that are important to you.

    • Shipment Protection - When insuring your shipments, select whether you wish to use the carrier's declared value or to use ShipWorks Insurance.

    Shipping settings screen, UPS options

  4. Click on the Defaults - [selected carrier] link at the top of the Settings tab to open the default Shipping Profile.

    SW_ShippingSettingsUPS_Defauls_MRK.png

  5. Locate the Labels section and verify that the correct Requested Label Format: is selected.

    Select Thermal ZPL

    What Label Format should I select?

    If you are uncertain of what label format you should select here is a little information to help you:

    • Standard - Select this option if you will be printing shipping labels to a laser or inkjet printer.

    • Thermal-EPL - If you have an older thermal printer, such as a Zebra 2844, select this option.

    • Thermal-ZPL - Select this option if you have a newer thermal label printer. Almost all thermal label printers produced in the last several years support this option.

  6. Review and configure the default settings so that they meet the needs of your shipping process. Click OK when you are finished.

    While this step is not required, it may be worth taking a few minutes to review the default settings available for each carrier with which you will be shipping so that you are familiar with them.

    The Shipping Profile screen allows you to configure which settings are selected automatically when creating a shipment in ShipWorks.

    For example: If, when shipping with UPS, you use UPS Ground 90% of the time you could set the Service: option to UPS Ground so that ShipWorks automatically selects it for you each time you create a shipment using UPS.

    Keep in mind that each selection you automate will save you a mouse click or two for every shipping label you create!

    shipping Profile options

What's Next: Start Shipping

Congratulations! ShipWorks is set up and ready to start helping you to save time and money when shipping. Next, let's take a look at how to start shipping.

Still Need Help?

Please feel free to reach out to one of our awesome Technical Support Representatives in St. Louis.  We are happy to help.

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