Verify Carrier Settings and Your Shipping Workflow

After adding shipping carriers in The Hub, please verify that your shipping settings are configured to meet your specific shipping workflow and that the correct label printers are selected.

First Things First

Configuring your carrier settings and printers is done in the ShipWorks software.

Please be sure that you are logged into ShipWorks as a user with administrator rights.

Configure Default Carrier 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.

Click on the Manage tab and then on the Shipping Settings button.
Select the shipping carrier. (For this example we will be using UPS. The available settings may differ depending upon the carrier you select.)

SETTINGS TAB
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.
Click on the Defaults - [selected carrier] link at the top of the Settings tab to open the default Shipping Profile.
Locate the Labels section and verify that the correct Requested Label Format: is selected.
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.
Review and configure the default settings so that they meet the needs of your shipping process. Click OK when you are finished.

Select Your Default Settings

While this step is not required, it may be worth taking a few minutes to review the default setting 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!
Click Close to exit the Shipping Settings screen.

Verify Your Label Printers

Printing labels in ShipWorks is handled by templates. There are three main templates that control to which printer(s) shipping labels are printed.

Labels > Thermal - Handles printing labels to thermal printers such as Zebra label printers.
Labels > Standard - Handles printing labels to standard printers such as a laser or inkjet printer.
Labels > Commercial Invoice - Handles printing international customs documents to a standard laser or inkjet printer when required.

It is worth taking just a few moments to verify that the templates are pointing to the correct printer(s) so that you can avoid any printing issues moving forward.

Click on the Manage tab and then on the Templates button.
Expand the Labels folder. Select each of the following templates individually and perform steps 3-5 below.
1. Thermal template
2. Standard template
3. Commercial Invoice
Click the Edit button, then the Settings tab, then the Printing option.
Select the correct printer from the Printer: drop-down menu.
1. Select your thermal printer when editing the Thermal template. (Don't use a thermal printer? Select your standard inkjet or laser printer.)
2. Select your laser or inkjet printer when editing the Standard template.
3. Select your laser or inkjet printer when editing the Commercial Invoice template. (Don't ship internationally? That's OK. Go ahead and select your standard printer. If you ever do need to ship an international order the printer will already be selected for you.)
Click the Save button after selecting your printer(s). Then, click Close to exit the Template Manager screen.