Learning Claris FileMaker

NRGship is a Carrier Certfied provider that powers hundreds of businesses who ship UPS, FedEx and USPS with FileMaker Pro without the need to setup external services or perform complex API coding.

With the release of FileMaker Pro v16, new web service capabilities could be utilized to integrate shipping directly with UPS, FedEx and USPS APIs into your FileMaker apps.

However, doing so isn’t always the most cost-effective option.

Utilizing Carrier APIs

In order to use the carrier APIs you must first obtain credentials for their test environment and review the documentation. FileMaker v16 makes it easy to integrate with JSON services however the carriers are not buzzword compliant and still utilize XML and SOAP for communcations.

Creating basic shipments is a fairly straight-forward process but complex shipments like multiple packages, third-party shipping and ancillary services require additional logic.

Providing the full suite of carrier functionality also requires implmentation of various APIs – rating, address validation, shipping, tracking and pickup requests.

Building out these requests could take a week of development effort, you will need to be well-versed in building XML requests and parsing responses.

Ongoing maintenance is also required – several times a year the carriers will post updates for new services or additional offerings. Label output to thermal printers and capturing weights off digital scales will also be an issue which require special coding.

NRGShip Makes it Easier

NRGship is built in FileMaker Pro and is Carrier Certified.

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