Dispatch

Dispatch tenders a shipment to a specific carrier — asking them to commit to picking it up and hauling it — and follows that booking through to delivery.

How it works

A dispatch request is typically created from a rate you've already received (or, directly from shipment details). Like rating, dispatch is asynchronous: creating a dispatch request returns immediately, and the carrier's confirmation, and the shipment's progress, arrive as the booking moves through its lifecycle.

Endpoints

• POST /dispatching — create a dispatch (tender) request.
• GET /dispatching/{dispatch_request_id}/dispatch — get the resulting dispatch.
• POST /dispatching/{dispatch_request_id}/cancel — cancel a dispatch, where the carrier supports it.

Dispatch lifecycle

A dispatch generally moves from being tendered, to confirmed by the carrier, to dispatched, in transit, and finally delivered. Not every shipment passes through every stage, and a dispatch can be cancelled or end in an error at various points along the way. See Statuses for the full list of dispatch statuses.

The current status and the confirmed carrier appear on the shipment itself, along with pickup and delivery details for each stop:

Carrier response

After a shipment is tendered, the carrier responds in one of three ways:

• Accept — the carrier commits to the booking.
• Decline — the carrier turns down the tender.
• Revoke — the carrier withdraws a booking it had previously accepted.

You're notified as the carrier responds, so you can re-tender to another carrier if one declines or revokes. See Statuses for the full list of carrier response types.

Cancelling a dispatch

A dispatch can be cancelled while it's still in an eligible stage (for example, before pickup). Cancellation is not available for every carrier — see Supported Carriers.

API reference

Coming soon.

Next steps

Once a shipment is dispatched, track it in transit and request the eBOL and delivery documents as they become available.