Ask the carrier for an electronic bill of lading for a dispatch booked through POST /dispatching/jobs, and get back the PRO number it assigns.

Book first: the dispatch job must be COMPLETED. The bill of lading is built from that dispatch (stops, contacts, freight, references, notes), so it always matches the pickup the carrier was tendered. Works for every carrier with an eBOL integration, whether or not your account issues one automatically at dispatch. A carrier that cannot issue one through Shipwell answers 400 with the code ebol_not_supported: ABF (its PRO number is already in the dispatch job's references), XPO (its eBOL would book a second pickup), and carriers with no eBOL integration.

The carrier is called asynchronously: the response is the job in PROCESSING. Poll GET /ebol/jobs/{id} until is_terminal is true; the PRO number is then in bol.referenceNumbers.pro and in the dispatch job's references. A job still PROCESSING after 15 minutes is not going to finish on its own, and calling again does not resend it: contact Shipwell support with the eBOL job id.

One eBOL per dispatch. Calling again while it is in progress, or after it completed, returns the same job with 200 and sends nothing. Only an ERRORED job is sent again, as the same job, with 201. Shipwell does not retry a failed eBOL. When the job is ERRORED and the error looks temporary (a timeout, the carrier unavailable), you may call again; we suggest at most two more attempts, about ten seconds apart. An error about the shipment itself (an address, a contact, the freight) will fail the same way every time.