Rules are in ShipHawk composed of two parts: criteria and actions. Both parts are necessary to create a rule in ShipHawk.
Criteria are the conditions that must be met in order to trigger the rule. You can specify multiple criteria per rule in order to automate fulfillment behavior for very specific cases. By default, rules apply to all orders, which will apply to all orders moving forward.
Once triggered by the correct conditions, actions are the changes made by ShipHawk based on the instructions configured in your rule. Actions define what you want to happen to any orders or rates that fulfill your set criteria. You can add multiple actions to one rule. Examples of actions available in ShipHawk are:
Provide free shipping for orders exceeding a certain price threshold.
Ship orders using the cheapest available rate.
Mark shipping prices up or down by a specified percentage.
Use only a specified carrier or service for all qualifying orders.
A complete list of all available criteria and actions are included at the end of this article with detailed definitions.
The multiple criteria and actions provided by ShipHawk’s rules engine function as AND statements. ShipHawk does not support OR statements. To accomplish this, you must create two different rules.
Hierarchy
When creating a rule in ShipHawk, you must understand the hierarchy or order in which ShipHawk applies default settings and rules. The order goes as follows:
Stored default values. ShipHawk will default to using any default values saved in the system given no other contravening instructions.
Specified in the API, or rate request instructions. You can provide instructions in the API rate request to a carrier to, for example, query only one type of service. Results of this rate request overrides the default stored values.
Rules. Any rules whose criteria are met will override specific rate request instructions. If you have a rule instructing certain orders to always use a specific carrier service, this rule will override whatever prices are retrieved by the API request.
Manual changes. Manual changes to an order in ShipHawk supersede all other default settings and rules.
A common issue that customers have when first creating rules is understanding that rules will always supersede rate request results. It is recommended that you carefully audit your rules before enabling.
Best Practices
ShipHawk recommends that you create the simplest rules that can stand alone by themselves. Rules can conflict with one another. ShipHawk does not currently support the ability to mark rules in order of importance so that rules can then supersede one another. In order to avoid confusion as you create more rules, it is best to construct simple rules that can be enabled together in tandem. If you need assistance with rule construction, contact our Customer Success team for an audit of your rules.
While it is possible to have more than two criteria or actions per rule, it is recommended that you limit the number of each where possible. Simplified, pared down rules are easier to manage, especially when your organization has many rules that it enables for different seasons and events.
Prerequisites
To begin using the rules engine to automate decisions about carrier rating, you must first fulfill the following conditions:
Customers must be using ShipHawk for rating on their eCommerce or ERP platforms.
Users must be an administrator or shipping manager role in ShipHawk. Only these two roles have the correct permissions to set up a rating rule.
If you qualify under these conditions, proceed to the following sections for instructions to create and enable or disable rating rules and shipping policies.
Time of Action
The timing of when rules are applied to a rating rule impacts the results the user receives. The differences in timing of rule application can also cause conflicts between rules. The following section provides detailed explanations on the time of action for ShipHawk rules and strategies for avoiding rule conflict.
Rule Type
ShipHawk rules fall into the following categories, based on the time of their application:
Pre-rating rules
Around-rating rules
Post-rating rules
Line-item creation rules
Order creation rules
The timing of rule application impacts the carrier rates that ShipHawk retrieves. The following sections describe each rule type in detail and provide examples to help users understand rule behavior and configuration.
Pre-rating
Pre-rating rules are applied prior to executing a rate request to carriers. This category of rules pertains to rules such as using a table rate for all orders. If an order is already provided a standardized set of shipping rates, then there is no need to make a rate request at all.
Around-rating
Around-rating rules are applied by ShipHawk during the execution of a rate request to carriers. This category of rules works by filtering out certain results based on the rates received. An example of this type of rule is if your organization wants to exclude certain carriers or services from your rate request. For example, for certain SKUs, you wish to exclude Ground services in any rate requests.
Post-rating
Post-rating rules are applied after executing a rate request to carriers. This category of rules pertains to rules such as shipping markups. In order to mark up a carrier rate by a specified percentage, ShipHawk must first retrieve the carrier rates before applying the rule.
Line item creation
Line-item rules apply at the time of line item generation. These rules append information to line items in an order. An example of line item rules are when organizations want certain line-items to be fulfilled at one warehouse and other line-items in the order to be fulfilled at another warehouse.
Order creation
Order creation rules apply at the time of order creation. These rules are used for instances when you wish to filter out certain kinds of orders to prevent proposed shipments from being created for them. An example of this is drop-shipping. Because a drop-shipped order is fulfilled by another organization, they should be excluded from ShipHawk.