Rule Criteria and Actions Best Practices

ShipHawk’s Rules Engine is a powerful tool to automate decision making in the Rating and Fulfillment process. Rules help ensure that correct rates are returned and that shipments are booked according to your business needs. Full documentation on the Rules Engine can be found here: [INSERT LINK TO RULES DOCUMENTATION]

Rule Actions

Some Actions are relevant before packing and rating. Other Actions only make logical sense after packing and rating.

• Examples of “before rating” actions include “Use this Material Container” or “Add this Accessorial”. These apply before the order has been packed and before the rate request is sent to the carriers.

• Examples of “after rating” actions include “Free Shipping for the Cheapest Rate” and “Round up rates to the cents”. Clearly, these are only applicable after rates are returned from the carrier.

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Rule Criteria

Rules may also contain one or more criteria that determine when and if the Rule is applied. Some criteria are available at any time during rating and shipment generation. Others are only available after the shipment has been packed and shipped.

• Examples of “criteria” that are available at any time include “Destination Company Name” and “Prime”(i.e. if the order is booked with Amazon Prime option)

• Examples of “criteria” that are available only after packing and rating include “Package Weight” or “Carrier Name”. Package Weight is only know after the items are packed. “Carrier Name” is only known after ShipHawk has received rates and selected that carrier.

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Logical Conflicts between Rule Criteria and Rule Actions

Previously, ShipHawk did not prevent creation of rules that had logic conflicts.

Example #1:

In the example below, the Criteria is Package Length and the Action is Use this Packing Material. The Package Length is only known after packing, whereas the Packing Material should be specified before packing.

Example #2:

In the example below, the Criteria is “Carrier Type” = LTL and the Action is “Apply this Upfront Accessorial” = Liftgate Delivery. The criteria of “Carrier Type” is not defined until rates are returned and ShipHawk has selected the carrier type. If the best rates are Small Parcel, the Criteria will never evaluate TRUE. If the best rates are LTL, the system is not able to go back to the beginning, add the accessorial, and rerate with that accessorial. The after rating criteria effectively overrode the before rating action.

For some Rule Actions that are conditionally applied, the Action itself may have a qualifier. In the example #2, the “Apply this Upfront Accessorial” action contains a Carrier Type option that will apply this action only to the carrier.

Contact ShipHawk Support at support@shiphawk.com with questions about any of the ShipHawk Rules.