# Shipping your orders with a 3PL
You do not have to use Orderwave to create your shipping labels and packing slips. A very common scenario is that you may use a Third Party Logistics provider (3PL) or fulfillment partner, who does your warehousing, pick, pack, and ship. Or, you may have already put a WMS in-house in your own warehouse, and you want to integrate Orderwave with that system.
This is called external data processing in Orderwave, and is a setting on the warehouse.
By and large, the most common approach is to have Orderwave push/export shipment data to your external 3PL or WMS system. Often, these systems have specific data formats in which they expect orders. Fortunately, Orderwave has the tools included to help you transform shipment data into many formats through Data Transformation Templates.
# Setting up automated exports
To set up an automated export for fulfillment, you will need to:
- Set up your warehouse for 3PL / external data processing
- Create a Data Transformation Template that will work for your purposes
- Create a Web Service or File Transfer Location for the file/data to be sent to
- Create an Automated Task to batch shipments for export
- Create an Automated Task to schedule the automated export process
# Configuring the warehouse for 3PL
In order to fulfill shipments with an external provider, you will need to set your warehouse to "external data processing". Visit , locate your warehouse, and edit the warehouse to make sure that "external data processing" is turned on. This instructs Orderwave to queue shipments that are batched for this warehouse to be placed into the WAREHOUSE-EXPORT queue.
Take Note 📝
Take note of the "warehouse code" for this warehouse - you will need it later when creating an automated task that batches shipments.
# Create a data transformation template
TIP
This step is optional. If your warehouse can adapt to Orderwave's default data format for shipments (JSON), you do not need to setup a data transformation template.
Presumably, your warehouse/ERP/3PL provider has a data-format that they expect shipments to conform to. You can visit to create a template that transforms shipment data into the data format that you require.
# Create a destination for your shipment files/data
Next, Orderwave needs to know where to send the data. You can either send the data to a web service (an https API) or a SFTP server. Visit (to configure an API endpoint) or (to configure a SFTP location).
# Create an automated task for batching shipments
You want to automate the export of shipments, but shipments need to be in a shipment batch before they are eligible to be exported to a 3PL. For this reason, you will need to create an automated task that batches shipments for this warehouse. Visit and create an automated task with the following properties:
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| Job type | App Job |
| Bucket | oms/shipments |
| App Job | Batch shipments for fulfillment |
| Warehouse code | The warehouse code (identifier) for the target warehouse |
| Search filter | (Optional) If you have a saved filter for oms/shipments that limits the shipments to certain SKUs/locations/etc, you can use this here. |
The name of the automated task and the schedule/recurrence are up to you.
TIP
You can batch throughout the day and export the shipments separately; the batching schedule does not need to coincide with the export schedule. Batching shipments with a warehouse that is configured with "external data processing" will make sure that the shipments are queued in WAREHOUSE-EXPORT based on the rule WAREHOUSE-EXPORT.
# Create an automated task to run the export process
Now that you have shipments being batched, and those shipments are in the WAREHOUSE-EXPORT queue, they are ready for export. Visit and create an automated task that exports the data.
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| Job type | Export Job |
| Bucket | oms/shipments |
| Filter | Queue |
| Queue | WAREHOUSE-EXPORT |
| File naming template | (Optional) If exporting data to a file, fill in the naming convention for the target file name here. Read more |
| Data transformation template | (Optional) If you are transforming the data, choose the data transformation template that should be used here. |
| Remote service | This is the target destination - either a Web Service or a File Transfer Location. |
| Folder path | (Optional) If the remote service requires a path to push the data to, specify it here. |
| Queues: Error Queue - Add to queue | Choose WAREHOUSE-EXPORT-ERROR to make sure that if the shipment encounters an error being sent to the destination, Orderwave will queue it to be examined later. |
| Queues: Success Queue - Remove from queue | Choose WAREHOUSE-EXPORT so that Orderwave will remove the shipment from this queue after it has successfully been sent. |
# Sending tracking and shipment data back to Orderwave
When your 3PL fulfills your shipments, you will need data imported back into Orderwave — most notably the tracking number and shipment date, but also any item-cancellations that may have happened in the warehouse. To do this, you will need to have your 3PL/warehouse send this data back to Orderwave in the Shipment Update feed.