Every shipper, 3PL, manufacturer, and cargo owner has a unique approach to managing their freight. You may be using primarily email, phone calls, and paper documents to manage your cargo. Or you could be using more advanced tools, such as customer relationship management (CRM) and transportation management systems (TMS) software. More than likely, you’re using some combination of these tools and others. Every organization faces the challenge of integrating these disparate resources into a consolidated enterprise-wide system, operating efficiently and without friction. Modern Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) define data flow between independent software systems, providing critical interoperability.
What constitutes an API, and why should you care? Let’s define APIs, and then we’ll explain how the Delivery Chain platform can integrate seamlessly into your platform to provide maximum real-time visibility for your cargo.
Defining APIs and EDIs
On a fundamental level, an APIs is designed to enable one program on your computer to connect and communicate with another. There are three main architectures for API implementations:
- Remote Procedure Calls (RPC), which is an encapsulation of a function name with parameters, usually transferring either XML or JSON data between two applications. Unix and Linux operating systems rely on RPC APIs for communications between servers.
- Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) defines a protocol for the interchange of data between systems. When coupled with Web Services Description Language (WSGI) defines a specification for how and what data may be transferred between two software systems. The most notable example of a SOAP API would be Electronic Data Interchange (EDI).
- Representational State Transfer (REST) defines a standard for performing queries and performing actions upon a resource located on a remote server via the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP). Data may be transferred as XML, JSON, or any other supported data format, even a proprietary one.
RPCs are defined with very proprietary interfaces, and they will often require requests to be made using low level operating system routines for networking. SOAP allows requests to piggyback via the HTTP protocol, or any other network protocol, and requires the use of XML data and XML schema definitions along with WSGI definitions to affect data interchange. In general, SOAP will require the use of sophisticated proprietary or third-party open source software libraries. REST on the other hand makes use of an already well-known, easy to implement, and well-supported protocol, HTTP. The REST standard defines the operations that may be performed upon a resource (a collection of data, such as an invoice).
APIs are a part of just about everything we’ve come to expect from our technology today. In fact, industrial IoT wouldn’t even be possible without them. When you instruct apps on your phone interact with social media platforms, you’re using an API. When you embed videos on a web page (like we just did above), you need an API. And every time you book a flight with an online travel service like Kayak or Skyscanner, you’re using an API to communicate with multiple airline booking sites and deliver that information back to the travel service.
So if APIs are such an active component of our everyday lives, how can shippers, cargo owners, and 3PLs ignore their huge potential for streamlining processes and reducing expenses? The short answer is, they can’t. And in fact, if you’re using a CRM or TMS, you’re probably already using APIs. But that doesn’t mean your systems are working together as effectively as they could be.
To make matters more complex, some organizations use Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) to manage parts of their supply chain. There are many advantages to EDI, such as the amplified level of security and the ability to send lots of data simultaneously. On the other hand, it doesn’t always allow for full integration of some necessary capabilities, including real-time visibility.
Our Freight Management Systems Solutions
Delivery Chain is equipped to work with companies who are dealing with the challenges of EDI and improve their processes. Delivery Chain can custom-create both API and EDI integrations to improve a shipper’s or 3PL’s capabilities. What’s more, we’ll work with your current freight management systems to ensure that you receive your data your way. For instance, if you want to have all the information we provide on our platform instantly on your internal platform, we’ll make that very easy.
What if you don’t know where to begin? Some organizations have little to no systems integration, and that means they’re missing out on business as a result. The good news is, you don’t have to know how to code APIs to start using freight management systems like the Delivery Chain platform. At Delivery Chain, we can help build these integrations for our customers to help extend their capabilities and drastically improve efficiencies.
Our Rest API can deliver information instantaneously, securely and without the need of human intervention, providing real-time tracking of your cargo. It also empowers you to receive auto-alerts that tell you when your cargo has gone off-route, experienced a delay, or suffered a G-force impact or temperature change. You can even receive these alerts on your mobile phone for maximum speed and convenience. As a result, you can respond to threats and challenges quickly, and even prevent or mitigate your losses.
Document management has always been one of the greatest logistical challenges that carriers, 3PLs, and shippers face. Even if you’re already working with electronic documents, it can be a challenge to seamlessly integrate all the sources they’re coming from so that you can easily process all your documents and store them in one place. But with the Delivery Chain platform and the innovative APIs we offer our customers, you can ensure that everything from PODs and weight certificates to re-class invoices are automatically delivered into your ecosystem of choice.
All of these integrations streamline your freight management systems. They don’t just help you mitigate losses and cut shipping costs — they also help you reduce the manpower necessary for any given task. That way, your team can focus on what’s really important: delivering great products to happy customers!
Want to learn what the Delivery Chain and our REST API can do for your organization? Reach out to us today for a custom solution.