Retrieve order updates from your supplier

Dropday reads two kinds of update from files: order confirmations and shipping notices. Each incoming folder holds one of the two.

A shipping notice marks the supplier order as shipped, with the tracking link or number from the file and, if the file names a known carrier, that carrier.

For an order confirmation, you set rules that map a value in the file to accepted, partly accepted, not accepted or unknown. Dropday records the result and sends it in a supplier_order.acknowledged webhook.

You need a supplier with an FTP upload action, and your supplier has to place its files in the folder. The incoming folder uses the login of that action; there is no separate login.

Add an incoming folder

1. Open the supplier's page and go to Receive updates, then Receive incoming files.

2. Add an incoming folder. Give it a name and the folder path on the supplier's server. The form shows the protocol, host, port and username of the FTP upload action it uses. If the supplier has no FTP upload action, the form asks you to add one first.

3. Choose the update type: Order confirmation or Shipping notice. Dropday doesn't recognise the message type itself; you choose it for each folder.

4. Choose a sample file: a file that is already in the folder, or a file you upload. Dropday detects the file format (xml, EDIFACT, csv or text) from the sample. You don't choose the format.

5. Enter the path to each value in the file. Only the webshop order number is required. For an order confirmation the other value is the response (accepted or not). For a shipping notice they are the tracking number, carrier and tracking link. If you set both a tracking number and a tracking link, the link is stored. Typing a path shows what it reads in the sample.

6. For an order confirmation folder, add the response rules described below. A shipping notice folder has no rules.

7. Select Test connection to list up to 50 files in the folder, with their name, size and date modified.

Write the path to a value

The same path box is used for every value, and a path follows the format of your sample.

• XML: the tag names from the top of the file down to the value, separated by /. Leave out the document root and copy prefixes exactly, for example cac:OrderReference/cbc:ID.

• EDI: SEGMENT/element/component, counting from 1. You can pick a segment by its first value, for example RFF[ON]/1/2.

• CSV: the column name from the first row, or colN when there is no header, for example col3. Only the first data row is read.

• Text: a line number, or a line number with a character range, for example 3 or 3:10-20.

Response rules for an order confirmation

Each rule tests the text at the response path, ignoring case. A rule says that a response that is exactly, contains or starts with some text means Accepted, Partly accepted or Not accepted. The first matching rule wins.

Any other response is recorded as Unknown, including a response that matches no rule and an empty response. You can't set a rule to Unknown, and a rule with empty text isn't saved.

What Dropday does with a file

Dropday checks every incoming folder every hour and reads each new file. It applies the file to the supplier order with the matching webshop order number, an order that was forwarded to that supplier, and records the result. Then Dropday deletes the file from your supplier's server.

A file without a readable order number, or without a matching order, is recorded and deleted without changing an order.

If the order already has a shipment with tracking, a shipping notice changes nothing and is recorded as already shipped.

Check the result of a file

Once Dropday has processed at least one file, View recent updates appears under Receive updates. It opens Recent files, which lists the files of that supplier, newest first, 50 rows per page. The columns are Received, File, Order and Result.

A matched order in the Order column links to the supplier order. Otherwise the cell says Not linked, and rows with no order, or no readable order number, are highlighted in red.

Receive updates itself shows the folder, its type and when Dropday last checked it. If the connection fails, a red dot shows the error in a tooltip. It lists no result per file.

The result of a file is one of these:

• Order confirmation: Accepted, Partly accepted, Not accepted, or Unknown when the response matches no rule.

• Shipping notice: Shipped (tracking sent to the store) when the file is applied, or Shipping file received (tracking already sent) when the order already had tracking.

• A file that couldn't be applied: No order found for the order number, or No order number found in this file. When a file was read but its tracking is invalid, you see the error text of that check; otherwise Could not read this file.

The order page doesn't list the results of incoming files. A shipping notice that is applied adds the line Shipped by the supplier to the event log of the order lines, with the tracking when the file had it. An order confirmation adds nothing there. You can't download the incoming file itself.

What Dropday doesn't read

Of the messages a trading partner sends back, Dropday reads only order confirmation and shipping notice files. Invoices and other message types aren't imported.

The connections are FTP, implicit FTPS and SFTP: AS2 and a VAN aren't connections in Dropday. Dropday has no X12 reader, so an X12 997 or 856 isn't read as that message type.

Next, see how a shipment and its tracking appear on the order.