ShipLink

An application installed on board the vessels to send requisitions to the purchasing office.

ShipLink is an application installed on board the vessels to send requisitions to the purchasing offices.

Requisitions are sent via email to reqs@shipserv.com mailbox, which TNC uses to process the requisitions and send it the buyers systems.

To use ShipLink, Buyers would need to download installation file (available here) and get a software key which would be provided by support@shipserv.com.

Please watch this ShipLink tutorial video to learn how to create requisitions in ShipLInk.

To learn more about WebBuyer, visit our help article here.

ShipLink Document Flow

1. the application reads the configurations. Then it will create the current days’ working directories that will be used in the succeeding methods. After creation of these folders, downloading these emails will follow.

2. Each email is dissected to retrieve the attachment or in line files. Valid files are in the form of .zip, .rqz, .usg, .rzs, .req and .txt files. Other than the mentioned extensions are not valid and sent back to the sender for notification.

   Zip files are decompressed using Ionic.zip component to extract files with valid extensions. Files with .rqz and .usg deflated or decompressed using Zlib.net component and converted to .req files, while .usg files are saved as .dat files. Files with .rqs extensions are transformed using a style sheet stored in the server and save it as .req files. Files with .req extension are considered valid files.

   Each extracted or deflated file is parsed and validated. Files which are ready for parsing and validation are in .req or .dat extension.

3. Files with .req extension are validated. Shiplink reads the part numbers in the file. If the file has part numbers, the app will get the number of supplier that provides the products with those part numbers. While a .dat file is not processed, Shiplink will call SSOUsageData web service to update the suppliers of the products. To create a new requisition, the new Shiplink will use TNC web service with “SHIPLINK” integration. There is a new translator in TNC that transforms the Shiplink requisition to TNC format. The .req file will be transferred to archives folder at the end of processing.

4. For a .dat file, Shiplink will count the suppliers. If there is/are supplier in the file, a counter for SSOUsage will be incremented. If the counter reaches the total number of files that is processed, Shiplink will call SSOUsageData web service. The .dat file will be transferred to archives folder at the end of processing.