Introduction
Introduction
Everok platform supports connecting multiple external systems or applications of agents through Everok's integration center, to share the booking information and shipment information with other agents respectively during the shipping business. The Everok platform is able to adopt different integration modes and different technical protocols for different agents in one centralized Everok integration center. If you have already built your own API for integration, Everok is able to follow your specifications and create a specific adaptor in between, to eliminate the difference. If you don't have API yet, Everok can also propose standard API specifications for you to establish your own API server endpoint.
Why to Connect
Without system connections, most operators from agents are facing following pain points during their daily work:
- You and your overseas agents waste hours on duplicate data entry, causing delays in receiving information that may result in customers not receiving their freight in a timely or reliable manner.
- Manually creating bookings and shipments takes too long and can lead to delays before your cargo even ships.
- Uploading and indexing shipment documents require hours of labor from your team that could be spent on business transformation.
With the power of directly integration in between, we can achieve:
- Less human interruption leading to immediate responses when sending bookings and real-time status updates.
- Reducing the reliance on emails and re-entered data makes your teams more efficient and helps you handle more freight.
What to Connect
Given the features of the freight transportation business, the typical integration processes are introduced below. The majority content of integration between systems includes booking requests, document posting, security filing, shipment milestones, and the final invoices.
Sample for export case(China basis):
| Step | Description |
|---|---|
| 1 | you create a booking request to Everok |
| 2 | Everok operator receives the booking request and fills up the rest of the information, then send the booking back to you for confirmation |
| 3 | for some cases, you could post relative documents to Everok which are relative to the shipment |
| 4 | security filing requested by different countries, in some cases Everok does the filing on the behavior of agents, and Everok will post the filing information and result to the agents. (such as AMS filing) |
| 5 | in other cases, if agents do the filing, agents will post the filing information and result to Everok (such as ISF filing) |
| 6 | Everok posts relative documents to you, such as HBL, MBL, etc. |
| 7-9 | shipping milestones update between Everok and agents |
| 10 | freight invoice generated in Everok and sent to you |
The scope of the content to be integrated between Everok and your application is negotiable and configurable, as well as the integration timing. the data pushing from Everok to your application is event basis, in the next section, all the supported events in Everok will be elaborated.
Shipment Event/Milestone
To trigger the data from the Everok application to the agent's system/application outside, there is a list of pre-defined shipment events(trigger points) described below. when the events are reached in the Everok application, the system will start to push required data to agent's systems outside as per different agents' requirements.
Shipment events/Trigger points are shown below:
| SEQ | Transportation Mode | EN Event Description | Trigger Timing |
|---|---|---|---|
| S001 | Sea | Booking Submit | Shipper submit the booking online in Everok |
| S002 | Sea | Booking Receipt | Booking accepted in Everok |
| S003 | Sea | Cargo Ready Date | Cargo ready date is captured in Everok |
| S004 | Sea | Booking with Shipping Line | Erverok operator request to book shipping line from Carrier |
| S005 | Sea | Shipping Line release space | Carrier release S/O as per booking |
| S006 | Sea | Booking Confirmation | Operator send final booking to oversea agent for confirmation |
| S007 | Sea | Cargo Received at Warehouse date | date is captured in Everok |
| S008 | Sea | Empty equipment dispatched date | date is captured in Everok |
| S009 | Sea | Gate In Terminal date | date is captured in Everok |
| S010 | Sea | ETD | Date and Time reached |
| S011 | Sea | ETA | Date and Time reached |
| S012 | Sea | Cut-off for AMS declaration | date is captured in Everok |
| S013 | Sea | date of ACI provided by shipper | date is captured in Everok |
| S014 | Sea | ISF Completed | Everok receive filing success from Customs |
| S015 | Sea | Loading (barge) | date is captured in Everok |
| S016 | Sea | ATD (barge) | date is captured in Everok |
| S017 | Sea | Loading(1nd Leg) | date is captured in Everok |
| S018 | Sea | ATD(1nd Leg) | date is captured in Everok |
| S019 | Sea | ATA(1nd Leg) | date is captured in Everok |
| S020 | Sea | ATA(2nd Leg) | date is captured in Everok |
| S021 | Sea | Pick-up Time | date is captured in Everok |
| S022 | Sea | Delivery Time | date is captured in Everok |
| S023 | Sea | POD | date is captured in Everok |
| S024 | Sea | Empty Comitted | date is captured in Everok |
| S025 | Sea | Free Time | date is captured in Everok |
| A001 | Air | Booking Submit | Shipper submit the booking online in Everok |
| A002 | Air | Booking Receipt | Booking accepted in Everok |
| A003 | Air | Cargo Ready Date | date is captured in Everok |
| A004 | Air | Booking with Airline | Erverok operator request to book airline |
| A005 | Air | Booking Confirmation | Operator send final booking to oversea agent for confirmation |
| A006 | Air | ETD | Date and Time reached |
| A007 | Air | ETA | Date and Time reached |
| A008 | Air | 1st Flight (Loading) | date is captured in Everok |
| A009 | Air | 1st Flight (Departure) | date is captured in Everok |
| A010 | Air | 1st Flight (Arriving) | date is captured in Everok |
| A011 | Air | 2nd Flight (Arriving) | date is captured in Everok |
| A012 | Air | 3rd Flight (Arriving) | date is captured in Everok |
| A013 | Air | 4st Flight (Arriving) | date is captured in Everok |
| A014 | Air | Pick-up | date is captured in Everok |
| A015 | Air | Delivery Time | date is captured in Everok |
| A016 | Air | POD | date is captured in Everok |
The trigger points listed above is a summarized list based on existing integration with 3rd party systems or application from respective partners of Everok. Trigger points can also be extended based on Everok application capability according to the new requirements from partners.
Architecture
In order to give a better vision of the Everok integration solution, Everok integration architecture is introduced in this section. given by the capability of the Everok platform, integration with external systems or applications from 3rd party is utilized by the Everok operation center and integration center.
Shipment events(trigger points) are pre-defined in the operation center according to the milestones of one shipment during the whole lifecycle. when the operator manipulates the bill in Everok, Everok will capture the trigger points and initiate the data synchronization automatically, the data exchanged within Everok follows the internal data format regardless agent's specific format.
Adapters in the integration center convert the internal data format to the structure and protocol required by specific agents.
The general architecture of integration is illustrated below:
Integration Protocol
Everok platform connects with multiple agent's applications through different protocols, in order to push data to the respective agent's applications properly. there are 2 kinds of modes we usually adopt for integration:
| Integration Mode | Protocol Supported | Description | Standard Specification |
|---|---|---|---|
| API Mode | -RESTFUL via HTTP -Webservice | API mode is used in the case that agents have their own API exposed, or agents want to build API endpoints for data exchange. In this mode, both Everok and connected agents should have API client and server endpoints respectively, and call API of each other. | shipment |
| File Mode | XML file via SFTP/FTP | File mode is used in the case that agents do not have an API endpoint but only can open an SFTP server for file exchanging. |
How to Connect
Any integration requests are welcome and will be well-captured by the Everok group. we will set up a process for you to collect specific requirements on integration, implement them together with your IT team, and stay on maintenance and optimization continuously.
The process of integration between Everok and your team consists of the following phases:
| Step | Phase | Description |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Business Requirement | to identify the requirements on business level, to decide when and what to be integrated between 2 systems. |
| 2 | Technical Requirement | Technical requirements on authentication, connection, message and fields, protocol, frequency, etc. |
| 3 | Implementation | To implement business and technical requirement, including customization, configuration, testing, bug fixing |
| 4 | Go-live &Babysitting | Launch on production and monitoring integration performance |
| 5 | Improvement | Continuous optimization on integration solution |