Rules for Importing Shipments via CSV
These rules are specific to importing shipments from a CSV. For general documentation on importing from a CSV, see Importing from a Comma Separated Values Flat File.
Unique Identifiers
The unique identifier fields for a shipment are used to determine whether an existing shipment should be updated or a new shipment should be added. During a shipment import, the unique identifiers (in order of precedence) are: ShipmentID, ExternalShipmentID.
Creating the Shipments CSV File
Shipments can contain one or more sales. Fields particular to a shipment (like the tracking number or shipping service) only need to be specified once per shipment. Fields that are particular to each sale (like the quantity purchased or the SKU of the item purchased) need to be specified for each individual sale.
The different levels of data required for creating a shipment make importing from a flat file more complex than a simple import of items or buyers. Importing multilevel data like this may require multiple input lines for each shipment as described here.
The first row in the CSV as always is the header row. It contains the title of all shipment and sales fields to be imported.
After the header row in the input, the first data line should contain information about the shipment and the first sale. Since a shipment has to be part of an order, either the OrderID or the ExternalOrderID of an existing order must be provided. If the shipment has only one item sold nothing further is required. If however, there are additional items in the shipment, additional rows will need to be created in the input.
For each additional item in the shipment, a new row should contain all of the pertinent sale fields and either the ShipmentID or ExternalShipmentID field to identify the shipment that the sale is part of. All other shipment fields should be left empty (as signified by placing a comma in the input for each missing field).
The following example includes just a few shipment and sales fields for importing a shipment with 3 sales.
Order ID,Shipment ID,Shipped Date,Tracking Number,Sales Sale ID,Sales SKU,Sales Title
12474,10897,,,15879,CareBearsTrip1-10/5/08,1987 - Care Bears Family Vacation Kit - Bristol Myers
,10897,,,15880,HettrickMfg,Letterhead - 1923 - Hettrick Cotton Goods - Tents
,10897,,,15881,TRSagamoreHill-9/30/07,FDC - 1953 - Sagamore Hill - Art Craft
12474,10898,,,15882,GirlWithTwoBirds1-9/30/07,Elaborate & Fine Die-cut - Woman with Two Birds
,10898,,,15883,,Booklet - 1942 - How Green Was My Valley - Study Guide
,10898,,,15884,WomanOnTurtle1-9/30/07,Elaborate and Fine Die-Cut - Woman Riding on a Turtle
,10898,,,15885,WomanOnDragon1-9/30/07,Elaborate and Fine Die-Cut - Woman Riding on a Dragon