UPS OnLine Tools are Internet-based applications that add a new level of customer service throughout your company and functionality to your e-commerce Web site or enterprise application. With UPS OnLine Tools, your customers can track products they have purchased online, compare and choose from a variety of shipping services that best serve their needs, and handle shipping logistics more efficiently than ever before.
The tools are:
- UPS Tracking: Provide up-to-the-minute shipment status - from origin to delivery - to your online customers.
- UPS Signature Tracking: Obtain proof of delivery containing a digitized signature and delivery address.
- UPS Rates & Service Selection: Let online shoppers compare, price, and select shipping services that best fit their needs and budgets.
- UPS Time in Transit: Let your customers compare the speed of different UPS shipping services to everywhere UPS delivers around the world.
- UPS U.S. Address Validation: Ensure that customer-entered shipping addresses for the United States are correct at the time of order.
- UPS Shipping: Bring UPS Web-based shipping to your employees' desktops.
- UPS File Download for Quantum ViewTM: Retrieve your Quantum View files automatically and import them directly into your back-end systems.
- UPS TradeAbilityTM Web Services: Manage the movement of international goods in a timely, efficient, and compliant manner. UPS TradeAbility services include Denied Party Screener, Landed Cost, Export License Detector, and Import Compliance.
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With UPS OnLine Tools your company can improve customer service by streamlining your ordering and shipping processes, lower costs by reducing returns and customer support phone calls, and empower buyers by allowing customers to track their packages and choose their own shipping options.
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Thousands of companies of all shapes and sizes are currently enjoying the benefits of UPS OnLine Tools on their web sites.
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The UPS OnLine Tools are Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) that allow UPS customers to access transportation functionality, which resides on UPS servers, and deliver this information to their customers.
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To integrate these tools into your e-commerce application(s), it is recommended that the developer have intermediate IT skills and be able to develop custom code that adapts your application's business logic and data to UPS OnLine Tools. You can use any programming language that supports HTTP communication across Internet socket and secure connections, such as Java, Visual Basic, or C++. Other requirements include the ability to:
- Know how to program URL or socket connections. Which method you choose will depend on your application platform and programming language.
- Obtain, or write, a secure socket implementation that supports the SSL standard for secure communications. UPS OnLine Tools requires secure HTTP (HTTPS). This data security is required for the protection of both the client application and UPS; sensitive (billing-related) data is being transferred back and forth across the public Internet.
- Encode and decode XML documents. To program XML documents, you'll probably want to use an XML parser, which provides an Application Programming Interface (API) for manipulating XML documents.
- Design a strategy into your software for handling errors. Consider that there are three types of errors: hard errors, transient errors, and warnings. For a smoothly running application you must decide how you handle each type of error.
- Establish a connection to the Internet from the computer that runs your e-commerce application.
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UPS OnLine Tools are free to license. There are no hidden or monthly charges for the applications, though you may require integration assistance from IT professionals or third-party developers, depending on the complexity of your EC solution.
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UPS OnLine Tools are free and come with clear instructions about how they can be incorporated into your EC Solution. For UPS Tracking, the tool documentation includes HTML code that fits into your existing site code. For the XML versions of UPS OnLine Tools, your IT professional will be required to use advanced programming such as Java to develop a program to send and receive data over the Internet. Your IT professional will also integrate the results into your Web site or enterprise solution. Before you use the tools, you must accept a licensing agreement that specifies terms and conditions.
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UPS does not provide programs or code that need to be installed on your system. We provide you with technical documentation that describes UPS OnLine Tools and guides you through the requirements for building the application so it can communicate with UPS servers and work effectively on your site.
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While you must agree to license the tools, there is no long-term obligation associated with UPS OnLine Tools. You can cease using UPS OnLine Tools at any time and convert your site back to its original configuration.
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Yes. UPS provides technical support via e-mail for implementation and production for licensed users at no additional cost.
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UPS OnLine Tools will not change the style or tone of your Web site. The tools are not hyperlinks to UPS.com. You control how to display the data and your user's experience. Displaying the UPS brand on your Web site will give your customers peace of mind knowing their orders will be shipped reliably and securely.
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UPS replaced the datastreaming version of UPS OnLine Tools with new XML technology that improves integration efforts.
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UPS Tracking is available in either HTML or XML. Although there are technical differences between the two versions, there are no functional differences.
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The structured, self-descriptive, and extensible formatting of the data is the biggest difference. XML documents have tags naming each data element allowing optional elements to be omitted and unexpected or uninteresting elements to be ignored. XML documents are also hierarchically structured so that a particular value, such as "City", can be used in a variety of contexts (e.g., OriginAddress, DestinationAddress, ShipperAddress) without confusion. Because unexpected data, identified by the tags, can easily be ignored, XML documents can be extended (i.e., added to) without impact to existing applications.
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UPS plans to continue to upgrade UPS OnLine Tools for increased performance and functionality. When updates are announced, registered users will be notified via e-mail. Please keep the e-mail address in your profile up to date since this is our only means of communication. We recommend you return to this site on a monthly basis because, as we continue to identify the dynamic needs of our customers, we will deliver new and improved solutions for their businesses.
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UPS OnLine Tools are available in several countries around the world. If your country is not listed, please check back often. We are continually adding global functionality and more support of local languages.
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UPS has formed relationships with leading e-commerce service providers who can deliver integration services for your organization. These companies have been trained to implement UPS OnLine Tools into multiple technology platforms.
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The UPS ReadyTM Program selectively licenses third-party developers to distribute products that include UPS OnLine Tools. UPS has created a Third Party Developer License Request form for companies that would like to submit a request to integrate the UPS OnLine Tools into their product or application for distribution outside of their company. For more information about the UPS Ready Program select the Business Solutions tab, above, then choose Portfolio of Services and select UPS Ready Program. For more information about becoming a provider, select Join the UPS Ready Program link under Next Steps in the upper right of the page.
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Web Services are self-contained, modular applications that can be described, published, located, and invoked over a network, generally, the Web. The TradeAbility Web Services are composed of four services. The services are Landed Cost, Import Compliance, Export License Detector, and Denied Party Screener.
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Use of the Web Services architecture provides the following benefits:
- Promotes interoperability by minimizing the requirements for shared understanding
The Web Service Description Language (WSDL), an XML-based interface, is the only requirement for shared understanding between a service provider and a service requester. By limiting what is absolutely required for interoperability, collaborating Web services can be truly platform and language independent. By limiting what is absolutely required, Web Services can be implemented using a large number of different underlying infrastructures.
- Enables just-in-time integration
Collaborations in Web Services are bound dynamically at runtime. A service requester describes the capabilities of the service required and can use the TradeAbility Web Service WSDL to bind/attach to those services.
- Reduces complexity by encapsulation
All components in Web Services are services. What is important is the type of behavior a service provides, not how it is implemented. A WSDL document is the mechanism to describe the behavior encapsulated by a service.
- Enables interoperability of legacy applications
By allowing legacy applications to be wrapped in a WSDL, and exposed as services, the Web Services architecture easily enables new interoperability between these applications. In addition, security, middleware and communications technologies can be wrapped to participate in a Web service as environmental prerequisites.
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Part of obtaining UPS OnLine Tools is licensing: agreeing to the terms and conditions of using the tools. Once you are licensed you are issued a Developer's key. The Developer's Key gives your business access to the documentation for UPS OnLine Tools*. Different keys are issued for end users and third-party developers.
(* Does not include documentation for UPS Signature Tracking or UPS Shipping. An end user must first complete a request form to access the documentation for these tools.)
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Developer's Keys are available in the Get Tools section. In order to obtain a Developer's Key, you must be registered with UPS.
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An Access Key provides your business access to UPS systems which hold the information you or your customers need to ship, track, or rate a package. There are two types of Access Keys - XML and HTML. An XML Access Key is required for access to all available XML versions of the UPS OnLine Tools. An HTML Access Key is required for access to all available HTML versions of the UPS OnLine Tools.
The following are a few suggestions to more effectively utilize your company's Access Key(s):
- If your business is interested in integrating either the UPS Signature Tracking or the UPS Shipping tool, we require that you first complete a request form for the specific tool and receive authorization before requesting an Access Key.
- If multiple locations or departments will be accessing the tools, a great way to monitor and assess usage is to have an Access Key per location.
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To gain access to UPS OnLine Tools, the Access Key must accompany every request sent to the UPS OnLine Tools server. If the Access Key is valid for the requested UPS OnLine Tool (for example, using an XML Access Key for an XML tool) and the User ID/Password is correct, the requested service will be processed. If not, the service response containing the corresponding error code and message will be returned. Additional information on using an Access Key can be found within the documentation for each OnLine tool.
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What are UPS OnLine Tools?