How to use Advanced Rate Shopping restrictions [Guide]

Modified on Tue, 24 Dec at 1:11 PM

NOTE: This feature is available as part of the techShip PLUS and MultiSite packages.

When setting up restrictions to include or exclude Service Codes when Rate Shopping, you might need to be more specific than just defining a list of codes to be included or excluded, for example, indicating that a service should be considered if the order is being shipped to some states, countries or ZIP codes.

This article details where the controls are to use this feature, indications on how to use the filter fields, and practical examples.

Feel free to follow the step-by-step guide written below or the video guide, as you prefer:

So, separating the use of the feature in parts, you have:

ACCESSING THE VIEW AND ENABLING ADVANCED USAGE

Access Clients under the Maintenance menu
Click on the client related to the setup
Edit the Billing Account for which you wish to customize the Service Code list
Select the Restrictions tab
Check Advanced mode and Select the Rule mode you would like to use

DIFFERENT RULE MODES

The Rule Mode dropdown has two options and a checkbox:

Allow orders matching criteria: The service is applied if at least ONE of the conditions defined match the order and service code combination.
Deny orders matching criteria: The service is applied if NONE of the conditions match the order and service code combination.
Apply for explicit orders: Indicates that the criteria should be applied not only when Rate Shopping, but also for orders imported under an explicit carrier (FedEx, UPS, USPS, etc).

ADDING SERVICES AND SETTING UP CONDITIONS

For each service you add, you will be able to define a complex set of conditions for it to be applicable for shipping. To do so, you will have to:

Select the service from the dropdown and press Add Rule

WARNING: If the service selected is ALL (which considers every service available altogether), the condition logic applies BEFORE the carrier is reached; otherwise the logic applies AFTER the carrier has been reached and rates received.
Define the conditions required for the case, you will be able to set. You can apply one or multiple conditions per service code using the following criteria elements :

A) Filter by condition

NOTE: Conditions ending with "(AI)" (e.g. Ship-to street name (AI), Ship-to street number (AI), Ship-to unit (AI)), are AI-powered and used to extract address data. To check for missing address information, select the corresponding condition, set the Operator to "=", and leave Value blank.

WARNING: AI-powered conditions may not always be accurate. Use with caution.

B) Select different operations (equals, not equals, in, not in, like, not like)

- Equals/Not Equals: Used for exact, single values (e.g. Country = CA or Country <> CA)
- In/Not In: Used for exact, multiple values, comma separated (e.g. Country in CA, US, MX)
The operator variants are:
- In: Looks for exact matches for one or more than one (comma separated) values
- Not in: Looks for exact mismatches for one or more than one (comma separated) values
- All in: Looks for an exact match of ALL the comma separated values
- At least one in: Looks for a match of at least one of all the comma separated values
- All not in: Looks for an exact mismatch of ALL the comma separated values

- Like/Not Like: Used for values containing what's entered (e.g. SKU like *Soap*)
The operator variants are:
- Like: Looks for an inclusive match of the provided value
- Not like: Looks for an inclusive mismatch of the provided value
- All like: Looks for an inclusive match of all the verified values (e.g. an order with many SKUs where all the SKUs match the value entered)
- At least one like: Looks for an inclusive match of at least one of the verified values (e.g. an order with many SKUs where at least one of the SKUs match the value entered)
- All not like: Looks for an inclusive mismatch of all the verified values (e.g. an order with many SKUs where none of the SKUs match the value entered)

NOTE: The LIKE operator needs to ALWAYS use at least one wildcard, either * or ? according to the case, for example, *Soap* would match for Yellow Soap as well as Yellow Soap 85mg

- Greater/Less than: Used for numeric ranges (Total Value >= 200 or Total Value < 200)

C) Individual or comma separated list of values (e.g. CA or US,CA,MX)

D) Add the condition you've defined, or delete a preexisting one
Repeat the process as many times as necessary to add more than one condition and more than one service.

CONSIDERATIONS

The Values (C) field accepts the following wildcards for the LIKE operators:
- *: uses every character available for combination for many character places (e.g. R3X*)
- ?: uses every character available for combination for a specific character (e.g. R3X???)
For conditions using Postal Codes, including the LIKE operation is recommended when the same postal code could be written:
- With our without spaces
- In 5 or 9 digit mode
If the Apply for Explicit orders checkbox is:
- Enabled: techShip will apply the rules to Rate Shopping orders, Carrier Explicit orders and orders Imported with the [Import setting]
- Disabled: techship will apply the rules ONLY to orders imported as Rate Shopping
You can apply one or multiple conditions on each service code; when service code has several conditions they are concatenated using the AND operation; if you need an OR scenario, you can use the IN or NOT IN operators and separate the values with commas

EXAMPLES

Review the following examples depending on the scenarios you need to cover.

You are free to combine as many scenarios as required, taking into consideration that there should not be contradictions between your rules, specially if you're combining scenarios (e.g. geographical restrictions together with order content restrictions):