Shipping Agent Integration Specifications

While all parties involved in the container import flow will be prompted to give release information, only two parties are considered to be “data providers”. These entities, being Shipping Agents and Terminal Operators, need to give their approval before a container can be picked up.

To participate in Certified Pick up (CPu) as a Shipping Agent, you will need to follow the steps described below:

• register and subscribe to CPu. You can find more information on this in the Getting Started with the API integration guide

• testing must be performed on User Acceptance Testing environment before moving to Production

CPu requires you to provide the following actions / functions / transactions:

• submit Commercial Release information

• identify your First Release Party

These actions can be performed in a single call but are handled as separate events.

Setting up your endpoint connection

To ensure our high security standards at NxtPort, we do not allow any anonymous API connection and we require of course a minimum set of security measures to be applied on any API connection. To that end, you will need to follow the steps of the Getting Started guide to set up the secure API connection with NxtPort.

You need to have completed the steps described on Getting Started with the API integration in order to proceed.

Asynchronous processing in CPu

To correctly integrate the set of API comprehended in the CPu application, it is important to be aware of the fact that CPu mainly works in an asynchronous fashion.

This means that you when making an API call, you will not get the result to your request in the response to your API call, but NxtPort will process your request and then send you a notification through the endpoint you have configured in the Getting Started process. To that end we advise you to pay quite close attention to the use of the Public Reference Id. This is the GUID you receive in the response of your API call.

This will allow you to keep track of the notifications in line with the request calls you have made.

When a API call returns a synchronous response, it is clearly marked in this guide.

Integration API calls

It is your responsibility to inform NxtPort in advance about which message type you’re using, as it requires a different setup on our end. You should have provided us this info during your onboarding as described in the Getting Started guide.

General remarks

Release Lights

Submit commercial release

The commercial release is the starting point of a Certified Pick up. To perform a commercial release, use the following information.

This will create the commercial release, set the Commercial Release Light to GREEN, while at the same time creating the first Release Right in the process.

Without having created a commercial release, no other data will be visible and no other actions will be handled in the CPu process.

Response & notifications

This is an asynchronous call; you will get a direct API response containing a public reference id and a notification containing the relevant information on your channel.

Update commercial release

For as long as the container is not yet picked up, the creator (Shipping Agent) is able to update the release information. This can be done for example:

• to postpone or limit the period during which the release is allowed

• to change the terminal where the container will be ready for pick up

All information can be updated, except for "ReleaseTo", "equipmentNumber" and "billOfLadingNumbers". If you want to make a correction on one of these, you'll have to delete the first record and send in a new Commercial Release.

If you update the commercial release, all information will be overwritten. This means you will have to provide all information concerning this release, and not only the updated fields!

The difference between using an “Update” and deleting a release/create a new release is that in the first case the Release Right remains where it is, while in the latter the release proces has to restart.

As an example we take the case that a transporter has the Release Right of a container that is about to expire tomorrow. You want to add one week to the validity period of the release.

• If you use “update” to extend the validity of the Release Right, the Right remains at the transport company. They can pick up the container in the next days.

• If you delete the release and create a new one, the transport company has lost its Release Right! They’ll have to receive the Release Right again before they can perform any actions!

Response & notifications

This is an asynchronous call; you will get a direct API response containing a public reference id and a notification containing the relevant information on your channel.

The endpoint to delete a commercial release is identical to the one that is used when submitting a commercial release. Therefore, the responses will also be the same.

Notifications

A successful request will generate a notification of type ReleaseLight with action Update that will be sent to

• your own notification channel

• the Terminal Operator and

• the Release Right owner (if the Right was already transferred)

Block commercial release

For as long as the container is not yet picked up, the creator of the commercial release (Shipping Agent) is able to block the commercial release Light. In case a Release Right was previously granted, this remains unchanged. As such, once the commercial Release Light becomes unblocked, the process can continue without the need to restart the Release Right transfers.

This call will block the commercial release. This will put the Commercial Release Light to RED.

In the “blocked” state, the Release Right can still be transferred. However, for as long as the container is blocked, it cannot be picked up at the terminal!

Response & notifications

This is an asynchronous call; you will get a direct API response containing a public reference id and a notification containing the relevant information on your channel.

The endpoint to delete a commercial release is identical to the one that is used when submitting a commercial release. Therefore, the responses will also be the same.

Notifications

A successful request will generate a notification of type ReleaseLight with action Blocked that will be sent to

• your own notification channel

• the Terminal Operator and

• the Release Right owner (if the Right was already transferred)

Unblock commercial release

When a container was previously blocked by the Shipping Agent, they can unblock it.

This call will unblock the commercial release and put the commercial light to GREEN.

“Unblock” means “if this container has been blocked (by me) before, remove this blockage”. If no blocks were present on the container, this call will do nothing.

Response & notifications

This is an asynchronous call; you will get a direct API response containing a public reference id and a notification containing the relevant information on your channel.

The endpoint to delete a commercial release is identical to the one that is used when submitting a commercial release. Therefore, the responses will also be the same.

Notifications

A successful request will generate a notification of type ReleaseLight with action Unblocked that will be sent to

• your own notification channel

• the Terminal Operator and

• the Release Right owner (if the Right was already transferred)

Revoke commercial release

For as long as the container is not yet picked up, the creator of the commercial release (Shipping Agent) is able to revoke the commercial release Light. In case the Release Right is returned to its originator.

Response & notifications

This is an asynchronous call; you will get a direct API response containing a public reference id and a notification containing the relevant information on your channel.

Delete commercial release

For as long as the container is not yet picked up, the creator of the commercial release (Shipping Agent) is allowed to delete the commercial release. This will remove the container from the active system.

It is not allowed to update other information when deleting a Release Light. This will result in a 405 error message.

Response & notifications

This is an asynchronous call; you will get a direct API response containing a public reference id and a notification containing the relevant information on your channel.

The endpoint to delete a commercial release is identical to the one that is used when submitting a commercial release. Therefore, the responses will also be the same.

Notifications

A successful request will generate a notification of type ReleaseLight with action Delete that will be sent to

• your own notification channel

• the Terminal Operator and

• the Release Right owner (if the Right was already transferred)

Release Rights

Get list of Release Rights assigned to my company

This will trigger you to receive a notification on your predefined notification channel. Within you will receive the details of all Release Rights currently assigned to your company with their corresponding Green Lights.

Every Certified Pick up user is able to retrieve the list of all Pick up Rights that he is entitled to. For a Ship’s agent, this means he can get a list of all commercially released containers for which the release right has not yet been transferred.

To maximize security, the response to this call will be a JSON file that will be sent to your notification channel and will not be returned in the result. You can read more on how to setup notification channels in our console here.

Transfer your Release Rights

Transfer the Release Rights to the next company.

In case the Release Right was not provided when submitting the Release Light (the releaseTo party was not entered), the Ship Agent can (if he doesn’t decide to keep the Release Right within his own entity) transfer the Release Right to another party, allowing them to initiate the Pick up of the container.

When a “releaseTo” party was present in the “Release Lights” Submit call, you can’t use this method as the Release Right is automatically given. You need to delete and resubmit the Release Light in case you wish to transfer the Right to another party or Revoke the right if the ReleaseTo party did not yet accept it.

When transferring a container, the transferring party is required to provide detailed information about the Release Right which he received in the previous steps. We verify if the provided information matches with the information that we have received from the original source and send via notifications to the Right owners, increasing the security about Pick up right transfers.

Response & notifications

This is an asynchronous call; you will get a direct API response containing a public reference id and a notification containing the relevant information on your channel.

Revoke your Release Rights

If a release right is not Accepted or Declined by the next party then the current owner can still return the right back to them.

Response & notifications

This is an asynchronous call; you will get a direct API response containing a public reference id and a notification containing the relevant information on your channel.

Bulk actions on Release Rights

It is possible to send multiple actions with a single request by using this bulk method. The following actions are supported: 

• Transfer

• Accept

• Decline

• Revoke

Response & notifications

This is an asynchronous call; you will get a direct API response containing a public reference id and a notification containing the relevant information on your channel.

Generic Services

Get Release detail

At any time, stakeholders that are allowed to see the information, can retrieve the detail and greenlights of a specific container release.

This will trigger you to receive a notification on your predefined notification channel. Within you will receive the detail of the container with its corresponding Green Lights.

Company Registry

This a synchronous call available to all CPu parties, which allows for querying the NxtPort register for other existing CPu parties and their respective identification values.

At any time, stakeholders that are allowed to see the information, can retrieve the details of any CPu connected party.

Synchronous Responses

{
  "searchFilter": {
    "eori": "string",
    "duns": "string",
    "vat": "string",
    "nxtEntityId": "string"
    "entityName": "string",
    "apcsCode": "string",
    "page": 1,
    "pageSize": 25
  },
  "phoneBookItems": [
    {
      "apcsCode": "string",
      "addresses": [
        {
          "addressTypeCode": "string",
          "street": "string",
          "postalCode": "string",
          "city": "string",
          "country": "string",
          "contactName": "string",
          "contactEmail": "string"
        }
      ],
      "nxtEntityId": "string",
      "name": "string",
      "vat": "string",
      "duns": "string",
      "eori": "string",
      "scac": "string",
      "apcs": "string",
      "externalId": "string"
    }
  ],
  "totalRows": 0,
  "totalPages": 0,
  "publicReferenceId": "string",
  "externalReferenceId": "string"
}

{
    "type": "https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc7231#section-6.5.1",
    "title": "One or more validation errors occurred.",
    "status": 400,
    "traceId": "00-1fa221c60594f6428678fd0fe54140a8-d1aecb5a9485b64d-00",
    "errors": {
        "Page": [
            "'Page' must be greater than or equal to '1'."
        ]
    }
}

{
  "type": "string",
  "title": "string",
  "status": 401,
  "detail": "string",
  "instance": "string",
  "additionalProp1": {},
  "additionalProp2": {},
  "additionalProp3": {}
}

{
  "type": "string",
  "title": "string",
  "status": 405,
  "detail": "string",
  "instance": "string",
  "additionalProp1": {},
  "additionalProp2": {},
  "additionalProp3": {}
}

Notification Service 1.0 (deprecated)

This version of the notification service will be retired with CPu release 2.25 . Please use version 2.0 (see below).

This API call allows you to retrieve the notification(s) sent to your notification channel by CPu. You will need either the equipment number OR the Public Reference ID OR the External Reference ID. Values can be combined.

Notifications can be retrieved up to 168 hours in the past from the time of your request (e.g. on 08 April at 13h00 you can retrieve all notifications dating from 01 April 13h00 onwards).

Response & notifications

This is an synchronous call, you will get a direct API response:

[
  {
    "nxtEntityId": "",
    "equipmentNumber": "",
    "publicReferenceId": "",
    "externalReferenceId": "",
    "storedOn": "",
    "message": ""
  }
  // object repeated for all notifications
]

[
  // empty array
]

{
    "statusCode": 401,
    "message": "Access denied due to invalid subscription key. Make sure to provide a valid key for an active subscription."
}

// empty object

{
    "identifier": "2304c375-30e2-408b-ac74-4c1b67ceaabf",
    "error": "An unexpected error has occured, please try again later. If the problem persists, please contact NxtPort Support.",
    "extraInfo": null
}

Notification Service 2.0

Notifications can be retrieved up to 168 hours in the past from the time of your request (e.g. on 08 April at 13h00 you can retrieve all notifications dating from 01 April 13h00 onwards).

This API call allows you to retrieve notifications sent to your company.

The timeWindowFrom and timeWindowTo query parameters will be available starting from version 3.11.0 of the API.

Responses

[
  {
    "nxtEntityId": "string",
    "equipmentNumber": "string",
    "publicReferenceId": "string",
    "releaseId": "string",
    "externalReferenceId": "string",
    "storedOn": "ISO_Timestamp",
    "message": "string",
    "type": "string",
    "event": "string"
  }
  // object repeated for all notifications
]

{
    "statusCode": 401,
    "message": "Access denied due to invalid subscription key. Make sure to provide a valid key for an active subscription."
}

// empty object

{
    "identifier": "2304c375-30e2-408b-ac74-4c1b67ceaabf",
    "error": "An unexpected error has occured, please try again later. If the problem persists, please contact NxtPort Support.",
    "extraInfo": null
}

Additional information

Direct API responses to asynchronous calls

This overview contains the direct responses you might receive to the asynchronous calls.

{
  "publicReferenceId": "GUID",
  "externalReferenceId": "string"
}

{
  "publicReferenceId": "GUID",
  "externalReferenceId": "string"
}

{
    "type": "https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc7231#section-6.5.1",
    "title": "One or more validation errors occurred.",
    "status": 400,
    "traceId": "00-a5601c96c250de464a5305102370cc7e-011ec98b63cf25c4-00",
    "errors": {
        "PortLoCode": [
            "'Port Lo Code' must not be empty.",
            "'Port Lo Code' must be equal to 'BEANR'."
        ],
        "EquipmentNumber": [
            "'Equipment Number' must not be empty."
        ]
    }
}

Request body fields

Below you can find the overview of all the request body field keys which are used in the API calls.

This overview acts like a reference guide, not all fields are to be included in each call. The request bodies are always marked with the calls.

Notifications

As explained about the asynchronous handling within the CPu process, you - as a Shipping Agent - will receive various notifications.

Some of these will be asynchronous responses to calls you have submitted, some will be notifications triggered by actions performed by other parties in the release process.

You will find detailed information tailored to your role in CPu on Notifications for Shipping Agents .

Need any further assistance?

Raise a support ticket on the NxtPort Support Portal