ANN: Shipper and Shipper Service 1.3 Final Release

Shipper and Shipper Service 1.3.0 are now available. Since the holiday rush has already started for most merchants, Shipper 1.2 will not notify you that an update is available until January 2006. Until then, I do not recommend that you install this upgrade unless you need the new support for Endicia.

This new release includes the following changes:

• NEW: Support for Endicia Galaxy. Galaxy works with Endicia Dazzle to create and print postage and mailing labels for USPS mail. One click integration with Shipper uploads address and tracking information to your store, downloads pending shipments, and prepares them for processing with Galaxy and Dazzle. For more information about Endicia, please visit http://www.endicia.com.
  
  The are two limitations in the integration with Galaxy Ship versus FedEx Ship Manager and UPS WorldShip:
  
  
  • Galaxy Ship does not import the Mail Class (a.k.a. ShipmentService) so this must be selected in Galaxy Ship after importing the shipment.
  • Galaxy Ship does not perform batch imports.
    
• NEW: Shipper will automatically run refresh its view of the off line data (as if you pressed F5) every 30 seconds. The effect of this change is that the Outbox will always show the shipments you have processed with the carrier software. This will make it easier to print packing slips that include tracking information.
  
• CHANGE: Shipper was changed so that you can choose the field you would like to use as the import key when processing shipments in the carrier software. The two choices are Order Number and Shipment ID. You can choose a different field for each carrier. The default (if no choice is made) is Order Number.
  
  The selected field value is displayed in the Shipments pane where Shipment ID was displayed in previous versions. That means that if you choose to import using the Shipment ID field, the Shipments pane will not look any different. If you choose to import using the Order Number, then you will see the order number instead of the Shipment ID.
  
  The UPS WorldShip import maps called "From Shipper by Key" and "From Shipper by Order" have been replaced by a single import map called "From Shipper" that uses the import key you choose in Shipper.
  
  The FedEx Ship Manager profiles called "FromShipperByKey" and "FromShipperByOrder" have been replaced by a single profile called "FromShipper" that uses the reference field you choose in Shipper.
  
• CHANGE: BillToName, ShipFromName, and ShipToName have been renamed to BillToCompany, ShipFromCompany, and ShipToCompany. If you created a custom print format in a previous release, you will need to change any references to the old names to use the new names.
  
  Furthermore, in previous releases, ShipToName and ShipFromName were always non-blank. They were set equal to the company name if it existed, otherwise they were set equal to the full contact name. Now they are always set equal to the company name, which may be blank. This can be a breaking change for custom print formats and/or advanced filters that relied on ShipToName and ShipFromName always having a non-blank value. Please see Invoices.xsl and Packing Slips.xsl for examples of have to deal with the new treatment.
  
• CHANGE: Infragistics web controls updated to same level in Shipping Cost Estimator 1.4.3, SignIn Control 1.4.0, and Shipper Service for StoreFront 1.3.0. After installing the updates, you can safely remove older Infragistics.* DLL’s from your sites bin folder unless you have a 3rd party control that uses the same libraries.

Shipper and Shipper Service must be upgraded together. Shipper 1.3 will not work with Shipper Service 1.2 and visa versa. You can download Shipper and Shipper Service 1.3 from the following links or by visiting the downloads page.

• Shipper 1.3
• Shipper Service for BVC2004 1.3
• Shipper Service for StoreFront 1.3

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