Aftership is a shipment tracking platform designed such that it can be integrated into your company’s website as a branded tracking page. It provides your customers with real-time updates about their orders and when they are expected to be delivered. Aftership reduces your logistics-related workload by automatically monitoring the status of an order and sending updates to your customers as soon as an order status changes. Additionally, it provides you with analytical reports on the number of orders shipped, delivered, lost, and so on, to identify any problems in your delivery system.
You can replicate the data from your Aftership account to a Destination database or data warehouse using Hevo Pipelines. Hevo ingests the data objects in Full Load mode. Refer to section, Data Model for the list of supported objects.
Aftership uses API keys to identify Hevo and authorize the request for accessing account data.
Prerequisites
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An active AfterShip account from which data is to be ingested exists.
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The API key is available to authenticate Hevo on your AfterShip account.
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You are logged in as an Admin user in AfterShip to create the API key.
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You are assigned the Team Administrator, Team Collaborator, or Pipeline Administrator role in Hevo to create the Pipeline.
Creating the API Key
You require an API key to authenticate Hevo on your AfterShip account. The API key does not expire and can be reused for all your Pipelines.
Note: You must log in as an Admin user to perform these steps.
To create the API key:
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Log in to your AfterShip account.
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In the bottom left corner of the page, click Settings.
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On the Settings page, click API keys.
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On the API keys page, click Create API key.
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On the Create new API key page, do the following:
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Specify the API Name, not exceeding 50 characters.
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In the Select signature header section, select API key.
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In the Select admin API permissions section, specify the required levels of permission for different parts of your Tracking account.
Refer to the following table for the required permissions:
Field Name Permission Carriers Read Estimated delivery dates None Last checkpoints None Notifications None Trackings Read -
Click Save.
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Click the Copy icon corresponding to the API key to copy it, and save it securely like any other password. Alternatively, you can Download the key. Use this key while configuring your Hevo Pipeline.
Configuring AfterShip as a Source
Perform the following steps to configure AfterShip as the Source in your Pipeline:
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Click PIPELINES in the Navigation Bar.
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Click + CREATE PIPELINE in the Pipelines List View.
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On the Select Source Type page, select AfterShip.
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On the Configure your AfterShip Source page, specify the following:
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Pipeline Name: A unique name for the Pipeline, not exceeding 255 characters.
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API Key: The API key that you obtained from your AfterShip account.
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Click TEST & CONTINUE.
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Proceed to configuring the data ingestion and setting up the Destination.
Data Replication
| For Teams Created | Default Ingestion Frequency | Minimum Ingestion Frequency | Maximum Ingestion Frequency | Custom Frequency Range (in Hrs) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Before Release 2.21 | 1 Hr | 1 Hr | 24 Hrs | 1-24 |
| After Release 2.21 | 6 Hrs | 30 Mins | 24 Hrs | 1-24 |
Note: The custom frequency must be set in hours as an integer value. For example, 1, 2, or 3 but not 1.5 or 1.75.
Hevo ingests all the objects in Full Load mode in each run of the Pipeline.
Schema and Primary Keys
Hevo uses the following schema to upload the records in the Destination:
Data Model
The following is the list of tables (objects) that are created at the Destination when you run the Pipeline:
| Object | Description |
|---|---|
| Couriers | Contains the list of all couriers activated by your customer, along with information such as the name, phone number, and web URL of each courier. |
| Trackings | Contains the information related to a shipment, such as the tracking number, origin, destination, and delivery time. |
Additional Information
Read the detailed Hevo documentation for the following related topics:
Source Considerations
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Pagination: An API response for each AfterShip object includes one page with up to 200 records.
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Rate Limit: AfterShip imposes a limit of 10 API calls per second per account. If the limit is exceeded, Hevo defers the ingestion till the limits reset.
Limitations
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Hevo currently does not support deletes. Therefore, any data deleted in the Source may continue to exist in the Destination.
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The data is loaded in Full Load mode in each Pipeline run. As a result, you cannot load the historical data alone at any time.
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Hevo does not load an Event into the Destination table if its size exceeds 128 MB, which may lead to discrepancies between your Source and Destination data. To avoid such a scenario, ensure that each row in your Source objects contains less than 100 MB of data.
Revision History
Refer to the following table for the list of key updates made to this page:
| Date | Release | Description of Change |
|---|---|---|
| Jan-07-2025 | NA | Updated the Limitations section to add information on Event size. |
| Oct-22-2024 | NA | Updated section, Creating the API Key as per the latest AfterShip UI. |
| Mar-05-2024 | 2.21 | Updated the ingestion frequency table in the Data Replication section. |
| Oct-03-2023 | NA | Updated section, Creating the API Key to reflect the latest AfterShip UI. |
| Dec-14-2022 | NA | Updated section, Configuring AfterShip as a Source to reflect the latest Hevo UI. |
| Jun-21-2022 | 1.91 | New document. |