Royal Mail integration

BaseLinker offers 2 methods of integration with the Royal Mail:

  • integration via Royal Mail API only for customers with an OBA (Online Business Account) number;
  • Click&Drop integration  for other users.

 

API integration

To connect your new Royal Mail account via API contact BaseLinker Support by adding a new request (Help and contact → Send message) declaring that you wish to use Royal Mail integration via API.

You will receive a short authorisation form to fill in, which will be sent to Royal Mail for verification. This process usually takes 2-3 days, but in extreme cases RM can extend it up to 2 weeks.
After correct data verification in Royal Mail, our support will fill in the necessary fields in the form visible in Integrations → Couriers → Royal Mail API and from now on you will be able to use the integration.

Pending verification, you can use the test version of the integration API, without providing any authorization data. To do so, in the API Version field, select Test environment and fill in the other fields of the form as required.

 

This will give you the opportunity to test the integration without billing consequences.

Create packages in orders in a usual way (as described in Label creation) article.

 

The shipping numbers and labels should be immediately available to use/print in BaseLinker.

 

Weight ranges

In Royal Mail, weight ranges determine the cost of shipping. Within a single manifest, the average weight of the shipments is calculated, and this average weight determines the price, which remains the same for each shipment.

 

On the list of shipments in the integration settings (in the Created packages section), the weight is displayed for each created waybill. After selecting the shipments for which you want to generate a manifest, you will see the number of selected shipments, their total weight, and the average weight.

Within a single manifest, select shipments with similar weights in a way that they fall within specific weight ranges to avoid additional costs.

 

Click&Drop integration

This integration is available in Integrations → Couriers → Royal Mail Click&Drop section.

 

Current version of integration works based on exchanging files from BaseLinker to Royal Mail Click&Drop system and back.

 

Create Click&Drop packages in orders in a usual way (as described in Label creation) article.

 

The shipping numbers will be given later on labels, on the other hand will not be returned to BaseLinker, so it will not be possible to print them from BaseLinker system.

 

Create Click&Drop package in BaseLinker at this moment, its shipping number should show Pending status.

 

Export and upload to ClickDrop system

To create final shipments in C&D, you need to export the file from BaseLinker.

  1. Select shipments from a given day in the plug-in settings and click GENERATE .CSV FILE under the table
  2. Log in to Royal Mail Click&Drop Desktop, go to Orders → Import section.
  3. Load the generated file (leave “Comma” as a delimiter).
  4. Leave the parameters in the second step unchanged.
  5. In the third step, map the fields (all 17) according to the name in the column header (the names in the selection field will be identical to those shown in the table, in the header).
  6. Click Import orders.
  7. Tick imported orders and finish the process clicking on Pay & Generate labels.

From now on you can upload files via Royal Mail Click&Drop Desktop by uploading files to the “Watch” directory of that software or continue importing via the Royal Mail website.

Importing the shipping numbers to BaseLinker

To return shipping numbers (for tracked services) or an order number from RM, go to Reports → Despatched orders in courier panel and click Export to .xls in the top right-hand corner.  Load this file in the Royal Mail C&D integration settings in BaseLinker.

Users with an OBA number can print labels directly from the C&D Desktop application.

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