Welcome to a quick introduction to the most important features in Consignor On-premises. Each section will provide a short description and links to more in-depth articles.
Go to the topic of your interest:
- Installation and system requirements
- Creating a shipment and printing a label
- The Main menu
- Transmitting data to carrier
- Integration
Installation and system requirements
Consignor On-premises is the Windows/SQL based version of Consignor installed on your own server environment.
Your system should match these minimum requirements:
| Platform | Windows Edition | Minimum hardware | Software requirements |
| Consignor On-premises Server |
Server versions:
Windows 8 - 10 |
|
|
See our full description of system requirements, ports and webservices for the entire Consignor platform here:
Consignor system requirements and webservices
To install Consignor On-premises, download and run this file as administrator:
For more information about the installation process, please read these articles:
Installing Consignor Server with your own SQL Server
A technical consultant from Consignor usually takes care of the installation process and setting up new carriers.
The Main menu
Consignor On-premises has a menu in the left-hand side. The most used menu items are found in the Main section. The screen dump below shows the Production view where new shipments are produced.
A short explanation of each item in the Main menu:
| Inbox | Here you will find imported shipments that have not been printed yet. |
| Autoprint | Imported shipments that are missing some information before they can be submitted will be placed here. |
| Outbox | Shipments will be placed in Outbox after print. Outbox contains the folder structure setup for each carrier. A folder in Outbox is called a Stack. |
| Search | Use this menu item when you need to search for a specific shipment. |
| Sent | List of all shipments that have been printed but not transmitted yet. |
| Production | The production view is where you produce new shipments. See the section about creating a shipment for a more detailed walk-through of the fields and functionality. |
| Return Shipments | A list of all the return shipments. |
| Draft | Any shipment saved as a draft will be placed here. |
| Transmitted Batch | A list of all transmitted batches. A batch is a number of shipments transmitted together. |
| Trash Can | A list of all deleted shipments. |
Creating a shipment and printing a label
The Production view is where you fill in shipment data and print a label. Follow these steps to make a standard shipment:
- Go to Main > Production and start by selecting a carrier and a product.
- Check any Services needed on the shipment. It varies from carrier to carrier which services are available.
- Fill in Receiver and Sender address. As a minimum, fill in Name1, Address1, Contry code, PostNo and City. If you have a default sender address on your installation, this might be prefilled. Note that some carriers also require data in the Attention, Mobile, Email and Phone fields.
- Fill in Refereces and Messages fields if needed. The References fields vary from carrier to carrier but the most commonly used fields are Ordernumber and ReceiverRef. Not all carriers support the message fields.
- Fill in Goods Information. It depends on the type of the goods and your carrier how much information is need. Number, Contents and Weight is often mandatory.
- Click the Print button. The carriers have different validation rules and requirements to mandatory fields. When you click the Print button, Consignor will tell you if you are missing mandatory data on your shipment. If this is the case, fill in the missing information and click Print again.
If no printer has been added to Consignor, you will see the Document Printer Wizard:
- Select your printer from the list of available printers.
- Choose the printer type.
- Click Check Status and then OK.
The label is now printed and the shipment is placed in Outbox, ready for transmit.
Transmitting data to carrier
It is very important to transmit your EDI files. If a carrier has not received the EDI files before they handle the goods, they may need to handle it manually and some will charge a fee for this. (Note that some carriers use a webservice integration in Consignor and do not require EDI files. Ask Consignor customer service if in doubt).
Follow these steps to manually transmit EDI-files:
- In Consignor On-premises, go to Main > Outbox.
- Check the stack containing the shipments you want to transmit. You may select multiple stacks and if you check Installation, you will select all stacks. The number in brackets next to a stack, shows how many shipments are waiting to be transmitted.
- Click the Transmit Checked button.
- Click Yes in the alert box.
- The transmit window is displayed briefly while the shipments are transmitted.
- Upon successful transmit, all shipments disappear from Outbox (or the ones checked).
Read more about auto transmit, transmitting selected shipments and retransmitting in these articles:
Transmitting EDI files to carriers in Consignor On-premises
Setting up auto transmit of EDI files in Consignor On-premises
Integration
Many customers have some kind of integration between Consignor and their ERP, WMS or other systems. Filedrop integration is an easy and popular integration method that has many advanced possibilities and can be tailored to fit almost any setup.
Consignor can import orders from any system that is able to provide a file and drop it in a shared folder that both systems have access to. In the import setup in Consignor, you specify which fields your file contains and how they should be mapped to fields in Consignor.
Read this article to learn more about filedrop integration:
Getting started with filedrop integration
See our standard file in CSV and XML format with an explanation of each field: