Anyone use UPS Worldship software?

[Curtis_B]

I was just in a meeting with our UPS reps and they were promoting the use of ODBC to pull information from filemaker into the worldship software. I am a complete nube when it comes to ODBC so I really don't know what I'm doing. After I installed the ODBC drivers from the fmp7 disc, I wasn't able to get anywhere. I would try to setup a datasource, but none of it made any sense to me. I'm starting to think that the ODBC drivers for FMP were for IMPORTING rather than EXPORTING data. Anyone here able to integrate the two? Help is appreciated. Thanks

Curt

[mattley]

I just tried a quick test in the way I think it should work and it didn't. I just got a message saying 'unable to get a list of tables' so I guess you're right about import only

The easiest workaround would probably be an export to something like CSV and an import into the UPS. If you've got a SQL server anywhere on site you could write a script to to update a table on that and then use the UPS ODBC update from there.

[B Campbell]

I have managed to get the UPS ODBC mapping wizard to see the Filemaker data source as well as query the tables with out much hassle. The Problem I've run into is that the UPS ODBC Mapping wizard will only return 5 records + 1 fragmented record in the third query. I have been trying to solve this problem for a couple of weeks now and UPS doesnt seem to have any idea what is wrong either. Filemaker definatly supports the query i have written, in fact i can get Excel to import thousands of records from FM 7 using the exact same query and driver in a matter of seconds. In UPS Connect it takes upwards of a minute and half for the same query and it will only return the 6 records mentioned above. Personally i believe the UPS ODBC Mapping wizard version 7 has a bug in it that is causing my issues and given the tech support I've received from UPS i doubt its going to be solved any time soon. If you have any luck getting this to work I'd love to hear about it.

[raymanj]

UPS rep came to our place too. He actually brought a programmer with him. He and I sat down and got world ship to connect to our FM database. We were able to do a search based on one field and pull data over into any field we wanted. We were only pulling one record at a time because that was all we needed. Search invoice # and it would pull over all the shipping info on the invoice to World Ship for the shipment.

I have not implemented this yet for everyday work flow. We found that the World Ship wizard doesn't work with fields that have weird characters or spaces in the field names. So I can't use the ODBC connection completely until I go back and change all field names that would be used.

I connected to World Ship with their latest version to a hosted FMServer 5.5 database file. We had to have the database open in FM pro on the local machine that had World ship to connect it.

[B Campbell]

Update

UPS Worldship is now receiveing its shipping and invoice data from FM7 Server Advanced. It seems that even though underscores are supposed to be ODBC compliant, they aren't when it comes to UPS Worldship. I removed all underscores from the table names and field names in my Filemaker database and that solved all my issues. Its not the fastest ODBC connection I have done but its definatly faster then entering all the data manually.

[raymanj]

Update

UPS Worldship is now receiveing its shipping and invoice data from FM7 Server Advanced. It seems that even though underscores are supposed to be ODBC compliant, they aren't when it comes to UPS Worldship. I removed all underscores from the table names and field names in my Filemaker database and that solved all my issues.

Ah, I have been converting my old solution to FM7 ( FM 8 now) and I used underscores in place of all my spaces. Now I will have to fix them again. ???

[nrg software]

you may find our UPS solution to be of interest. no need for OBDC, server advanced, PC for mac-only shops, etc.

http://www.nrgsoft.com/products/

Requires fmp7 client or greater and runs on mac or windows with full support for UPS hardware like thermal printers and digital scales.

[mcyrulik]

We have a customer who get shipping data into worldship from one of our databases. The one thing that we have noticed, that maybe others can confim/deny is that the import mapping in UPS gets messed up when UPS wordship updates itself.

UPS tells us that "it shouldn't be happening.."

just something to throw out there to see if anyone else has it happening...

[Homer]

B Campbell wrote: In UPS Connect it takes upwards of a minute and half for the same query

UPS, in their documentation asks for a basic SQLquery that looks like this:

select * from MyTableOccurence where InvoiceNumber=%k

As you know, the * sign means "every fields" inside the table pointed by the 'from argument'. I think it is a bad habit in the SQL world to use the * because we rarely have to use every fields...

Apparently, UPSconnect when connecting to FileMaker thru ODBC is veeeerrrry slow when we use this "select all" instruction (the *). Probably because some fields inside this table are calculations and/or containers.

You may try a more precise SQL query and see if the speed is increasing. In my case, the improvement was spectacular... Cutting from 60 seconds to only 4 seconds to get the data for the invoice number entered in UPSconnect. I'm working in a network and the 'UPS computer' is querying a remote FMSA8v4.

This clearer SQLquery can looks like this:

select ExpCompanyName, ExpAddress, ExpCountryName, ETC. from MyTableOccurence where InvoiceNumber=%k

So the idea is to specify only the required textual fields.

HTH.

[Genx]

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Exactly... Why request a truck full of coke, when you only want one box?

[dvalley]

We had the same problem, but UPS set us up with CrossWare, an intermediate application. Now we can import from FM 8.5 (on Server 8) and update the FM records with Worldship data. Call UPS

[jfisher04]

Hello, Thanks for the info. I had my local UPS tech guy here today with no luck at all. I have FM 9 and I am having the same issues as above. I was also told about Crossware. I need to know who your Crossware integrator was because my UPS guy is going to contact him for some info. Thanks for the help!

[CinciUPSTech]

I am a UPS technician that has integrated FileMaker with WorldShip. My customer currently has 5.0 and is working on upgrading to 8.5.

What we had to do for 5.0 is install the ODBC and FileMaker has to be installed on the shipping system. The views that you are pulling from and writing to have to be open. After my customer works out their bugs in 8.5, we will be testing to see if this still works.

As far as the underscores, WorldShip does not have a problem with underscores. If you are having a problem with underscores, it could be due to the ODBC connection itself, as this is not affected when pulling data from anything else (Access, FoxPro, CSV, TXT, AS400, etc.) where underscores are in the field headers. It could be the information that you have. You can not use #$%&*@ signs or SPACES in your headers. ODBC will throw these out. Every one of my customer's import field headers has an underscore in the name. I will insert a screen shot once I figure out how.

In response to mcyrulik, I integrated my customer about 3 1/2 years ago and they had WorldShip 7.0 at the time. They are currently on 9.0 and have not had any problems with the WorldShip upgrades. This is not to say that you haven't. As with anything software related, every situation can and will be different and it can also depend on your setup and installation.

[dburnham]

I am a UPS technician that has integrated FileMaker with WorldShip. My customer currently has 5.0 and is working on upgrading to 8.5.

What we had to do for 5.0 is install the ODBC and FileMaker has to be installed on the shipping system. The views that you are pulling from and writing to have to be open. After my customer works out their bugs in 8.5, we will be testing to see if this still works.

As far as the underscores, WorldShip does not have a problem with underscores. If you are having a problem with underscores, it could be due to the ODBC connection itself, as this is not affected when pulling data from anything else (Access, FoxPro, CSV, TXT, AS400, etc.) where underscores are in the field headers. It could be the information that you have. You can not use #$%&*@ signs or SPACES in your headers. ODBC will throw these out. Every one of my customer's import field headers has an underscore in the name. I will insert a screen shot once I figure out how.

In response to mcyrulik, I integrated my customer about 3 1/2 years ago and they had WorldShip 7.0 at the time. They are currently on 9.0 and have not had any problems with the WorldShip upgrades. This is not to say that you haven't. As with anything software related, every situation can and will be different and it can also depend on your setup and installation.

If you are a UPS technician with experience integrating with FileMaker, would you contact me? I have a client who is a UPS shipper in Connecticut. ODBC has worked for years, but he upgraded to FIleMaker Server 11 (not Advanced) and he needs to switch to XML for his "keyed imports".

Please contact me ASAP if possible.

Dennis Burnham

972.930.0525

[email protected]