When looking to set up a new account with Direct Freight Express you will need to contact their IT department and advise them that you are looking to despatch your account through MachShip. The Direct Freight Express IT Team can be contacted at support@directfreight.com.au. Please cc integrations@machship.com in your email.

Your email should be as follows:

Hi Direct Freight IT Team,

I am beginning to set up my account <insert Account Code> to be despatched through my new FMS, MachShip. Can you please advise what the site indicator and Site ID should be for my account? 


Once this email has been sent you would then go through and apply for a tracking API key. This is done through the Direct Freight portal under the Developer Centre option:

 www.directfreight.com.au > Login > Developer Centre

The key will then be sent through to you within 1-2 business days. 

Once the Direct Freight team responds you will need to fill out the following specific options. 

These are:

Account Code - The account code would have been provided to you when your account was set up. 

Primary Reference Type:

For certain carriers, MachShip is configured to utilise the internal reference known as the MachShip number as reference one. This is done for carriers to ensure

1. Known reference for invoice reconciliation

2. Known reference for tracking

This may affect how you are currently working with a carrier and as such if you wish to still use your reference please set the primary reference type as Customer Reference

Site Indicator - Direct Freight Express will set-up accounts against each sending site in one of two ways:

1. A series of follower rate accounts off a parent account -  If your account is set up like this then the Site Indicator should be set as the number assigned to that sending site. 
2. Separate accounts for each site. If your account is set up like this then the Site Indicator needs to be set as 0.

Site ID - This should be maintained as 0 unless indicated by DFE

Tracking API Key -  This will be provided by the Direct Freight IT team from the email above. 

Pickup Api Key -  This will be provided by the direct Freight IT Team is applied through the developer centre instructions below. Will automatically book the pickup in their system - Note that this only allows one pickup per day and needs to be made before 2:30pm

Consignment Prefix - The consignment prefix will be your Account Code.

Reference Pools - Reference pools are utilised by MachShip in order to maintain a count on connote, manifest and item numbers. The reference pool will ensure that each of those numbers is unique to what we have sent to the carrier previously. More information can be obtained on reference pools here. Direct Freight Express requires the creation of just 1 reference pool, for the Connote number.

To create the reference pool select the Create Carrier Reference Pool button at the bottom of the page.

If you are creating a new account then the Reference Pools will be set to the following fields:

Pool Name - Set as DFE Connote Ref Pool <Account Code> 
Minimum Value - 0
Maximum Value - 9999999 (that is seven 9's)
Next Available Reference - 1
Cyclical - No

It will appear as below:

Once created it will appear in the drop-down as below:

Should you already be trading on an existing account please set the next available field as 1000 consignments higher than the highest connote number on your previous account. 

Test:

Once the account has been set up and all of the rates have been added, you will need to run a test to ensure that upon go-live, everything will run successfully. To do this, create a consignment - please make Reference 1 and Reference 2 and the delivery special instructions THIS IS A TEST. Once this has been created please manifest the consignment to the carrier. If you experience any issues please contact support@machship.com.

If you receive a successful manifest message from MachShip then please send an email to support@directfreight.com.au and advise them that you are starting to despatch your Direct Freight Express account through MachShip and that you would like to receive verification on the test file and permission to start to trade. Please include the label pdf's for the manifest, connote and the items.

Advise the support team of the connote number and request that they should cancel this to ensure that you are not charged. Please cc integrations@machship.com on this email so we can help if required. 

On confirmation from the support team that the setup is validated, you are free to begin to consign.