DHL Express integration

What is DHL Express?

DHL Express is DHL’s time-definite international courier service, delivering documents and parcels door to door in more than 220 countries and territories. Business customers book and follow shipments in MyDHL and connect their own software through the MyDHL API — the interface Transportial uses.

What syncs between DHL Express and Transportial

• → To DHL Express

  Consignments → DHL Express shipments

  When a trip forwarded under a capacity contract that uses the DHL Express integration is confirmed, each of its consignments is booked as a DHL Express shipment. Shipper and receiver come from the first load and last unload, the pieces from the goods with weight and dimensions, and the consignment number is the reference. Planners can also book a single consignment by hand and pick the product.

• ← Into Transportial

  Label, waybill number and customs invoice

  The label — PDF, or ZPL for thermal printers — and the waybill number are stored on the consignment. For shipments that need customs clearance, DHL’s commercial invoice is saved next to it.

• → To DHL Express

  Customs data from the goods

  International shipments that need customs clearance carry a declaration built from the goods: description, quantity, weight, value, HS code and origin country, with the incoterm. Shipments within the EU customs union and document products go without one.

• → To DHL Express

  Courier pickup (optional)

  Switch on courier pickup and DHL is asked to collect each shipment when it is booked, with the end of the loading window as the latest pickup time. Cancelling the trip cancels that pickup.

• ← Into Transportial

  Tracking, ETA and stop completion

  Every checkpoint DHL reports is shown on the consignment with the status and the estimated delivery. The first pickup event completes the loading stop and delivery completes the unloading stop, at the time DHL recorded them.

• ← Into Transportial

  Shipments booked elsewhere

  Add any DHL Express waybill number to a consignment to follow it in Transportial. Numbers booked under another DHL account can be tracked through the DHL Shipment Tracking – Unified API once you add its key.

How to connect DHL Express

1. Parcel carriers are switched on per platform: ask us to enable them for your Transportial account.

2. Request MyDHL API access from DHL Express. You get an API key and secret that work with your own DHL Express account number.

3. Add the DHL Express integration in Transportial: enter the key and secret, your account number, the default product and the label format (PDF or ZPL). You can start in DHL’s test environment.

4. Set a capacity contract’s communication method to this integration. Trips forwarded under that contract are booked at DHL Express as soon as you confirm them.

Sync frequency and limits

• Shipments are booked when the trip is confirmed; consignments added to a confirmed trip later are booked on its next update. A consignment is never booked twice with the same integration.
• Open tracking numbers are checked every 60 minutes by default — the interval is set per integration — until the shipment is delivered, returned or cancelled.
• MyDHL tracks up to ten waybill numbers per call.
• The MyDHL API cannot cancel a shipment: an unused waybill is simply never handed to DHL. Only a courier pickup booked with it is cancelled.

Typical use case

A forwarder sends urgent spare parts from Rotterdam to customers in the UK, Switzerland and the US. The consignments are planned on a trip under a DHL Express capacity contract; on confirmation every consignment gets its waybill, label and commercial invoice, and DHL is asked to collect them that afternoon. Customer service follows the checkpoints on the consignment, and the delivery stop closes itself when DHL reports the parcel delivered.

Frequently asked questions