For businesses focused on logistics, deliveries, or asset deployment, understanding the full lifecycle of a trip is crucial. The Shipments feature gives you a comprehensive overview of your assets' journeys from a defined Point A to Point B, with predictive arrival statuses, shareable tracking links, and now the ability to lock in a specific route and an alert corridor around it. This article walks you through what Shipments can do, how to set one up, and how to use the latest Corridor and Predefined Routes enhancements.
⚠️ Important Note: The Shipments feature is not automatically enabled on every account. To turn it on, reach out to your Customer Success Manager (CSM) and describe your tracking use case — they'll activate the feature and walk you through it. Shipments also work best with specific real-time GPS tracker models; not all trackers are optimized for this feature.
📦 Understanding How Shipments Work
The Shipments feature is built for tracking a specific asset's entire trip from a designated start point to a final destination. It goes beyond a dot on a map and provides intelligent, end-to-end visibility.
Comprehensive Trip Monitoring: Tracks the entire journey of an asset, providing a continuous record from origin to destination.
Predictive Delivery Status: Using your defined start and end times, the system automatically calculates whether a shipment is Not Started, In Progress, Completed, or Completed Late
Public Sharing for Transparency: Share a one-click tracking link with customers or stakeholders so they can monitor progress without logging in to your account.
Route & Corridor Alerts: Define the exact path a shipment should take and get notified if the tracker strays outside the set corridor.
🛠️ Creating a New Shipment
To get started, log in to your account and click the Shipments tab in the main menu. Then, click Create Shipment. The form is organized into two main sections — General and Stops — with a Route Preview map inside the Stops section.
General
Enter the main shipment data.
Shipment Name — Give your shipment a clear, identifiable name (e.g., "Delivery to Client X" or "Vehicle Transfer Y–Z").
Carrier — Enter the name of the carrier responsible for the delivery.
Tracker — Select the device you want to assign to this shipment from the dropdown.
Stops
Each shipment has two stops: an Origin (stop 1) and a Destination (stop 2). For each one, fill in the following:
Address — Search for the pickup address (Origin) or delivery address (Destination). The system will auto-populate the coordinates behind the scenes.
Geofence — If your shipments typically start or end at a predefined area or facility, search for and select an existing geofence instead of an address.
Address Radius — Use the slider to set the radius around the address that counts as "at the stop." A tighter radius gives more precise start/end triggers; a wider radius gives more leeway if the tracker's first or last report is slightly outside the exact point.
Planned Departure (Origin) — Select the date and time the shipment is expected to leave the origin.
Planned Arrival (Destination) — Select the date and time the shipment is expected to reach the destination. The system uses these times to power predictive statuses.
Route Preview
Once your Origin and Destination are set, the Route Preview map at the bottom of the Stops section will display suggested routes between them — along with the corridor that will be monitored during the trip. See the next section for a full breakdown of how routes and corridors work.
Save Your Shipment
When everything looks right, click Save to create the shipment. From this point on, the system will track progress against your defined route, corridor, and timeline.
🗺️ Corridors and Predefined Routes
The Corridor and Predefined Routes feature lets you take shipment tracking from "somewhere between A and B" to "exactly this path, with a buffer." It lives in the Route Preview map at the bottom of the Stops section in the shipment creation form, so you can set it up in the same flow as the rest of your shipment details.
How it works:
Suggested routes appear on the map. Once you've set your Origin and Destination, the map displays one or more suggested routes between them.
Pick the route you want. You can select a single preferred route or choose both suggested routes if your carrier may take either path.
Unselect routes you don't want. Click a selected route again to deselect it — useful if you want to narrow the shipment down to a specific lane or remove a route that doesn't match your carrier's actual plan.
A corridor is drawn around the selected route. This corridor acts as an allowed travel zone for the shipment.
Deviation alerts. If the tracker moves outside the corridor during the shipment, you'll be alerted — so you can act on off-route incidents in real time rather than discovering them after the fact.
Adjust the corridor width. Use the plus (+) and minus (−) buttons on the map to widen or tighten the corridor. A wider corridor gives more leeway for detours and traffic reroutes; a tighter corridor gives you earlier warning when something goes off plan.
Why it matters:
Define the exact route a shipment should take instead of leaving the path open-ended.
Set a clear boundary for acceptable deviation so alerts only fire when something genuinely unusual happens.
Reuse familiar lanes by picking the same suggested routes you rely on, trip after trip.
✏️ Editing a Shipment
Plans change — and shipments can be updated after they're created. Open the shipment you want to edit, then click the Edit button at the top of the detail page to open the edit form.
Fields you can update:
Name — Rename the shipment for better clarity or organization.
Start/End — Adjust the shipment's date range using the calendar picker.
Carrier — Update the carrier assigned to the shipment.
Notification Before End — From the dropdown, select when you'd like to be reminded ahead of the expected end time.
Notify via Email — Select one or more account users who should receive email alerts.
Notify via SMS — Select one or more phone numbers (tied to account users) that should receive SMS alerts.
Fields shown for reference only:
The following are displayed in the edit form but cannot be changed after creation — if you need to adjust them, you'll need to create a new shipment:
Tracker
Begin Location
End Location
Ending a Shipment Early
If a shipment wraps up before its scheduled end time, click the End button at the bottom-left of the edit form to manually close it out. This updates the shipment status to Completed right away.
Saving Your Changes
Click Save at the bottom-right to apply your updates. The system will update the shipment details accordingly.
📡 Monitoring Your Active Shipments
Once a shipment is created and its assigned tracker begins reporting from within the defined Origin, you can open the shipment at any time to see its live progress. The detail page is split into two panels on the left — Info and Exceptions — with the live map on the right.
Info Panel
The Info panel gives you a full at-a-glance summary of the shipment:
Name — The shipment name you set during creation.
Carrier — The carrier assigned to the trip.
Status — The system's current read on the shipment. Possible values are:
Not Started — the shipment has been created, but the tracker hasn't reported from the Origin yet.
In Progress — the tracker has triggered the start, and the shipment is actively being tracked.
Completed Late — the shipment reached its Destination after the Scheduled End time.
Completed — the shipment reached its Destination on or before the Scheduled End time.
Start — The actual date and time the shipment triggered as started (when the tracker first reported from within the Origin).
End — The actual date and time the shipment was completed.
Scheduled End — The Planned Arrival time you set when creating the shipment. Compare this against End to see how actual performance measured up against the plan.
Tracker — The tracker assigned to this shipment.
From — The Origin address.
To — The Destination address.
Email — Any email recipients configured to receive notifications for this shipment.
Link — Click Copy Link to copy the public tracking URL for this shipment. Paste it into an email, message, or any channel to share live tracking with customers or partners — no login required on their end.
Exceptions Panel
The Exceptions panel logs any unusual events during the trip, such as the tracker leaving the defined corridor. If nothing unusual happened, you'll see "No exception events." This is the fastest way to answer the question "Did anything go wrong on this shipment?" without having to scrub through the map.
The Map
The map displays:
The full path of the shipment from Origin to Destination.
The corridor you defined during creation, overlaid on the route.
Tracker reports as points along the path, so you can see exactly where the asset was at each check-in.
📡 Getting the Most Out of Shipments
The Shipments feature is designed to make the most of continuous, precise location data — so it shines brightest when paired with real-time GPS trackers. The more frequent and precise the location updates, the sharper your route tracking, corridor alerts, and ETA predictions will be.
Different tracker types report location in different ways — some use GPS, others use Bluetooth proximity, and others use cell or Wi-Fi signals. All of these trackers can be assigned to a shipment, but the feature's predictive and corridor capabilities perform best with real-time GPS reporting.
💡 CSM Tip Box: Not sure if the Shipments feature — or the new Corridor controls — are the right fit for your tracker models or workflow? Your Customer Success Manager can walk you through a personalized demo, review your specific use case, and help you decide whether Shipments, historical tracker reports, or a combination is the best fit. Reach out through the in-platform chat to get started.
🧭 What's Next? Need more assistance?
Browse our Help Center for additional support articles
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