Allocate to a specific quote
Use Consignment’s Allocate With Quote endpoint to assign consignments to a specific carrier offer based on quote references, ideal for customer service workflows.
Quotes overview
Obtaining quotes to carry an individual package and then allocating to the most suitable response is a key part of many customer service workflows on the Consignments platform. This page explains how to use the Allocate With Quote endpoint to select a quote.
In Consignments, delivery quotes are generally used outside of a “regular” package allocation workflow, as a means of managing consignments that require manual intervention. For example, your customer service teams might want to get quotes for an expedited delivery on a consignment that was missed by a carrier and so did not meet its delivery promise.
Consignment’s Quotes API allows you to get delivery quotes for both uncreated and existing consignments. All Quotes endpoints return one or more Quote objects, of which each represents an offer for carriage of a package with a specific carrier service. Each quote can be uniquely identified by a {quoteReference}, which is used when selecting a quote via the Allocate With Quote endpoint.
For a full user guide on working with quotes, see the managing quotes page.
For reference information on the Quotes API, see the API reference.
For worked examples showing a consignment being allocated from a quote, see the quotes call flow page.
Using allocate with quote
The Allocate With Quote endpoint enables you to allocate an individual package based on a specific delivery quote from a carrier. To call Allocate With Quote, send a PUT request to https://api.electioapp.com/allocation/{consignmentReference}/allocatewithquote/{quoteReference}, where {consignmentReference} corresponds to the package you want to allocate and {quoteReference} is the quote you want to select.
Once the request is received, the Consignments platform attempts to allocate the package to the carrier service specified in the quote (as denoted by the {MpdCarrierService} and MpdCarrierServiceReference fields contained within the Quote object), and returns an Allocation Summary.
For full reference information on the Allocate With Quote endpoint, see the Allocate With Quote page of the API reference.
Allocate with quote example
The example shows a request to allocate a consignment with a {consignmentReference} of EC-000-05B-N40 to the carrier service associated with a quote that has the {quoteReference} 112236d5-4460-492f-a6bd-aa3f00f62dfb.
PUT https://api.electioapp.com/allocation/EC-000-05B-N40/allocatewithquote/112236d5-4460-492f-a6bd-aa3f00f62dfb