Manifest Guide

This guide will explain what manifests are, why they are important, and how to create them with the EasyPost API.

A shipping manifest is a crucial checklist of packages that are ready for pickup by a carrier. They act as an advance notice of the packages that the driver or carrier agent has to pick up from your premises. Some carriers will require a manifest before their end-of-day pickups. Even if your carrier doesn't, it's still a good idea to manifest your shipments so you can hand the carrier a single form that accounts for all of the shipments being picked up.

In EasyPost, you can create a manifest using the ScanForm object. When you create Shipment or Batch objects for your individual packages, you can include them into the ScanForm object. There are a few rules that you have to follow when creating a ScanForm

• Refunded Shipments cannot be added.
• Each Shipment must have the same origin address.
• Shipments must all be dated (using the label_date option) on or after the date of the form's generation.
• Existing ScanForms may not be updated with additional Shipments. If a ScanForm already exists, and new Shipments need to be added, a new ScanForm must be created.
• Shipments cannot be added to more than one ScanForm
• Shipments must be provided in the form of an array.

There are eleven attributes in the ScanForm object that provide all the information regarding your manifest:

• id: The ID number of the ScanForm, you should record this for documentation purposes
• object: The object, which in this case, should always read "ScanForm".
• status: Status of the ScanForm. Possible values include "creating", "created", and "failed".
• message: The field where we explain any possible errors.
• address: The origin address of the shipments.
• tracking_codes: Tracking codes associated with all shipments in the ScanForm
• form_url: URL of the document.
• form_file_type: File format of the document.
• batch_id: The ID of the associated Batch, if you decided to Batch your shipments before inserting them into the ScanForm. To learn more about Batches, see our Related Links.
• created_at: Timestamp of the ScanForm creation.
• updated_at: Timestamp of the latest ScanForm update.

Here is an example of creating a ScanForm and listening for when the asynchronous job is complete using webhooks:

This is a simple example of creating a ScanForm, but many users will first create a Batch first, see the Batches Guide for an example of that.

1curl -X POST https://api.easypost.com/v2/scan_forms \
2  -u "EASYPOST_API_KEY": \
3  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
4  -d '{
5    "shipments": [
6      {
7        "id": "shp_..."
8      },
9      {
10        "id": "shp_..."
11      }
12    ]
13  }'

We'll send an Event to your Webhook URLs once the ScanForm is ready. Check for scan_form.created in the Event's description field. If you haven't read our Webhooks Guide it will show you how to handle those Events.

{
  "result": {
    "id": "sf_...",
    "object": "ScanForm",
    "created_at": "2015-09-30T21:00:55Z",
    "updated_at": "2015-09-30T21:00:57Z",
    "tracking_codes": [
      "9405536897846194850412",
      "9400136897846194907281",
      "9400136897846194977529"
    ],
    "address": {
      "id": "adr_tyRwEd23",
      "object": "Address",
      "created_at": "2015-09-30T21:00:55Z",
      "updated_at": "2015-09-30T21:00:55Z",
      "name": "George Costanza",
      "company": "Vandelay Industries",
      "street1": "1 E 161st St.",
      "street2": null,
      "city": "Bronx",
      "state": "NY",
      "zip": "10451",
      "country": "US",
      "phone": null,
      "email": null,
      "mode": "test",
      "carrier_facility": null,
      "residential": null,
      "federal_tax_id": null,
      "state_tax_id": null,
      "verifications": {}
    },
    "status": "created",
    "message": null,
    "form_url": "https://easypost-files.s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/...2c0cb9.pdf",
    "form_file_type": null,
    "batch_id": "batch_...",
    "confirmation": null
  },
  "description": "scan_form.created",
  "mode": "test",
  "previous_attributes": {},
  "created_at": "2015-09-30T21:00:57Z",
  "pending_urls": [],
  "completed_urls": ["https://www.example.com/easypost-webhook"],
  "updated_at": "2015-09-30T21:00:57Z",
  "id": "evt_...",
  "user_id": "user_...",
  "status": "in_queue",
  "object": "Event"
}