Provide some kind of overview documentation to signpost which standard you should be looking at for a given part of the overall process

[RowlandShaw]

I'm struggling to understand the user flow for arranging on-carriage via the DCSA APIs - whilst pre-carriage seems to be covered via the Transport documentation module of the eBL interface, I'm not seeing any end point there for the consignee to provide details of the final delivery - the carrier seems to propose the transport plan to the shipper to accept - even flipping the shipper to be the consignee doesn't really fit the business model I understood to be prevalent - that the consignee (or their agent) would arrange collection.

Looking at the eBL use cases, UC12 looks to be relevant as the only message from the consignee to carrier; but reading the associated documentation to create a surrender request, as referenced from the user story seems to be very much about releasing the bill to an eBL platform, rather than being along the lines of "can you fulfill this through bill, by doing final delivery on 5th October at 8:00 to our warehouse at 123 Any Street, in Doncaster, per the manifested final destination city please".

Even checking the state diagram suggests that the designed API is built around the consignee being told when they will have their cargo delivered, rather than the consignee arranging a convenient time for the container to arrive?

Maybe the documentation could be clearer with its signposting, so in the scenario where a developer coming along to integrate their forwarding software might know that their use case is "arrange final delivery for a through bill" - so they might look at the booking API, figure out that's only really export focused; look at the eBL interface and come to a similar conclusion, although with concessions to it handling the electronic bill, before drawing conclusion that it might not be the right interface for them.

Perhaps some form of documentation that has the actions by actor hyperlinked to the relevant standard would help,

So maybe something like:

Shipper

• Request a booking
• Provide shipping instructions
• etc.

Consignee

• Track inbound container
• Request release of container (for merchant own haulage)
• Request onward delivery of through bill
• etc.

Carrier

• Accept a booking request
• Accept shipping instructions
• Track inbound container
• Accept requests for release of container (for merchant own haulage)
• Accept booking requests onward delivery of through bill
• etc.

Could possibly be achieved by enhancing the Industry blueprint process maps?

[HenrikHL]

Thank you @RowlandShaw for the valuable feedback. I do acknowledge it is not clear via the documentation how this is done... We will discuss this internally and get back to you :-)