Integrated Carriers

An integrated carrier is a Carrier connected to Orbit through the carrier's own booking system. Assigning a Tour to an integrated carrier books the transport directly with that carrier — its people never log into the Orbit apps, and Orbit receives status updates and documents back automatically.

Overview

Most carriers work inside Orbit: their teams respond to offers in Orbit Connect, and their drivers run tours in Orbit Cockpit. An integrated carrier works differently. It is a large carrier network — a freight forwarder or parcel network with its own operational system — that Orbit talks to directly. When you assign a Tour to an integrated carrier, Orbit places the booking in the carrier's system straight away, then keeps the Tour up to date as the carrier reports progress.

For you as an operator, an integrated carrier behaves like any other Carrier in most of Orbit MissionControl. The differences show up exactly where the carrier's own system takes over: dispatching, execution updates, and documents.

Key highlights:

Direct booking — Assigning a Tour sends the booking straight to the carrier's system; a confirmed assignment means a confirmed booking
Automatic status updates — The carrier reports pickup, transit events, and delivery; Orbit updates the Tour and its Shipments without anyone touching the apps
Documents from the carrier — Labels, waybills, and proof of delivery arrive on the Tour as the carrier produces them
No marketplace involvement — Integrated carriers never appear in the Orbit Marketplace and cannot receive Callouts; you assign them directly
The carrier stays in control — Drivers, vehicles, and teams are managed inside the carrier's own organisation, not in Orbit

How integrated carriers differ from native carriers

Diagram comparing the native carrier flow, which stays inside Orbit end to end, with the integrated carrier flow, where the booking crosses an API boundary into the carrier's own system and status updates and documents flow back automatically.

A regular carrier in Orbit has CarrierTeams, CarrierUsers, and Vehicles, receives Callouts through the Orbit Marketplace, and executes tours in Orbit Connect and Orbit Cockpit. An integrated carrier has none of these — by design:

It carries an Integrated tag in the carriers list in Orbit MissionControl, so you can tell the two apart at a glance.
Its detail page shows no teams, users, or vehicles. Its Tours remain visible as usual.
It cannot receive Callouts and is excluded from every Marketplace view. The only way to dispatch to it is direct assignment.
While a Tour is booked with an integrated carrier, the driver, vehicle, and team controls on the Tour are disabled. The carrier decides internally who drives and with which vehicle.

Setting up an integrated carrier

You set up an integrated carrier in Orbit MissionControl, on the carrier create page:

Create a Carrier as usual and turn on the Integrated Carrier switch at the end of the form.
Choose a Provider. Each provider is one supported carrier network. Providers marked with a Sandbox tag never move real freight — use them to rehearse the flow safely. The provider cannot be changed after the carrier is created; to switch providers, create a new Carrier.
Enter the Credentials the provider requires. For DSV, for example, these are your myDSV account details, your MDM customer number, and the API subscription keys issued in the DSV developer portal.
Review the provider's Settings — for example a default Incoterm applied to bookings without their own delivery terms, or a mapping from your load types to the package types the carrier expects.
Select Test Connection to check the credentials against the carrier before saving. A sandbox provider reports Sandbox Responded instead of a full connection check, since there is no real carrier behind it.
Save the carrier.

The What This Integration Can Do summary on the same page states each provider's capabilities in plain words: whether the carrier reports status automatically, whether bookings can be cancelled or changed after they are made, whether the carrier returns a price, which documents it delivers, which countries it serves, and how many stops it accepts.

The Integration section of an integrated carrier in Orbit MissionControl, showing the sandbox provider row, the What This Integration Can Do capability summary, the provider settings, the sandbox behaviour toggles, and the Test Connection button.

To change the configuration later, open the carrier's detail page and edit the Integration section. Stored credentials are never displayed; to rotate one, type the new value — a field left empty keeps the stored value.

Assigning a tour

You assign an integrated carrier from the Tour detail page in Orbit MissionControl, exactly as you would any other carrier. Two things help you before you commit:

Feasibility hints in the carrier picker. Each integrated carrier in the list carries an indicator: a green tick when Orbit knows of no blockers, a yellow warning when something looks risky, and a red mark when the booking would be rejected — for example because the carrier does not serve the destination country or the load exceeds its weight limit. These hints are advisory; the carrier makes the final decision at booking.
Point-to-point only. An integrated carrier books tours with exactly one Shipment — one pickup and one dropoff.

The carrier picker on a tour in Orbit MissionControl with integrated carriers showing green feasibility ticks, and the tooltip reading: No known blockers. The carrier makes the final decision at booking.

When you assign the carrier, Orbit books the transport immediately:

If the carrier accepts, the assignment completes and a Carrier Integration panel appears on the Tour.
If the carrier rejects the booking, Orbit shows a Carrier Booking Was Rejected dialogue listing the reasons — a missing booking reference, a delivery window spanning more than one day, an exceeded size limit — so you can fix the data and try again, or choose another carrier.

The Carrier Booking Was Rejected dialogue in Orbit MissionControl, stating that the booking could not be completed and listing the reason the carrier refused it.

If the provider returns its own price and the carrier is configured to use it, the Tour is priced with the carrier's returned price instead of the calculated one.

Following the booking

Every Tour booked with an integrated carrier carries a Carrier Integration panel. While the booking is healthy it stays deliberately quiet: one line naming the provider and the carrier's booking reference, with a copy button for quoting that reference back to the carrier.

The Carrier Integration panel on a booked tour in Orbit MissionControl, showing the provider name, the carrier's booking reference with a copy button, and the Carrier Documents row with chips for label, waybill, and proof of delivery.

Progress does not appear in this panel. Carrier events advance the Tour itself and are recorded in the tour's timeline, so a booking running to plan needs no separate status to read. The panel speaks up only when the booking diverges from the tour:

Booking state	What it means
`Booked`	The carrier confirmed the booking; execution has not started. Not shown in the panel — the tour's own status carries it
`In Transit`	The carrier reported movement. Not shown in the panel — the tour's own status carries it
`Exception`	The carrier reported a problem, such as a delay or a failed delivery attempt. Shown as a red badge; the timeline holds the detail
`Failed`	Orbit could not transmit the booking to the carrier. Shown as a red badge
`Cancelled`	The carrier cancelled the booking on its side. Shown as a red badge; the `Tour` itself is untouched, so remove the carrier or cancel the `Tour`

Two further rows appear when they apply:

Carrier Documents — one chip per document the provider produces (label, waybill, proof of delivery), marked pending until it arrives and not delivered if the carrier never supplies it. A Retry button restarts the retrieval. Documents that do arrive appear in the tour's regular documents section.
Update Pending at Carrier — the Tour was edited after booking and the change has not reached the carrier yet. See Changing or removing a booking below.

How carrier updates move the tour

Carrier updates advance the Tour and its Shipments automatically. A reported pickup sets the Tour to Running; a reported delivery sets it to Review Required, with arrival and departure times filled in from the carrier's data. The carrier can never complete or cancel a Tour: reviewing and completing stays with you, and a carrier-reported cancellation only flags the booking as Cancelled in the panel — you decide whether to remove the carrier or cancel the Tour.

Changing or removing a booking

Editing a booked tour. If you change data that was already sent to the carrier — an address, a time window, the load — Orbit tells you that the carrier booking is now out of date and updates the carrier's system. An Update Pending at Carrier badge appears on the panel until you select Acknowledge.

Removing the carrier. Some providers do not support cancelling a booking once it is made. In that case, Orbit warns you before the carrier is removed: releasing the Tour frees it in Orbit, but the booking at the carrier stays active, and you need to cancel it directly with the carrier to avoid charges. If a booking could not be cancelled, a notice with the booking reference stays on the Tour until the situation is resolved.

Integrated carriers and Auto-Callout

Automatic dispatch treats integrated carriers with the same rule as everything else: no Callouts. A Sequence can assign an integrated carrier directly, which books the transport just like a manual assignment. If the carrier rejects that booking, the Sequence stops rather than silently moving on, and the Tour shows a Carrier Booking Failed alert with the rejection reasons so you can dispatch it manually.

Example

Julia, an operator at Orion Industries in Berlin, receives an order for two pallets going to a customer in Munich. Instead of offering the Tour on the marketplace, she assigns it to the company's DSV carrier directly from the tour page. The picker shows a green tick — no known blockers — and the booking is confirmed within seconds. Overnight, DSV reports the pickup and the Tour switches to Running on its own. The next afternoon the delivery event arrives, the Tour moves to Review Required, and the proof of delivery appears in the tour's documents. Julia reviews the timings and completes the Tour without anyone at DSV ever opening an Orbit app.

Technical details

Tours created and assigned through the Orbit API follow the same rules: assigning an integrated carrier books the transport, and rejections return the same structured reasons you see in Orbit MissionControl. See the Orbit API Reference for the relevant endpoints and schemas.

FAQ

Can an integrated carrier receive callouts or appear in the marketplace?
No. Integrated carriers cannot receive Callouts and never appear in the Orbit Marketplace. Assign them directly from the Tour.

Can I change the provider of an integrated carrier later?
No. The provider is fixed when the carrier is created. Create a new Carrier to use a different provider. Credentials and settings can be changed at any time.

Why can't I assign a driver or vehicle to the tour?
The carrier manages drivers, vehicles, and teams in its own system. While a Tour is booked with an integrated carrier, those controls are disabled in Orbit MissionControl.

Where do I see what the carrier reported?
In the tour's timeline. Carrier events are recorded there as they arrive, and they move the Tour along on their own; the Carrier Integration panel itself only flags a booking that has diverged.

What happens if I edit a tour after it is booked?
Orbit updates the carrier's booking with the changed data and shows an Update Pending at Carrier badge until you acknowledge the change.

What happens if the carrier cancels the booking?
The panel shows the booking as Cancelled, but the Tour itself is untouched. You decide the next step — assign a different carrier or cancel the Tour.

Can a tour with several shipments be booked with an integrated carrier?
No. Integrated carriers book point-to-point tours with exactly one Shipment — one pickup and one dropoff.

Can I try the integrated flow without booking real freight?
Yes. Providers marked Sandbox simulate the whole flow — booking, status updates, documents, and even deliberate failures — without any real transport being booked.