Shipments
A
Shipmentis a single cargo move — one pickup and one dropoff for a defined load. It is the pivot that links what a customer booked to how it is actually driven.
A Shipment is the one thing physically carried from A to B: a single pickup, a single dropoff, and the load that travels between them. It is not the customer's booking — that is the Order — and it is not the plan that drives a vehicle — that is the Tour. Because every Shipment references both an Order and the Tour carrying it, it is the pivot that joins Orbit's commercial side to its operational side.
You bring a Shipment into play by routing it onto a Tour. Its pickup and dropoff then become two positions in that tour's ordered list of stops, and the carrier who does the work attaches to the Tour — not to the shipment itself.
Key highlights
One move, two ends — a single pickup and a single dropoff for one defined load.
The pivot — a
Shipmentjoins the commercialOrderto the operationalTour.You route, not assign — route a
Shipmentonto aTour; the carrier attaches to that tour.Unrouted is normal — a shipment waiting to be planned is a resting state, not a fault.
Nothing is deleted — cancelling or failing a shipment keeps the record and its history.
Routing a Shipment onto a Tour
Planning a Shipment means routing it onto a Tour. In Orbit MissionControl you either add it to an existing tour or create a new tour from it. Once routed, its pickup and dropoff take their place in the tour's stop sequence, and the carrier is assigned to the tour to carry it.
A Shipment sits on at most one Tour at a time, but it is freely re-routable. If plans change, you can unroute it and route it onto a different tour; the tour it left is filed into the shipment's history rather than erased. This is why you never assign a carrier to a shipment directly — you route the shipment, then assign the carrier to the tour.
Shipment statuses
A Shipment's status is reached in two ways. The planning states are the ones you control directly by routing and unrouting. The execution states follow automatically from the tour as its driver works through the stops — you do not set them, and there is no way to push a shipment straight to Delivered. To understand a shipment's execution status, look at its Tour.
Status | What it means |
|---|---|
| Not yet on a tour — waiting to be planned. A normal resting state. |
| Planned onto a tour, but the tour has not started moving it yet. |
| The tour is running and heading to collect the load. Set by the tour, not by you. |
| The load has been collected and is on its way to the dropoff. |
| The tour has finished and is awaiting the operator's review. |
| The move is complete. |
| The move was called off; the record is kept. |
| The move could not be completed; the record is kept as a faithful account of what happened. |
The exact wording of these labels can be tailored per organisation and language, so what you see may differ slightly from the terms above.
Unrouted, cancelled and failed are all normal
An Unrouted shipment is not broken — it simply has not been planned onto a tour yet, and sits ready for you to route it. In Orbit MissionControl these gather in the Unrouted view so you can plan them together.
Cancelling or failing a Shipment never deletes it. Both actions detach the shipment from its tour and mark it accordingly; the record and its full history remain available. A Failed shipment is a faithful record of a move that could not be completed, not an error to be cleared away.
Example
A load of chilled goods needs to travel from Rotterdam to Berlin. Orbit creates a Shipment with the Rotterdam pickup and the Berlin dropoff; it starts Unrouted. An operator routes it onto a Tour with a refrigerated vehicle and assigns a carrier to that tour. When the driver starts the tour, the shipment moves on its own through En Route: On the Way to Pickup and En Route: On the Way to Delivery, then to Waiting for Tour Review and finally Delivered — all driven by the tour, not by editing the shipment.
Frequently asked questions
Why is my shipment Unrouted?
Because it has not been planned onto a Tour yet. Unrouted is a normal waiting state — route the shipment onto a tour when you are ready.
How do I move a shipment to Delivered?
You do not set it directly. A shipment's execution status follows its tour, so it reaches Delivered when the tour carrying it is driven to completion.
How do I give a shipment to a carrier?
Route the shipment onto a Tour, then assign the carrier to that tour. There is nothing to assign a carrier to on the shipment itself.
Can one shipment be on two tours at once?
No — a shipment is on at most one tour at a time. It is re-routable, and each previous tour is kept in the shipment's history.
Does cancelling or failing a shipment delete it?
No. Nothing is deleted. The shipment detaches from its tour and is marked Cancelled or Failed, but the record and its history stay available.
How does a shipment relate to its order and tour?
The Shipment is the link between them: it belongs to one Order (the commercial side) and is carried by one Tour (the operational side). See the Orders and Tours articles.