Pacejet

About the Pacejet API

Developers Guide for Pacejet API

The Pacejet API is a REStful Application Programming Interface for integrating shipping and order fulfillment features of the Pacejet platform into ERP and other business applications. This developers guide is intended to help Business Analysts and Developers understand how to design, build, test, and maintain shipping integrations leveraging the Pacejet API and platform.


About the Pacejet API

The Pacejet API leverages RESTful principles to provide an open and flexible integration resource for accessing shipping and order fulfillment features supported by the Pacejet platform. There is no “official” standard for RESTful APIs, but there are several standard, conventions, and resources used by the Pacejet API that are useful in planning a shipping integration.

  • RESTful – REST stands for Representation State Transfer, an architectural style for applications that use stateless, client-server communications via HTTP protocols.

  • GET, PUT, POST, DELETE – standard HTTP protocol requests used by the Pacejet API. The GET request retrieves a resource and DELETE permanently discards a resource. POST adds a new resource to a collection only if that resource does not already exist, whereas PUT will add a new resource or delete and replace the resource if it already exists.

  • Endpoint or Resource – a unique URL representing an object or a collection of objects in Pacejet.

  • JSON – Javascript Object Notation (JSON) is a lightweight data exchange format, easily read and written by humans, and used throughout the Pacejet API. While the Pacejet API supports XML request formats, we highly recommend that developers us JSON and use JSON examples in all documentation. Various JSON standard definitions exist including ECMA, IETF, and the original

  • JSON Data Types – the JSON format supports three data types including scalar (numbers, Boolean, string, null), array, and object. Scalar types have a single value, arrays contain an order list of values, and objects consist of an unordered set of key:value pairs.

  • JSON Comments – the JSON format does not officially support comments, however, content lines of the format “//This is a comment” or “//”:”This is also a comment” are generally ignored by the parser in the Pacejet API and are used throughout many examples to clarify content and usage.

  • Pacejet Location – the unique Pacejet environment identifier which contains one database of shipping data, carrier account setup, and other configuration rules and data.

  • License Key – license keys are unique identifiers of the form 13580cdb-d15c-89c3-2a5175d93c195a62 used to control access to Pacejet API features. Protect and secure license keys to safeguard your data.

  • URI Mapping Versus Filtering – resources in the Pacejet API are generally accessed via URI mapping, for example /ShipmentConfirms/D004600 refers to the confirmation data for the single shipment identified with the Transaction ID D004600. Query strings may be used in future Pacejet API versions for additional filtering of various types of shipping data.

  • HTTP Status Code – Pacejet uses standard HTTP status codes to communicate success and error conditions to applications during operation. Common examples include “200 OK” for successful transactions, “400 Bad Request” for unrecognized requests of data, “401 Unauthorized” for an illegal action or when API governance limits are exceeded. Some general errors which can occur include “500 Internal Server Error” or “504 Gateway Timeout” error.

  • Governance – an API tool that prevents accidental resource overuse by limiting request frequency and communicating status to integrated applications.

  • Tools | API | Help – detailed online documentation of each API endpoint, JSON data formats, and examples of content for each API data element. This area also includes example videos, a glossary of terms, and getting started information for the Pacejet API.

  • Tools | API | Log – the API transaction log recording each call and response your application makes to the API along with any errors or responses with other details. The go-to resource for diagnostics.

  • Tools | API | Samples – pre-coded online samples for each API endpoint, allowing you to test out requests, access preset request samples, and learn about how resources and endpoints are used together to manage integration workflows.

  • Versioning – allows API endpoints and functionality to be upgraded or modified while also keeping the existing functionality. The basic format is <Major>.<Minor>. The default version of all the endpoints will be 1.0. Versioning will apply across all endpoints. If a new version is introduced such as 2.0, all endpoints will include that version even though that endpoint may not have had any modifications.