Data Blending

Data Blending is a powerful feature provided as part of Project44's extended ocean visibility solution. It allows you to combine data from multiple sources, such as ocean carriers and freight forwarders, to enhance the accuracy and latency of shipment tracking milestones.

• Retrieving updates directly from ocean carriers enhances the quality and latency of the main ocean leg moves, as ocean carriers typically provide more accurate and timely updates compared to freight forwarders for the main ocean leg.
• Whereas freight forwarders typically handle the pre- and on-carriage movements and provide updates on those movements, which may include road, rail, and barge transport, those that may not be directly handled by ocean carriers.
• So, by blending data from both sources, you can get a more comprehensive view of your shipments.

How It Works

• Project44's data blending process involves retrieving both 'milestones' and 'route' from both ocean carriers and freight forwarders.
• The milestones and route data is then blended separately using different rules which are explained in detail in the next section.
• The blended data is then processed into our unified shipment schema, which is clearly explained in our Shipment Schema Guide.
• The data retrieval works only if the necessary internal configurations are in place for the freight forwarders and ocean carriers you wish to track, as mentioned in the Internal Configuration Details guide.

Rules

Any ocean shipment contains three main legs:

• Pre-carriage: The transportation of goods to the port of loading.
  • In Unified Schema, this corresponds to PICKUP, ORIGIN, PORT_OF_LOADING, ORIGIN_CFS and TRANFER stops.
• Main ocean leg: The transportation of goods across the ocean.
  • In Unified Schema, this corresponds to PORT_OF_LOADING, PORT_OF_DISCHARGE and TRANSSHIPMENT_PORT stops.
• On-carriage: The transportation of goods from the port of discharge to the final destination.
  • In Unified Schema, this corresponds to PORT_OF_DISCHARGE, DESTINATION, DESTINATION_CFS, RETURN and TRANSFER stops.

For more information about each stop type, please refer to our $.shipment.routeInfo.stops schema guide.

Route Blending

The stops blending process combines the routes from both ocean carriers and freight forwarders. The rules for blending routes are as follows:

Pre-carriage

• The stops & route segments from the freight forwarder are preferred for the pre-carriage leg.
• If the freight forwarder does not provide stops for the pre-carriage leg, stops from the ocean carrier is used instead.
• If freight forwarder provides some stops for the pre-carriage leg, and ocean carrier provides some other stops for the pre-carriage leg, the stops from both sources are combined, with the freight forwarder stops taking precedence.

Main Ocean Leg

• The stops & route segments from the ocean carrier are preferred for the main ocean leg.
• If the ocean carrier does not provide stops for the main ocean leg, stops from the freight forwarder is used instead.
• If ocean carrier provides some stops for the main ocean leg, and freight forwarder provides some other stops for the main ocean leg, only the stops from the ocean carrier are used and the data from freight forwarder is ignored.

On-carriage

• The stops & route segments from the freight forwarder are preferred for the on-carriage leg.
• If the freight forwarder does not provide stops for the on-carriage leg, stops from the ocean carrier is used instead.
• If freight forwarder provides some stops for the on-carriage leg, and ocean carrier provides some other stops for the on-carriage leg, the stops from both sources are combined, with the freight forwarder stops taking precedence.

Milestone Blending

The milestones blending process combines the milestones from both ocean carriers and freight forwarders. Unlike route blending, rules for blending milestones are very simple.

• The milestones from the ocean carrier are preferred over the milestones from the freight forwarder at each leg of the journey.
• If the ocean carrier does not provide any milestones for a leg, the milestones from the freight forwarder are used instead.
• If the ocean carrier provides some milestones for a leg, and freight forwarder provides some other milestones for the same leg, the milestones from both sources are combined, with the ocean carrier milestones taking precedence.

For more information on various milestone types, please refer to our $.events schema guide. This also contains information on how to check the source of selected milestones in the unified schema, whether they are from the ocean carrier or freight forwarder.