Salesforce Service Cloud (SFSC)
Use parcelLab’s Customer Service Integration for SFSC to increase the productivity of your customer service agents by enabling them to answer delivery-related questions faster.
Overview
The parcelLab Customer Service Integration for Salesforce Service Cloud (SFSC) enables your customer service agents to answer delivery-related questions faster. The app is fully integrated with the Salesforce solution to enable viewing of all relevant tracking information in real time for every order without switching between SFSC and parcelLab. The app can be added to any object within your Service Console (for example: Account, Case, Order).
The app automatically displays the most up-to-date order information, including the following details:
Customer name, recipient address, and carrier
Order and tracking numbers with the latest delivery status
Orders with multiple shipments sorted by relevance with the most critical deliveries and disruptions listed first
Detailed view of previous shipping activity and estimated delivery date
Product details
All previously sent customer communication (for example: email and SMS notifications)
The app includes the ability to search for an order number, a tracking number, or to view a customer’s purchase history by searching for their name or email address.
Key Benefits
Direct access to the right delivery data using the parcelLab Customer Service Integration for SFSC leads to a number of benefits, including:
Reducing workload
Resolving inquiries faster
Better customer experience
Customer Requirements
For successful installation and configuration, the following requirements need to be met:
Salesforce admin privileges
parcelLab account with tracking data enabled
parcelLab token that is provided after a payment contract for the app is set up
For more information, please contact your parcelLab representative or fill in our contact form.
Installing the parcelLab Customer Service Integration for SFSC
This section describes how you can install the parcelLab Customer Service Integration for SFSC.
To install the app:
Log in to your Salesforce account as an admin user.
Open the link you received from your parcelLab representative.
Select the level of access (for example: Install for all users). This permission provides access to the app page in Salesforce, which contains details about how to generate new API tokens. It does not control permissions for accessing and using the app after it has been added to an object.
Click Install. After the installation is complete, a success message will display.
You can find the installed parcelLab app in your Salesforce account under Setup > Platform Tools > Apps > Packaging > Installed Packages.
Configuring the parcelLab Customer Service Integration for SFSC
This section describes how you can configure the parcelLab Customer Service Integration for SFSC after it has been successfully installed.
The overall process for configuring the parcelLab app is summarized in the following steps:
Defining Credentials for Displaying General App Content
To configure credentials that will enable the display of general app content, specify authentication settings in Salesforce as follows:
Click on the Setup icon on the top right of your Service Console.
The Setup Menu will display.
Click Setup. Setup Home opens in a new browser tab.
In the search field, enter “Named Credentials”.
In the dropdown menu, select the setup option Named Credentials.
The Named Credentials list page will display.
Click New.
The configuration page for app credentials will display.
In the Label field, enter a label that will be used to identify the API credentials (for example: Company_UK).
If you have multiple parcelLab accounts, the label should be descriptive as you will need to reference it during additional configurations.
The Name field is automatically filled after a label has been entered in the Label field. Note: When creating test credentials, do not use "ParcelLabTestCred" in the Label and Name fields. A set of credentials with this label come with the package for different purposes and should not be used for an actual setup.
In the URL field, enter https://api.parcellab.com.
For the Identity Type, select Named Principal.
For the Authentication Protocol, select Password Authentication.
Text fields for Username and Password will display.
In the Username field, enter your parcelLab user ID.
The parcelLab user ID can be requested from your parcelLab representative or retrieved from the parcelLab App under Admin > Accounts.
In the Password field, enter your parcelLab token.
The token can be requested from your parcelLab representative.
Click Save. The New Named Credential is saved.
Configuring the Display of a Link to the parcelLab App
To display a link to the parcelLab App:
In Named Credentials, click New.
The configuration page for app credentials will display.
In the Label field, enter the label that was used in the initial configuration (for example: Company_UK) and add “_Magic”.
This identifies that the app that is configured for the UK account should display a link to the parcelLab App.
Following our example, the label entered in this step will be “Company_UK_Magic”.
In the URL field, enter https://prtl.parcellab.com/api/signin.
For Identity Type, select Named Principal.
For Authentication Protocol, select Password Authentication.
Text fields for Username and Password will display.
Note: If you have implemented Single Sign-On (SSO) for your parcelLab App access, you do not need to enter any information into the Username and Password fields.
In the Username field, enter the email address of a parcelLab App user.
In the Password field, enter the user’s password.
Click Save. The New Named Credential is saved.
After the app configuration is complete, you can add the lightning component to any object within a page layout, so your customer service agents can access it from your Service Console.
Configuring the Necessary Fields for Displaying Order Data
Before adding the parcelLab app to the page layout where you intend to use it, you need to define the following fields in the object’s details:
A field for the parcelLab credentials
A field for the order ID
A field for the user’s email address or any other alternative field you prefer to identify orders by
The credentials and alternative fields are mandatory to retrieve data in the parcelLab app directly. The order ID field is not mandatory, but it is the most common way to identify an order.
Create a custom field for parcelLab credentials
To create a field for your parcelLab credentials within the Salesforce object:
View a record detail page for the object you would like to add the lightning component to.
Click on the Setup icon on the top right of the record detail page.
The Setup Menu will display.
Click Edit Object. The Object Manager opens in a new browser tab.
In the Object Manager, click Fields & Relationships, then click New. The New Custom Field page will display.
Select Formula as the Data Type.
Click Next.
In the Field Label field, enter a label for the formula (for example: parcelLabNamedCredential). The field name populates based on field label.
Select Text as the Formula Return Type.
Click Next.
Insert the formula to define the parcelLab named credential to be returned. This formula should be the name of the named credential that was previously defined, wrapped in quotation marks. Example formula:
“Company_UK”
Click Next.
Review that the field will be added to the correct page layout.
Click Save.
The field for your parcelLab credentials is saved.
User Permissions
Users who need to use the parcelLab app in Salesforce (for example: your customer service agents) must have field-level access to all three fields in the object. Object-level access is not sufficient for accessing and using the parcelLab app.
It is recommended to also assign the permission set included in the app (that is: ParcelLab_User) to all users who need to use the parcelLab app in Salesforce.
Adding the parcelLab App to a Page Layout
To add the parcelLab app to a page layout:
View a record detail page for the object you would like to add the lightning component to.
Click on the Setup icon on the top right of the record detail page to open the page layout editor.
The Setup Menu will display.
Click Edit Page.
The page layout editor opens with a list of components displayed on the left-hand side of the page.
In the components list, enter “parcelLab” into the search field or scroll through the components list until you see the parcelLab component under Custom - Managed.
Drag the component to where you want to place it on the page.
When the component is added to the page, the component configuration will display on the right-hand side of the page layout editor.
Note: Initially the component will return an invalid warning.
Configure the component by setting the following fields:
For Named Credentials field name, enter the API field name of the field used to identify your parcelLab API credentials.
For Order field name, enter the API field name of the field that contains the order ID used in parcelLab.
For Alternative search field name, enter the API field name of the field you are using in your pages to capture the user’s email address, or any other order attribute by which you can identify an order. This must be an attribute that is associated with the order ID in the parcelLab system within a limited set of fields. For more information please see the Using the Search Function section.
Note: These fields must be part of the object’s details for the app to work. For more information, refer to the section on configuring the necessary fields for displaying order data in the parcelLab app.
Click Save. The component is added to the page layout.
When the app has been successfully added to the page layout, the component will automatically load the order information when a record detail page is viewed.
If you are unable to locate the order ID field, or experience issues when configuring the lightning component, please contact us by filling in our contact form.
Additional Configurations
If you have multiple parcelLab accounts for different countries and/or brands, please follow these configuration instructions.
Set all different accounts as separate Named Credentials. The correct parcelLab account credentials are retrieved using a formula you need to define.
Create a formula by navigating to Setup > Object Manager > Order (or any other object you want to place the app) > Fields & Relationships.
Click New to create a new custom field.
Select Formula as the Data Type.
Click Next.
In the Field Label field, enter a label for the formula.
Select Text as the Formula Return Type.
Click Next.
Insert the formula to define the parcelLab account name to be returned.
Example formula:
CASE(Country__c,"DE", "parcellab DE", "AT", "parcellab AT", "No parcellab Account")In this example formula, all German orders (where the value of the field Country is DE) use the parcelLab DE account (set as the label within the credentials) and all Austrian orders use the parcelLab AT account.
Click Save.
Your formula is saved.
In the second column of Fields & Relationships, find the formula’s Field Name and copy it.
In the page layout editor, open the page that contains the parcelLab component.
Click on the parcelLab component.
The component configuration opens on the right-hand side of the page.
Under Named Credentials field name, enter the formula’s field name. Note: The formula field must be present in the object's details for this configuration to work.
Click Save.
The app is configured for multiple parcelLab accounts.
Using the parcelLab Customer Service Integration for SFSC
This section describes how you can use the parcelLab Customer Service Integration for SFSC.
Accessing the App
The app is visible in the Salesforce object where it was configured. In the following example, the app was added to the Account page on the right-hand side.
Overview of App Content
Order-specific information is displayed in the app through a matching of the order ID from the object’s order ID field.
If the order ID is missing, the app will try to search for orders using the alternative search field found in the Salesforce object. If the alternative field is also missing, nothing will be returned in the app by default, but users can use the app’s search functionality and the order number, email address or other order information as a search query to locate order information.
If the order ID is wrong, but the alternative field value is correct, no results will be returned as the app will always try to match by the order ID value first.
The following order information can be viewed in the app:
Order number
Recipient’s address
Overview of tracking records (that is: for outbound and return trackings)
Most recent delivery status of each tracking The tracking status is color coded to highlight critical deliveries:
Green indicates a successful delivery.
Yellow indicates that the parcel is still en route to a delivery address.
Red indicates a failed delivery.
Using the Search Function
Service agents can use the following information as search queries:
Order number
Tracking number
Recipient’s name
Recipient’s email address
Recipient's city
You can use the following order attributes as search queries in the alternative search field to automatically find an order:
Delivery number
Customer number
Transport number
Consignment number
These values must be transmitted to parcelLab as part of your data integration before they can be used as search queries in the app.
When searching for an order or tracking number or another unique order-identifying value from the ones listed above, the matching order is displayed as in the default view.
When searching for a customer’s name or email address, all associated orders are displayed. You can click View Details to display the order-specific information as seen in the default view. All displayed results are data from the last 90 days.
Viewing Tracking Details
To view tracking details, click on the arrow to the right of the tracking record.
The following details will display:
Product details: The information displayed includes the item name, item number, and quantity.
Shipment details: This includes all carrier scans, an estimated delivery date for as long as the parcel is in transit, and sent notifications (for example: emails or SMS).
More details via external links: These are links to the carrier’s tracking page, the parcelLab Portal, and the tracking page (that is: the order status page configured and designed for your brand as seen by your customers).
If there are any incidents encountered during delivery (for example: delays), an exception box will display.
If there is a return tracking in an order, an info box with a link to the return tracking will display.
Errors and Warnings
This section describes known errors and warnings when configuring and using the parcelLab app.
Credentials failure
This error displays if the value of the credentials field in the object details is invalid (for example: missing value, a mistake in the name, invalid value in the calculation field used or the calculation itself is invalid in cases where a formula used for credentials).
Credentials failure: Incorrect or Missing User or Token
This error displays when something is wrong in the Named Credentials setup itself (that is: incorrect parcelLab user ID or token).
Empty Alternative Search Field
This error displays if the field associated to the alternative search field in the app is empty inside the object.
No Matching Results
This error displays under the search field of the parcelLab app if no matching results are found for the automatic matching based on your configured order ID field or alternative search fields. The error also displays if no matching results are found for manually entered search terms.
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