WholeCell's ShipStation integration lets you sync your orders with ShipStation to create shipping labels. Once you create a shipping label in ShipStation for a synced WholeCell order, this integration will sync the shipment details back to WholeCell and mark the order as shipped.
This integration syncs:
Orders (WholeCell → ShipStation)
Shipments (ShipStation → WholeCell)
WholeCell Setup
To set it up, go to your ShipStation Export settings page.
Credentials
Make sure to come up with new credentials for the ShipStation Integration User Name and Password section. This doesn't have to be an actual email address. It is the username and password that will be used for the connection. Make up a username and add '+' at the end (e.g. shipstationwholecell+@gmail.com) then use a new password. Don't use your ShipStation or WholeCell password. These credentials will also have to be entered in ShipStation later on.
Channels
Select which sales channels you'd like to sync with Shipstation. This can be useful if you enter eCommerce orders into WholeCell, but don't want them showing up twice in Shipstation.
If you have not set up your sales order channels yet (e.g. "eBay", "Back Market" etc), follow the instructions in this article to set them up: Managing Sales and Purchase Order Channels. After you've set them, they will show on the ShipStation settings page in WholeCell after a page refresh.
Order Item Format
You can choose to sync either order items, committed individual inventory (with ESNs), or committed grouped inventory.
Address
You can choose to sync addresses from orders or from invoices.
Product Description
Select which attributes you'd like to include in the product description that gets sent to ShipStation. This can be useful if you don't want to show damages on the ShipStation packing list.
ShipStation Setup
Log in to ShipStation
Go to Settings > Selling Channels > Store Setup
Click 'Connect a Store or Marketplace'
Choose 'Custom Store' (you can type "custom store" on the field)
Enter 'https://www.wholecell.io/integrations/shipstation/' in the URL field.
Enter the unique name and password that you saved in WholeCell earlier. To reiterate, this should be a different username and password, not your WholeCell, nor your ShipStation credentials.
Map your order statuses. If you have not set your order statuses in WholeCell yet, follow the instructions here to set those up first: Managing Sales Order Statuses. New accounts need a status for canceled orders and on-hold orders. So you may need to create those for your account.
Type your WholeCell order statuses as they are spelled in WholeCell. For example, enter 'New' if that is the WholeCell order status that you'd like to see in the 'Awaiting Payment' tab in ShipStation. Then enter 'Ready to Ship' if that is the WholeCell order status that you'd like to see in the 'Awaiting Shipment' tab in ShipStation. These are just examples; you have control of which statuses you want to map to each other.
Do a test connection first to see if the setup is effective.
Once you see the message below, click the 'Connect' button.
Troubleshooting Order Export to ShipStation
The sales order will indicate if it will be exported to ShipStation or not.
Note: Printing shipping labels in ShipStation moves the WholeCell sales order to 'Shipped' status, provided that the 'Shipped' WholeCell sales order status is being synced to ShipStation (see order status settings here: https://www.wholecell.io/settings/order_statuses).
Note: Weight and weight units can be set on the product variation's page in WholeCell, and they are exported to ShipStation.
Manually Sending a Tracking Number to Combined Orders in ShipStation to WholeCell
If you want to manually put in a tracking number to combined orders in ShipStation:
Select the combined order in ShipStation, by putting a check on the box beside the order
Click Other Actions
Choose Mark as Shipped
Then on the next window that pops up, choose the Carrier, type the tracking number, then hit Mark as Shipped
Then, you'll see the shipment tracking information in the WholeCell sales orders.
Importing Orders Through the ShipStation Order Import Integration?
It is not advisable to send WholeCell orders that came in from ShipStation (through the Order Import integration) to ShipStation (by way of the Shipping integration) as this creates duplicates in ShipStation.
Creating shipping labels in ShipStation for orders that were imported to WholeCell from ShipStation won't move the WholeCell sales order status to 'Shipped'
Troubleshooting
In cases where your sales order did not export to ShipStation, there are several things that you can do:
Restart the connection by creating new and unique credentials (include the + sign) to save in WholeCell and ShipStation (repeat the process above). Did the test connection say it's good?
Make sure that your statuses are mapped correctly. What order status in WholeCell are you mapping to show in the Awaiting Shipment queue in ShipStation?
Check your sales order statuses in WholeCell. Are your order statuses set to sync to ShipStation? https://www.wholecell.io/settings/order_statuses
If the order is coming from a sales channel like eBay or Swappa, are those present in your 'Sales Order Channels' settings in WholeCell (https://www.wholecell.io/settings/channels), and checked in the ShipStation Export settings page (https://www.wholecell.io/settings/shipstation/custom_store)?
Does your WholeCell sales order have an address on the 'Ship To' field? If this is blank, the order will not get exported to ShipStation.
After you make any changes to your ShipStation settings page in WholeCell, and you are expecting an order to be synced to ShipStation, make some form of an update in the sales order to trigger the sync, like changing the status to "New" for just a second then changing it back to the status that it's supposed to be. Then, go to ShipStation to update the store.
You can process picked up eCommerce orders in ShipStation this way: