Continuous Master Bill of Lading Processing

The Continuous MBL Processing feature is an optional setting that will continue to process parent references created using Create Reference via Bill of Lading until we see a vessel departure milestone from the origin port.

By default, this feature is disabled when assigned an API key for our Demo and Production environments. When disabled, the parent master bill of lading reference will check for child containers beginning at the time of creation until it finds at least one container. Once found, it will not process again even though it may still appear as being active.

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If an active parent reference is unsubscribed, it will also unsubscribe from all child references.

Use case for continuous processing

As mentioned above, creating a parent reference using Create Reference via Bill of Lading will check for containers until at least one is located. Once located, the parent reference will not be queued for further processing. While this is usually enough to locate all containers, there is a possibility that the list of containers located by the API is not final before the vessel actually departs.

With this feature enabled, we can better ensure that all containers have a reference available for you at the time of departure.

Additionally, if a reference is created for a container but that container is removed from the bill before or at the time of departure, the API will deactivate that reference and set a "deactivate reason" status on it so that it is clear why this reference was created in error and it will be treated as unbillable.

Evergreen container issues

In January 2024, the Vizion API was updated to include a new feature to continuously check for child containers when using Create Reference via Bill of Lading to create a parent reference.

This feature was inadvertently enabled for all accounts upon introduction when it was meant to be disabled by default.

For a short span of time, the API queued existing and active MBL parent references for re-processing which was proven harmless for users for non-Evergreen references. For Evergreen MBL references, containers that were not associated with that BL number were being created as child references in large numbers for each parent.

In February 2024, the Engineering team found the true cause of the issue leading to large numbers of seemingly unrelated child containers for each Evergreen MBL parent.

Enabling this feature

Continuous Master Bill of Lading Processing can be enabled for your account (on both demo and production environments of the API) as a part of a new or existing plan at no additional cost. Please request this feature by contacting support.