Publish a quote form on your own website

Publishing and unpublishing

The Publish and Unpublish button sits in the top right of the header, opposite the Live/Draft badge. It is a single toggle. Publishing flips both the enabled and published flags on; unpublishing turns both off, and the public page stops resolving immediately — anyone who loads it gets Quote page unavailable with “This carrier's quote engine is not available.”

1. Save a complete configuration first. Publishing before there is a settings row fails with “Save configuration before publishing.”
2. Select Publish. On success the banner reads Quote engine published. and the badge changes to Live.
3. Load the hosted page yourself before you touch your website. The installation panel says exactly this: “Live configuration. Test the hosted page before installing the embed.”

Unpublishing is the correct move while you rework rates. It does not delete quotes already submitted, and the review queue keeps working.

Notification routing

The Quote notifications panel has two independent lists, and they do different jobs. Getting them backwards is the most common reason a carrier believes quotes are not arriving.

Approval request users

Checkboxes over your current carrier admins and managers. These people get the “Approval requested” email when a visitor submits, because they are the people who can actually open the quote and act on it. Between 1 and 20 must be selected.

Confirmation recipients

A free-text list, one address per line. These addresses receive the line-item quote after it has been approved or declined — the record copy, not the work item. Between 1 and 20 addresses.

The Save recipients button is disabled until the configuration has been saved at least once and at least one carrier admin or manager exists. With no eligible users the list reads “Add a carrier admin or manager before assigning quote approvals.” — grant someone the tenant admin or tenant manager role in this workspace first. Success is confirmed with “Quote notification recipients saved.”

Until approval routing has been configured, the approval-request email falls back to the confirmation list plus your contact email, so submissions are not lost while you are still setting up. Removing someone's admin or manager role silently removes them from the approval recipients on the next send — the routing is re-checked against live roles every time, not frozen at save time.

API access and credentials

The API access panel lives on the same Website quotes page as the public configuration. Website publication and direct API availability are separate: you can enable API quoting while the website remains unpublished. If the website is live, unpublish it before pausing the API.

GET /api/v1/quoting/config

Returns the carrier profile, current pricing configuration, and supported optional services. The credential needs read access.

POST /api/v1/quotes

Creates an idempotent commercial quote. A create credential can retrieve the result later with GET /api/v1/quotes/{quoteId}.

Bearer credentials

Choose a name, read or create scope, and optional expiration date. The full credential is shown once; Conterminal retains only the safe prefix and hash.

Embedding the widget on your site

The Website installation panel gives you two things: a Hosted quote page link you can share or link to directly, and a Responsive embed snippet for putting the form inside one of your own pages. Copy the snippet from the panel rather than retyping it — every value in it is derived from your slug and display name. For a carrier with the slug acme-trucking it looks like this:

<div id="acme-trucking-quote"></div>
<script
  async
  src="https://www.conterminal.com/quote/embed/acme-trucking"
  data-target="acme-trucking-quote"
  data-title="Freight quote from Acme Trucking"
></script>

Paste both lines into your page HTML where the form should appear. The loader script creates a full-width iframe pointing at your quote page and appends it inside the div named by data-target. The frame starts at 980 pixels tall and then resizes itself as the visitor adds segments, clamped between 480 and 3000 pixels. It has no border and no visible chrome of its own.

1. Keep the div above the script. The tag is async, so it can run before the rest of the page has parsed. If the target div has not been parsed yet, the loader falls back to inserting the frame immediately after the script tag instead. Reordering the two lines is the usual cause of a quote form appearing in the wrong place.
2. Do not edit the src. Only data-title is safe to change — it becomes the iframe's accessible title and is truncated to 120 characters. Changing the slug in the URL without changing it in Conterminal breaks the embed.
3. Allow the Conterminal origin in your CSP. If your site sends a Content-Security-Policy, it must permit the Conterminal origin in both script-src (to load the loader) and frame-src (to load the quote page). A missing frame-src is silent: the script runs, the iframe is created, and nothing renders.
4. Hook the completion event if you want analytics. When a visitor finishes, the frame dispatches a bubbling conterminal:quote event whose detail carries a status of verification_requested or submitted. Listen for it on your container div. No customer data, email address, or session token is included.

The loader itself is served with no-store caching at every layer, so a Conterminal deploy reaches your visitors on their next page load without any action from you. The snippet is also safe to place on more than one page.

Managing quotes after intake

Carrier admins and managers open Back Office, then the Quoting subsection, then Quote Manager. Its queue shows Quote, Prospect / customer, Source, Lane / service, Owner, Value, Stage, and Action. Source filters distinguish internal, RFQ, partner API, and website intake.

1. Create a priced internal draft. Select New Quote. The Move step first opens a shipment panel for import, export, or local; container quantity, size, type, chassis, cargo, weight, hazmat, references, and instructions. For an import, also set the number of delivery stops and whether the container returns empty. New imports default to one delivery and an empty return to the pickup terminal. Confirm those facts, then fill the ordered locations on the map. The shipment summary stays visible as you choose stops. Export defaults model the full empty-out and loaded-in cycle: terminal empty pickup, customer drop, customer loaded pickup, then loaded terminal return. When loading occurs at one shipper stop, the three-location route is labeled empty pickup terminal, shipper / load container, and loaded return terminal. A route ending with a terminal return uses one base linehaul group across its physical legs. Tolls and distance-based fuel remain attached to each leg; the Price step shows the sum of the persisted priced toll lines. A flat percentage fuel surcharge applies once to the group. For an early internal estimate, select a city or named place, including an export shipper stop, and calculate a price without its exact street address. Known terminals selected from the directory use their server-resolved address and map location; they do not need a suite or entrance added just to calculate an internal quote. A complete street selected through HERE can also remain priceable if Google cannot confirm it. Conterminal keeps the selected HERE location as preliminary instead of asking you to choose a different address just to get a rate. Use Recheck exact address to retry verification of the same street when ready. Conterminal marks an unverified street, city, or place stop as preliminary and keeps the warning with the quote. Before the quote can be accepted, revise it and replace every preliminary stop with a validated street address. The public quote form continues to require complete addresses. Then select a HERE truck route, choose services, and select the customer, service date, truck profile, and owner. The selected company appears immediately while saved contacts load; New contact remains available. Move, Services, Customer, and Price remain editable while you work. The Price step recalculates from the current inputs and keeps the last valid estimate visible while an update is in progress or fails. A manual customer rate does not change when the reference estimate changes. Conterminal keeps the complete calculator draft in the current browser tab, including the active step, so a reload does not discard the work. It creates or revises the durable quote only when you save the customer rate. Quote managers may then override an accessorial for that saved revision; saving the override immediately recalculates the estimate while retaining the original rate-card price and the required reason. Preview the customer quote after setting the customer-facing rate. The carrier comes from your signed-in workspace; there is no carrier field to override.
2. Start from an RFQ. A carrier admin or manager opens the RFQ in Document Review, confirms the commercial facts, and selects Create unpriced quote draft. Conterminal opens the same New Quote wizard with those facts prefilled. Luna extraction is not connected in this release, so the reviewer must verify the fields before creating the opportunity.
3. Start from request text or a selected email. In the Conterminal ChatGPT app, describe the request in plain language. In Gmail or Outlook Web, use the Conterminal Mail Chrome extension and choose Quote request. Conterminal creates a best-effort internal draft. The ChatGPT app returns its link; extension v1.0.18 accepts the request for background processing and emails the submitting user a draft link or a failure reason. Partial requests are allowed and show the missing facts that a user must complete. This intake does not calculate or approve pricing, queue an outbound response, or contact the original requester. Gmail requests with saved mailbox context also offer Open original in Gmail in the builder and Quote Manager, including when revising a quote. The link opens a new tab and does not grant access to another user's mailbox.
4. Receive partner API quotes. Successful API requests create or replay the same tenant-scoped commercial quote record and can be retrieved with the quote ID. Idempotency prevents a partner retry from creating a duplicate.

Reviewing website submissions

The website Review queue remains on the Website quotes screen and shows the 100 most recent submitted, under-review, approved, and declined quotes, newest first. Columns are Quote, Customer, Service, Total, State, and a Review link. A quote the engine could not price automatically shows Manual review in the Total column instead of a dollar figure. Empty state: “No submitted quotes yet.”

The detail page is headed by the reference number and status badge and shows the customer, email, phone, and expiry, then Submitted segments with the verified origin and destination, truck miles and drive time, the rate source used, and a per-leg total. Selected accessorials lists what the visitor added. An Immutable submitted snapshot section holds the exact priced payload the customer saw.

1. Triage. While the quote is still submitted, Mark under review claims it without telling the customer anything. That button disappears once the quote is already under review.
2. Record internal notes. The Internal notes box is for your team. It is stored with the review outcome and shown back on the completed panel.
3. Approve or decline. Approve estimate and Decline are both terminal. Either one queues the line-item confirmation email to your confirmation recipients and the banner reads “Quote review updated and confirmation queued.” The review form is then replaced by a read-only Review complete panel.

Nothing on the review page can change the price. The panel says so: “The submitted price and line items cannot be edited.” The submitted quote is the record of what the customer was shown, and it stays that way.

Verifying the embed works

Test the hosted page before the embed, and test a full submission before you announce the form. Half of all embed reports are actually an unpublished or incomplete configuration.

1. Open the hosted page. Use the Hosted quote page link in the installation panel. You should see your carrier name, your logo or accent square, and the words Online freight quote. If this page fails, the embed cannot work — fix it here first.
2. Price a real lane. Pick a truck profile and service date under Route details, fill in the pickup and delivery addresses, then select Calculate quote. Conterminal automatically accepts a provider result when only casing, punctuation, a standard street suffix, ZIP+4, or the country label changed. A different street number, street name, unit, city, state, or ZIP still appears as a Route-step correction that you must accept. Conterminal keeps the secondary line separate and does not duplicate it in the street address. The summary should break out base route, terminal fees, tolls, fuel surcharge, and additional services.
3. Submit as a customer. Under Verify and send this quote, enter a real name and a mailbox you can open, then select Confirm email and send quote. Open the one-time link in the email and complete the confirmation.
4. Confirm it landed. The quote should appear in the review queue with the reference number the widget showed you. Decline your own test quote so it does not sit in the queue.
5. Now load your own page. The frame should be full width and grow taller when you add a second segment. The Conterminal wordmark appears in the widget footer.

Troubleshooting