Share shipment tracking with someone outside Conterminal

How recipients open it

The link is created the first time a delivery-order document is processed, and it is attached to the document, not to a single container. It then appears as a plain line of text in two outbound emails:

The acknowledgment reply

The reply Conterminal sends to the address that submitted the delivery order. The link appears as a line reading “Track this shipment:” followed by the URL, in both the early “tracking initializing” version and the later enriched version that lists vessel, terminal, and last free day.

The change notice

When a confirmed shipment's facts change, the notice sent to the same submitter repeats the same “Track this shipment:” line with the same URL.

The practical consequence: to get a link to a customer or a driver, find the acknowledgment email for that delivery order and forward the URL, or ask a Conterminal platform administrator to generate one. The internal generator lives on Platform controls → Public Tracking under Generate a real tracking link. It accepts a protected shipment URL or a delivery-order UUID, reuses the latest confirmed source document, offers Copy link and Open tracking page, and — as its own copy states — never queues a client email. That page is platform staff only.

What a signed-in person gets instead

Opening a tracking link while signed in to Conterminal does not always show the public page. The route checks your session first and redirects in two cases:

1. If your workspace can already see every shipment on the link, you are sent into the app — straight to the shipment page for a single-container link, or to a Choose a container chooser at /protected/tracking-links/ for a multi-container one.
2. If you have already saved this link to My Tracking, you are sent to your saved copy at /protected/my-tracking/items/.

Anything else — no session, or a session that can see only some of the containers — renders the public page. So a colleague testing the link from their own account may see a completely different screen than the customer does. To check what the recipient actually sees, open the link in a private window.

Saving a shipment to My Tracking

The dark panel on the right of the tracking page reads Save it. Know when it moves. and offers Save shipment and get alerts. This creates a personal tracking account: a private watchlist, not a seat in anyone's workspace.

1. Enter an address. The field is labeled Work or personal email. Submit with Save shipment and continue; while it works the button reads Sending secure link….
2. Watch for the confirmation. The form is replaced by a green panel reading Check your email to finish saving this shipment. If you were already signed in under that same address, no email is sent at all — you go straight to the saved shipment.
3. Open the emailed link within 20 minutes. The save request expires after 20 minutes and is single-use. Following it signs you in and lands you on the saved shipment.

A personal tracking account has exactly one page in its left rail: My Tracking. It lists a card per saved link showing the container numbers, the sharing organization, and an Alerts on or Alerts off chip. With nothing saved it reads No saved shipments yet and Open a shipment tracking link and choose Save shipment.

Opening a saved item gives you the same shipment cards as the public page plus two controls: Turn on alerts / Pause alerts, and Remove, which asks Remove this shipment from My Tracking? before it acts. Alerts produce in-app status-change notifications that link back to the saved shipment. They are delivered only when the platform-wide Personal alerts switch is on and that specific saved shipment has alerts enabled; if the platform switch is off, the button is disabled rather than hidden.

Requesting access to the sharing company

The documents card on the tracking page carries Get access for your company. It does not open a document — it routes you through the same personal signup first, with the heading changed to Start with your personal tracking workspace. The actual request form lives on the saved shipment, under Need shipment documents?

1. Enter Company name — between 2 and 160 characters.
2. Choose a Company type: Importer / cargo owner, Freight forwarder, or Trucking company.
3. Submit with Request company access.

What happens next depends entirely on the name you typed. Conterminal looks for an active, non-personal organization whose name matches exactly. Exactly one match becomes a join request and you see Request sent to your company administrator. No match — or more than one — becomes a new-company claim and you see Company request sent to Conterminal for review.

Approval is the company's and Conterminal's to grant; nothing on the tracking page can grant it. Documents unlock only after the company is approved and linked to the sharing partner — see partner access and shipment visibility. If the section instead reads Company access requests are not open yet., the feature is switched off platform-wide and there is nothing to fix on your side.

Multi-container links (all-or-nothing access)

A tracking link belongs to a delivery-order document, and its subjects are every confirmed, non-canceled container assignment on that document. A six-container delivery order produces one link showing all six cards, in the assignment order from the document.

The same all-or-nothing rule governs the signed-in redirect. The route redirects a signed-in user into the app only if their workspace can see every container on the link. See five of six and you get the public page instead — the same page the outside recipient gets, with the sign-up prompts. That is expected behavior, not a permissions bug.

The in-app chooser at /protected/tracking-links/ exists only for links with two or more containers, and it returns a plain 404 — not an access-denied screen — for a single-container link, for a revoked link, or for a user who cannot see the whole set. A 404 here does not mean the shipment was deleted.

What the recipient can and cannot see

Visible on the public page

Container number, status, the milestone dates listed above, vessel and voyage, pickup and return terminal, a coarse hold label, the sharing organization's name, and how recently the data was refreshed.

Never on the public page

Document files and file names, rates, charges, invoices, notes, contact details, appointment specifics, other shipments in the workspace, and any explanation of a hold. The page is also marked noindex, so search engines do not list it.

Documents are represented only as a teaser: a count and up to three broad category chips drawn from a fixed set — Delivery order, Delivery proof, Equipment receipt, and Shipment document. There is no file name, no preview, and no download. When the teaser is switched off platform-wide, or there are no documents, the card falls back to Documents become available to authorized company partners as the shipment progresses.

Every open is recorded — public views, redirects, sign-up requests, rate-limit rejections, and invalid tokens — against a hashed IP rather than the address itself. Conterminal can tell you a link has been used and how often; it cannot tell you which individual opened it.

Troubleshooting