Apparatus, systems and methods for online, multi-parcel, multi-carrier, multi-service enterprise parcel shipping management

• US 20020032573A1
• Filed: 03/27/2001
• Published: 03/14/2002
• Est. Priority Date: 03/27/2000
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Auctane LLC (Stamps.com, Inc.), Iship Incorporated (United Parcel Service Incorporated)
• Original Assignee: Stamps.com, Inc., Iship Incorporated (United Parcel Service Incorporated)
• Inventors: McLaughlin, Paul R., Teglovic, Stephen M., Glavin, Dennis, Liu, Jinyue, Dietz, John M., Bennett, David Allison, Mentzer, Charles D., Bilibin, Paul, Meyer, Scott, Krett, Lory Elizabeth, Smith, William W. III, Williams, Daniel F., Hu, Sean, Goldhaber, Lynn Shaindell
• Granted Patent: US 7,774,284 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/08 Logistics, e.g. warehousing, loading or distribution; Inventory or stock management
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/083 Shipping
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/0834 Choice of carriers
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/08345 Pricing
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/0835 Relationships between shipper or supplier and carriers
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/101 Collaborative creation, e.g. joint development of products or services
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0282 Rating or review of business operators or products
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0601 Electronic shopping [e-shopping]

Abstract

The present invention provides a plurality of Enterprises with a single online user interface with which the Enterprise can provide Enterprise Shippers, shipping origination users and shipping intermediary users with an automated parcel management system for a plurality of supported Carriers for a plurality of services. The present invention provides for the hierarchical definition of users, including the establishment of at least one user for each Enterprise as a Super-Administrator with the highest level of privileges and authority for the Enterprise, and the identification of other users as Sub-Administrators, Desktop Users and Shipping Station Users. The present invention also provides for the hierarchical definition of organizational units within each Enterprise, including the definition of sites, groups within a site, and users within a group. The present invention further provides for a distinct definition of policies, privileges, and other types of specifications for each user level, each user, and each organizational unit. The present invention applies the user and organizational policies, privileges and other specifications as they apply to each particular user to drive the interactive interface with each particular user and to provide among other things, shipping options, shipping services, shipping rates, traveler and/or shipping label preparation, and shipment tracking.

Claims

1. An online, Internet-based, multi-carrier, multi-parcel shipping management computer system, said computer system programmed to:

collect input of a set of shipping policy rules from an administrator of an enterprise; and

apply the set of shipping policy rules to each shipping request by each of a plurality of users within the enterprise.

2. An online, Internet-based, multi-carrier, multi-parcel shipping management computer system, said computer system programmed to:

collect input from an administrator of an enterprise comprising an identification of at least one site within the enterprise; and

collect input from the administrator comprising a set of shipping policy rules for each of said sites.

3. An online, Internet-based, multi-carrier, multi-parcel shipping management computer system, said computer system programmed to:

collect from an administrator of an enterprise an identification of a plurality of sites within the enterprise, an identification of at least one group within each site, and an identification of at least one user within each group; and

collect input from the administrator comprising a set of shipping policy rules for each of said groups and for each of said sites.

4. An online, Internet-based, multi-carrier, multi-parcel shipping management computer system, said computer system programmed to:

collect from an administrator of an enterprise an identification of at least one sub-administrator user within the enterprise; and

collect input from the administrator comprising a set of shipping policy privileges for each such sub-administrator.

5. An online, Internet-based, multi-carrier, multi-parcel shipping management computer system, said computer system programmed to:

restrict shipping options available to each user within an enterprise according to input from an administrator of the enterprise of shipping policy rules.

6. An online, Internet-based, multi-carrier, multi-parcel shipping management computer system, said computer system programmed to:

display graphic user interface shipping selection options to a particular user within an enterprise according to shipping policy restrictions input by an administrator of the enterprise.

7. An online, Internet-based, multi-carrier, multi-parcel shipping management computer system, said computer system programmed to:

generate a printable bar-coded pre-processing traveler label in response to a request by a particular user within an enterprise to delegate shipping to another user within the enterprise.

8. An online, Internet-based, multi-carrier, multi-parcel shipping management computer system, said computer system programmed to:

calculate, for each carrier authorized by an administrator of an enterprise for use by a particular user within the enterprise, shipping rates in response to a rating request by the particular user for shipping a particular package.

9. An online, Internet-based, multi-carrier, multi-parcel shipping management computer system, said computer system programmed to:

generate in, response to a rating request by a particular user within an enterprise for shipping a particular package a comparison display of shipping rates for each of a plurality of services offered by each carrier authorized by an administrator of the enterprise for use by the particular user.

10. An online, Internet-based, multi-carrier, multi-parcel shipping management computer system, said computer system programmed to:

designate a particular user within an enterprise as restricted from printing shipping labels according to instructions input by an administrator of the enterprise.

11. The computer system of claim 10, said computer system further programmed to:

recognize as a pre-processing shipping request a request to ship a particular package input by the particular user.

12. The computer system of claim 10, said computer system further programmed to:

generate an internal system tracking number in response to a shipping request by the particular user; and

save said internal system tracking number corresponding to the shipping request in a database.

13. The computer system of claim 10, said computer system further programmed to:

generate a printable bar-coded pre-processing traveler label in response to a shipping request by the particular user.

14. The computer system of claim 12, said computer system further programmed to:

generate a printable bar-coded pre-processing traveler label in response to a shipping request by the particular user wherein the pre-processing traveler label bar-coding comprises a bar-coded expression of the internal system tracking number.

16. The computer system of claim 15, said computer system further programmed to:

save in response to a save link request by the particular user an entry in a saved packages list, said entry comprising an expression of said hypertext link.

19. The method of claim 18, said method further comprising:

collecting from the administrator input identifying a plurality of sites within the enterprise;

establishing a relationship between each site identification and the enterprise; and

storing each of said site identifications and each corresponding relationship to the enterprise in a database.

20. The method of claim 19, said method further comprising:

collecting from the administrator input identifying shipping policy rules for each of said sites; and

storing the shipping policy rules for each site in the database.

21. The method of claim 18, said method further comprising:

collecting from the administrator input identifying a plurality of sites within the enterprise wherein each site is characterized by a relationship to the enterprise;

collecting from the administrator an identification of at least one group within each site wherein each group is characterized by a relationship to a particular site;

collecting from the administrator an identification of at least one user within each group wherein each laser is characterized by a relationship to a particular group; and

storing each of said site identifications, each of said group identifications, and each of said user identifications in a database.

15. An online, Internet-based, multi-carrier, multi-parcel shipping management computer system, said computer system programmed to:

generate in response to a link creation request by a particular user within an enterprise a hypertext link comprising a linkable address on a server computer, said address on said server computer comprising an entry point to a set of programming instructions for rating shipment of a package characterized by a set of parameters according to a set of shipping policy rules identified by an administrator of the enterprise and according to input by the particular user.

17. An online, Internet-based, multi-carrier, multi-parcel shipping management computer system, said computer system programmed to:

calculate, for each carrier authorized by an administrator of an enterprise for use by a particular user within the enterprise, enterprise shipping rates and custom customer shipping rates in response to a rating request by the particular user for shipping a particular package.

18. A method of structuring data relationships for an online, Internet-based, -based, multi-carrier, multi-parcel shipping management computer system, said method comprising:

enabling at least one user in an enterprise as an administrator for the enterprise with authority to set shipping parameter specifications for the enterprise.

22. An online, Internet-based, multi-carrier, multi-parcel shipping management computer system, said computer system programmed to:

calculate, for each carrier authorized by an administrator of an enterprise for use by a particular user within the enterprise, enterprise shipping rates or custom customer shipping rates in response to a rating request by the particular user for shipping a particular package according to shipping policy rules established by the administrator.