Shipment Subjects
These subjects are the routing related data that are a part of every shipment.
All three subjects are always calculated and embedded in the shipment data.
Even though all subjects are always calculated, you are not required to input all 3 subjects in your requests every time.
Some of the subjects can be inferred from the others!
Sender
Represents a subject and an address that is considered to be the "origin" of the shipment.
For most shipments, this is the actual origin location from which the shipment is picked up by the courier.
But this is not always true as some packages may, for example, be sent from a pickup point.
The pickup point location is not the same as the sender address in this case.
Address limitations
Based on the shipment type you might be required to input a DPD registered address.
For instance if you are creating a standard shipment you will be unable to set the sender to an arbitrary address.
DPD Requires that certain types of shipments use a registered address as the sender, this might be for courier routing purposes, route billing and etc...
API Specifics
You will always be required to enter the sender subject information when creating shipments via the API.
No matter the shipment type selected.
Receiver
Represents a subject and an address that is the destination of the shipment.
The shipment will be delivered to the subject at the specified address.
Address limitations
Based on the shipment type you might be required to input a DPD registered address.
For instance if you are creating a collection shipment you will be unable to set the receiver to an arbitrary address.
DPD Requires that certain types of shipments use a registered address as the receiver, this might be for courier routing purposes, route billing and etc...
API Specifics
You will always be required to enter the receiver subject information when creating shipments via the API.
No matter the shipment type selected.
Payer
Represents the subject that is financially responsible for the creation of the shipment to DPD.
The payer might be represented by a DPD customer or a DPD customer address.
The type of the representation depends on the shipment type used.
Customer address relation
Some shipment types require the Payer to be specified by a customer address.
This is because some types of shipments are billed based on the location from which the shipment is routed.
Also the customer address specified is used to determine the parcel range that should be used when assigning parcel numbers.
Sender and receiver relation
In some cases the Payer (customer or address) has to match the Sender or the Receiver.
API Specifics
You don't always have to enter the Payer subject information when creating shipments via the API.
The payer can be inferred from the sender and receiver subjects in some occasions.
This is mainly because all shipments have to be created under a specific customer.
The customer under which the shipment is created is also supposed to be the payer subject most of the times.
For detailed information about when the payer subject can be inferred and when it has to be explicitly specified see the shipment types documentation.
Matching addresses
The GeoAPI supports "address matching" functionality for customer addresses within all subjects.
If you don't know the customer address it4em address ID or other DPD wide identificator supported by the GeoAPI,
then you can send the address in the full JSON format and the API will try to match the address agains the DPD address database.
This functionality should be used scarcely.
It is mainly designated for edge cases where you are unable to get the DPD wide identificators.
The address matching is also currently very basic so you have to be as exact as possible with your input.