Twinewell for ShipStation: setup and help
Twinewell shows your customer's ShipStation orders next to their Zendesk ticket and lets the agents you choose hold, release, tag, note, fix the ship-to address or cancel, with every action logged on the ticket. $9 per agent per month after a 14-day trial.
What you need
- Zendesk Support (any plan that allows Marketplace apps) and admin access to install.
- A ShipStation account on the Standard or Accelerate plan or higher: ShipStation offers API access only on those plans, and answers HTTP 402 on lower ones.
- A ShipStation V1 API key and secret: Settings > Account > API Settings.
Install
Follow the installation guide on the listing: paste the key and secret (Zendesk keeps them as secure settings), set the currency if it is not USD, and choose who may take actions.
Brands, stores and a second account
- Account brands: Zendesk brand ids that open this ShipStation account.
- Stores per brand:
brand id: store ids; brand id: store ids, like360001: 12345; 360002: 22222, 22223. A brand's tickets then show its stores' orders first; agents can show all stores with one click. Admins see every store with its id under Stores and ids at the bottom of the sidebar. - Account 2: fill in its name to turn it on, then its own key, secret, currency and brands.
How orders are found
ShipStation's API can't search orders by email. Twinewell searches by the requester's full Zendesk name and by up to three order numbers written in the ticket's subject or first message, then keeps only orders whose customer email is one of the addresses on the requester's Zendesk profile. Orders under the same name with another email are hidden and counted. If the ticket mentions an order placed with another email, the sidebar says so with a masked email and lets you look it up.
If the requester's Zendesk name is a single word or an email address, only the order numbers in the ticket are used; add their full name in Zendesk or use the lookup box (order number, tracking number or full name).
Actions
| Action | ShipStation call | Allowed when |
|---|---|---|
| Hold until a date | Hold Order Until | Awaiting Shipment, or On Hold (changes the date) |
| Release hold | Restore From Hold | On Hold |
| Add tag | Add Tag | Any status; the tag is not on the order yet |
| Add internal note | Create/Update Order | Awaiting Payment, Awaiting Shipment, On Hold; not merged or split |
| Fix ship-to | Create/Update Order | Same as the note |
| Cancel (off by default) | Create/Update Order (status cancelled) | Same as the note |
Create/Update Order replaces the whole order, so Twinewell reads the order right before sending, refuses if it changed since you opened it, sends it back with only your change and a dated line in its internal notes, then reads it again and reports anything unexpected (for example items that look different or a second order). Cancelling in ShipStation does not cancel or refund the order in your store.
Not offered: creating, buying or voiding labels, and marking orders as shipped.
Troubleshooting
- "ShipStation did not accept the API key and secret": keys expire. Generate a new pair in ShipStation and paste both into the app settings.
- "HTTP 402": the ShipStation plan has no API access.
- "Waiting for ShipStation's rate limit": each key allows 40 requests a minute, shared with your other integrations. Twinewell pauses and continues by itself.
- Amounts in the wrong currency: set the account's Currency.
- No actions visible: check Who may take actions and the action switches; actions only appear on existing tickets.
Uninstall
Uninstalling deletes the stored key and secret. Internal notes and twinewell_* tags on tickets
and the dated lines in ShipStation order notes stay. You can also regenerate the API keys in
ShipStation.
Support: hello@greatwork.company, reply within one business day.