Getting Started
Key Concepts
Understand the core concepts and data model behind Trackberry.
6 min readOrganizations
An Organization is the top-level entity in Trackberry. It represents a company, team, or trading operation. Everything — shipments, members, settings — belongs to an organization.
- Each organization has a unique slug used in URLs (
trackberry.ag/your-slug/...) - Users can belong to multiple organizations
- Settings, checks, and approved senders are scoped per organization
Shipments
A Shipment represents a batch of fresh produce moving from origin to destination. Shipments have a lifecycle:
| Status | Description |
|---|---|
pending |
Shipment created, awaiting documents |
processing |
Documents uploaded, extraction in progress |
ready_for_review |
Data extracted, checks completed |
approved |
Reviewed and approved by team |
rejected |
Issues found, shipment rejected |
Documents
Documents are files attached to a shipment — typically packing lists, quality reports, or phytosanitary certificates. Trackberry supports:
- PDF — Parsed via automated text and table extraction
- Excel (
.xlsx) — Direct structured table reading - Images (
.jpg,.png) — Processed with OCR
Each document goes through an extraction pipeline that produces structured pallet data.
Pallets
A Pallet is a unit of produce within a shipment. Each pallet has attributes extracted from documents:
Key pallet attributes:
pallet_number — Unique identifier on the pallet
produce_name — What's on the pallet (e.g., "Hass Avocado")
category — Produce type classification
calibre — Size grading (e.g., "12", "14", "16")
boxes — Number of boxes on the pallet
box_weight_kg — Weight per box in kilograms
Each pallet contains one or more Packing Lines — individual rows from the packing list that record produce details, box counts, and weights at a finer level of granularity (e.g., per calibre, variety, or pack format within the same pallet).
Organic & Conventional
Each packing line records whether the produce is Organic or Conventional. Trackberry displays this on shipments:
- 🌿 — Every packing line is organic
- 🌱 — The shipment contains a mix of organic and conventional produce
GGN (GLOBALG.A.P. Number)
A GGN is a 13-digit certification number from GLOBALG.A.P. identifying the producer or farm. When present in packing lists, Trackberry extracts it per packing line and displays a summary on the shipment:
- A single GGN if the entire shipment comes from one certified producer
- "Mixed (N GGNs)" if lines originate from multiple certified producers
Containers
A Container is the physical shipping unit that holds pallets during transport. Ocean shipments typically have one or more containers; air shipments do not use containers.
Cargo Type
Each shipment (or container) has a Cargo Type that describes the temperature regime:
| Cargo Type | Description | Badge |
|---|---|---|
| Ambient | No temperature control | — |
| Reefer | Refrigerated container | — |
| Frozen | Frozen cargo below 0°C | ❄️ |
The cargo type is automatically detected from transport documents when available. Frozen shipments display a ❄️ badge with the set temperature across the dashboard, shipment list, and trading view.
Shipment Notes
You can attach free-text Notes to any shipment — internal comments, reminders, or instructions for your team. Notes auto-save as you type (no submit button needed) and appear as a 📝 icon on the shipment list, dashboard, and trading view.
Quality Checks
Checks are automated validation rules that run against extracted shipment data. Examples:
- Weight check — Verify total weight matches expected range
- Calibre check — Ensure calibre values are within product specs
- Completeness check — Flag missing required fields
Checks produce results: pass, warning, or fail. A shipment must pass all required checks before approval.
Members & Roles
Users join organizations through Memberships, each with a role:
- Member — Read access to shipments and data
- Admin — Can manage settings, members, approved senders, and checks
- Owner — Full access including organization-level settings
Approved Senders
Approved Senders are email addresses or domain wildcards authorized to send documents to your organization. You can approve a single address (e.g., sender@example.com) or an entire domain (e.g., *@example.com). Documents from unapproved senders are flagged for review.
Pre-allocations
A Pre-allocation assigns a number of boxes from a packing line to a specific customer (allocatee) before the shipment arrives. This lets you plan distribution in advance. Pre-allocations are tracked per packing line and cannot exceed the line's box count.
Public Tracking
Organizations can enable Public Tracking Pages to share a live, unauthenticated view of any shipment. External parties can view the tracking map, transport details, and selected documents — and subscribe to email updates when the status changes.
Shipment Messages
Every email sent to your organization about a shipment is stored as a Shipment Message. Trackberry uses AI to analyze each message and extract:
- Category — Arrival notice, delay notice, inspection notice, customs update, etc.
- Urgency — Info, warning, or critical
- Summary — A one-line description of the key information
- Dates — ETAs, delivery dates, and inspection dates mentioned in the email
- Suggested status — Whether the email implies the shipment has arrived or departed
Messages appear on the shipment page and provide a complete conversation history alongside the structured shipment data.
Delay Predictions
For shipments with active tracking, Trackberry uses AI to monitor real-time disruptions (weather, strikes, congestion, infrastructure issues) at each location along the route. When elevated risk is detected, a Delay Predictions panel appears on the shipment page with risk factors and estimated delay impact.
Trading View (Stock Overview)
The Trading View aggregates all packing lines from active shipments into a pivot table grouped by calibre, variety, and/or pack format. It shows unallocated vs. allocated stock at a glance, with click-to-drill-down into individual packing lines and inline pre-allocation. See the Trading View guide for details.
Destination Filter
Both the Dashboard and Trading View offer a hierarchical destination filter that lets you narrow down shipments by country and port. Check a country to select all its ports, or expand to pick individual ports.
Audit Log
Every significant action is recorded in the Audit Log — document uploads, approval decisions, setting changes, member management, and inbound email updates. The audit log provides full traceability for compliance.