TempSureShip Documentation

Weather-safe shipping decisions for temperature-sensitive orders.

Getting Started

TempSureShip installs directly in your Shopify admin. After installing, open the app and follow these steps:

1. Set your origin ZIP code — this is where you ship from. Go to Settings and enter your warehouse or fulfillment center ZIP/postal code.
2. Add product types — create temperature rules for each type of product you ship (e.g., live plants, chocolate, candles). Use a template to start quickly.
3. Configure packaging (optional) — if you use heat packs, cool packs, or insulated boxes, add them so the app can factor them into recommendations.
4. Choose your automation level — manual (you decide everything), tag-only (app adds tags), or automated (app tags and holds orders).

Setup takes about 2–3 minutes with templates. You can customize everything later.

How It Works

When an order comes in, TempSureShip:

1. Looks up the destination from the shipping address
2. Estimates transit time based on origin, destination, and carrier
3. Fetches weather forecasts for each day the package is in transit
4. Compares forecast temperatures against your product type rules
5. Checks if any packaging options can mitigate the risk
6. Returns a clear recommendation with an explanation

The entire evaluation happens automatically. You see the result on your order page and in the TempSureShip dashboard.

Understanding Results

Every evaluation returns one of five results:

✅ SAFEAll transit days are within your product's safe temperature range. Ship as planned.

📦 SHIP WITH MITIGATIONTemperatures are outside the safe range, but adding packaging (like a heat pack or insulation) brings them back within limits. The app tells you exactly what to add.

🛑 DO NOT SHIPConditions are too extreme even with packaging. The app explains which days are risky and suggests when to try again.

👀 NEEDS REVIEWConditions are borderline or complex. Review the details and make a judgment call.

⚠️ INSUFFICIENT DATAWeather data is missing or stale. The app will automatically re-check when fresh data is available.

Every result includes a plain-language explanation of why that recommendation was made — specific temperatures, specific days, specific thresholds.

Product Types

Product types define the temperature rules for what you ship. Each product type includes:

• Minimum safe temperature — the lowest temperature your product can handle (e.g., 35°F for live plants)
• Maximum safe temperature — the highest temperature your product can handle (e.g., 85°F for chocolate)
• Maximum transit days — how long the product can safely be in transit
• Product tags — Shopify product tags that match orders to this product type
• Default carrier and service (optional) — used when the order doesn't specify a carrier

Templates included: Live plants, chocolate and confections, candles and wax, cosmetics and skincare, wine and spirits, pharmaceuticals, and more. Each template comes with industry-standard temperature ranges that you can customize.

Packaging Options

Packaging options represent the physical mitigation you can add to a shipment — heat packs, cool packs, insulated liners, thermal mailers, etc. For each option, you define:

• Temperature buffer — how many degrees of protection the packaging provides (e.g., a heat pack adds 15°F buffer)
• Duration — how long the protection lasts in hours (e.g., 72 hours covers 3-day ground shipping)
• Direction — whether it protects against cold, heat, or both
• Cost (optional) — for your reference when comparing options

When temperatures exceed your product's safe range, the app checks if any packaging option can bring the effective temperature back within limits. If so, it recommends that specific packaging.

Your Dashboard

The TempSureShip dashboard organizes your orders by lifecycle phase so you can focus on what needs attention right now:

• Ready to Ship — orders waiting for your decision. Grouped by result (DO NOT SHIP, NEEDS REVIEW, SHIP WITH MITIGATION, SAFE) with counts and expandable order lists. Click any order to see the full evaluation.
• In Transit — orders you've already shipped. Shows fulfillment status (label printed, in transit, out for delivery) and weather conditions along the route. If a weather alert affects a shipped order, you'll see it here.
• Delivered — completed deliveries with arrival weather conditions. See what temperature your package actually arrived in — useful for customer follow-up and adjusting your shipping strategy.

The dashboard also shows notifications for risky evaluations and weather alerts. Analytics (evaluation trends, temperature charts) are available in a collapsible section at the bottom.

Ship Day Planner

The Ship Day Planner shows a 7-day grid of all your pending orders that need attention (DO_NOT_SHIP, NEEDS_REVIEW, INSUFFICIENT_DATA). For each order and each day, it shows whether shipping on that day would be safe, risky, or dangerous.

Use it to:

• Find the next safe shipping day for held orders
• Batch similar orders together on the safest day
• See at a glance which days have the most risk

Click any cell in the grid to see the full evaluation details for that order on that day.

Shipping Schedule

If you only ship on certain days of the week, configure your shipping schedule in Settings. The default is Monday through Friday.

The Ship Day Planner uses your shipping schedule to recommend the best day to ship — it only suggests days you actually ship on. Non-shipping days appear greyed out in the planner grid and evaluation detail, labeled "not a scheduled shipping day."

To change your shipping days, go to Settings and check or uncheck the days of the week. Use "Reset to Mon–Fri" to quickly restore the default weekday schedule.

Automation Modes

TempSureShip supports three automation levels:

• Manual — the app evaluates orders and shows results, but takes no action. You review and decide everything.
• Tag only — the app automatically adds tags to orders (e.g., "tempsure:do-not-ship") so you can filter and sort, but does not hold fulfillment.
• Automated — the app tags orders AND places fulfillment holds on risky orders. Holds prevent accidental shipment while you wait for safer conditions.

Every automated action is logged in the audit trail with a timestamp, the reason, and the evaluation that triggered it.

Weather Alerts

TempSureShip monitors government weather alerts from the National Weather Service (NWS) along your shipment's transit path. Active alerts — freeze warnings, heat advisories, winter storm watches, and other temperature-related warnings — are displayed on the evaluation detail page.

When a weather alert affects a pending or in-transit order, you'll see a notification on your dashboard. Alerts include the official severity level, affected area, and time window so you can make an informed decision about whether to ship or hold.

Seasonal Pause

If you stop shipping during certain times of year (e.g., summer heat for chocolate, winter cold for live plants), you can pause evaluations from Settings. While paused, new orders are not evaluated and no automated tags or holds are applied.

You can set a pause-until date so evaluations automatically resume when your shipping season starts again. This prevents the common mistake of forgetting to un-pause.

Changing Shipping Speed

Sometimes a customer requests expedited shipping, or you decide to upgrade an order to avoid weather risk. On any evaluation detail page, use the Change shipping speed dropdown to select a different service level (Overnight, Express, Priority, Ground, or Economy).

The order is immediately re-evaluated with the new transit time. Faster shipping means fewer days exposed to weather — an order that was DO NOT SHIP via ground might be SAFE via overnight. Your override persists across future re-evaluations.

Post-Ship Monitoring

After you ship an order, TempSureShip continues monitoring weather along the transit route. A daily background check re-evaluates shipped orders for up to 3 days after shipment, watching for unexpected weather changes that could affect your package in transit.

If conditions worsen after shipment, you'll see a weather alert on your dashboard's In Transit section. When the order is delivered, the app captures arrival weather conditions so you know what temperature your package arrived in — useful for proactive customer outreach if conditions were borderline.

Transit Safety Certificate

For orders that require documentation — regulatory compliance, customer assurance, or internal records — TempSureShip generates a printable transit safety certificate. The certificate includes:

• Order number and evaluation date
• Result and confidence level
• Origin and destination
• Carrier and transit time
• Day-by-day temperature forecast with risk indicators
• Any mitigations applied
• Unique evaluation ID for traceability

Access certificates from any order's evaluation detail page.

Print Slips

For your packing team, TempSureShip offers printable packing slips that include the weather safety result, any required mitigations (e.g., "Add heat pack"), and destination weather context. Two options are available:

• Single order — print a slip for any individual order from its evaluation detail page or from the Shopify order page via the print action.
• Bulk print — select multiple orders in your Shopify orders list, then use the "Print TempSure slips" bulk action to print all slips at once with page breaks between orders.

Print slips are designed for packing stations — clear, concise, and optimized for printing. They complement the more detailed transit safety certificate.

Draft Order Check

Before converting a draft order to a real order, you can check whether it's safe to ship. Open any draft order in Shopify admin and use the Check weather safety action to run a preview evaluation.

The draft order check shows the same result and explanation as a regular evaluation, but does not create any tags, holds, or database records. It's purely informational — useful for phone orders, custom quotes, or pre-sales where you want to verify shipping conditions before committing.

Shopify Flow Integration

TempSureShip integrates with Shopify Flow for custom automation. Flow is included on all Shopify plans.

Setup

1. Open Shopify admin → Settings → Apps and sales channels → Shopify Flow (or search "Flow" in your admin bar)
2. Click Create workflow
3. Choose a trigger — either a Shopify built-in trigger (like "Order created") or the TempSureShip trigger below
4. Add conditions and actions to build your workflow

Trigger: Order Evaluation Completed

Fires whenever TempSureShip completes an evaluation. Use it to build custom workflows based on the evaluation result.

Output fields available in your workflow:

• Evaluation Result — SAFE, SHIP_WITH_MITIGATION, DO_NOT_SHIP, NEEDS_REVIEW, or INSUFFICIENT_DATA
• Confidence Level — HIGH, MEDIUM, or LOW
• Explanation Summary — plain-language reason for the decision
• Risk Day Count — number of transit days with temperature risk
• Mitigation Count — number of packaging mitigations recommended
• Evaluation ID — unique ID for traceability

Action: Evaluate Order Weather Safety

Triggers a weather-safety evaluation from any Flow workflow. Use it to automatically evaluate orders when they're created, when fulfillment is requested, or on any custom schedule.

Common Flow Examples

Frequently Asked Questions

Support

For questions, setup help, or troubleshooting, contact us at [email protected].

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