Loadsmart Carrier Integrations
==============================

.. toctree::
   :caption: Contents:

   how-tos/how-to-connect
   how-tos/carrier
   how-tos/partner
   authentication-authorization/index
   features/index

Introduction
============

This document is for engineers working on partner organizations that
wish to connect their applications with Loadsmart's applications.

In this set of documentation we will explain in detail how to get
start with our APIs (Application Programming Interface), documenting
their purpose and how they are working from the outside.

In here you will find prose documentation on how things work and
practical examples, written in Python, that will allow you to
integrate your workflow, with ours.

Getting Started
===============

The first step on how to get started is to get your public
key configured on our sandbox environment. You can do that
by asking our developers to set it up.

Once you have that set up, there are different workflows to
take care of, depending on how you want to integrate. There
are two main options:

1. As a Carrier
2. As a Partner

Integrating as a carrier is a lot simpler then as a Partner.
If you aim to integrate as a carrier, the process is simple
and should not take more then a few hours.

If you are integrating as a Partner, you need to follow the
documentation on how to impersonate carriers (existing or
new carriers in Loadsmart).

What type of integration I should have?
=======================================

The main concern is how do we determine the correct type
of integration required by you. There are some constraints
of what we can do with the `carrier` integration, but it's
much simpler. The `partner` integration is a lot more powerful,
but it is more complex and oriented towards bigger organizations.

As a rule of the thumb, make youself these questions:

1. Is my application taking care of multiple carriers, at once?
2. Is my application going to change the state of a load, inside
   Loadsmart's platform?

If the answer to these questions is **yes**, you might need to
integrate with us using the *Partner API*. If your workflow is
simpler and does not aim to act on behalf of multiple carriers
or you are not automatically tendering loads with Loadsmart, the
Carrier API is sufficient.

How can I integrate?
====================

First of all, you should reach out to our `api@loadsmart.com`
development team and expose your case.

Our partnership team will analyze your request and if agreed
upon, you will be given access to our API in sandbox mode, so
we can test and validate your development.

After we validate your sandbox implementation, we will move
to production.