Submit a Batch

Once you have submitted your Jobs and generated your Delivery Option, you can then create your Job Batch.

POST /1.0/job/batches

{
  "jobs": [
    "51bf14ef-4982-4444-a42b-5d48cc08d778",
    "f79e3a5b-8f0c-43f6-8712-7bbc3fdb566b"
  ],
  "delivery_option": "7603896a-ec51-4e06-b217-15596309d1f1"
}

{
  "id": "d72416c7-af20-474b-97b5-29e96bd6d1c8",
  "jobs": [
    Job,
    Job
  ],
  "delivery_option": DeliveryOption,
  "status": {
    "canonical": "job_batch.status.ready",
    "translation": {
      "locale": "en",
      "name": "Verified & Ready",
      "summary": "The job batch is verified and ready."
    }
  },
  "created_at": DateTime,
  "updated_at": DateTime
}

Auto Batching

If you are unable to batch your Jobs together on your side, then we can do it for you. PrintedDirect checks for jobs with the same address every 5 minutes, and it will keep doing this for up to 30 minutes. You can change these timing settings in Hub if needed.

Here’s an example to make it clearer:

• Job A is received at 10:00.
• Job B is received at 10:02.
• Job C, which has the same address as Job A, is received at 10:03.

Since Job C was found within 5 minutes of Job A, the system will wait another 5 minutes before grouping Jobs A and C together into a batch at 10:08.

Job B, which has a different address, will be grouped into its own batch at 10:07, since no other matching jobs were found.

POST /1.0/job/queued-batches

{
  "job": "def18e72-d236-41c5-9181-81c856f7ca22",
  "delivery_option": "17b0cf42-ee25-499b-9d54-13152f10f3d5"
}

{
  "id": "d72416c7-af20-474b-97b5-29e96bd6d1c8",
  "job": Job,
  "delivery_option": DeliveryOption,
  "status": {
    "canonical": "queued_job_batch.status.queued",
    "translation": {
      "locale": "en",
      "name": "Queued",
      "summary": "The Queued Job Batch is waiting to be processed."
    }
  },
  "created_at": DateTime,
  "updated_at": DateTime
}

Caveats

We will always use attempt to use the DeliveryOption that matches the originals used when consolidating the Jobs into their own Job Batch. However, this is not always possible, and we will use best efforts to pick the most relevant.

There may be circumstances where the DeliveryOption specified for each Job may no longer be available. When this happens we will use the following approach:

1. Try to find an exact match based on the original DeliveryOption used
2. Find the cheapest within the same Delivery Service Group
   • i.e. Next Day or Next Day pre-12pm.
3. Find the cheapest Delivery Service overall as a final fallback

There are a few examples when point 2 or point 3 may need to be taken. One example of this could be where multiple Jobs to the same delivery address all use Royal Mail 24, but when the time comes to consolidate the Jobs together into a Batch, Royal Mail is no longer available. If this happens, we will choose the cheapest delivery service available.

Another example could be that DPD Local next day was originally selected, but only DPD is available. In this case, the Delivery Service Group is of "Next Day" matches, so this will be selected.

If these caveats are cause for concern, then it is recommended to batch the Jobs on your end to ensure complete control over which DeliveryOption is used.