How to authenticate

Flexport uses OAuth 2.0 Client Credentials for secure API access. To connect Flexport to Parabola:

1. Get credentials from Flexport: Ask your Flexport account administrators to enable API access. You’ll receive client credentials (Client ID and Client Secret) or an access token. Your administrator will:
   
   1. Log into the Flexport Developer Portal at https://developers.flexport.com
   2. Navigate to API Credentials
   3. Click "Create Credentials"
   4. Select the appropriate resources (endpoints) you need access to and enable them
   5. Click "Create" to generate your credentials
   6. Copy your Client ID and Client Secret

2. Add the Pull from Flexport step to your flow
   
   1. In your Parabola flow, add a Pull from Flexport step.
   2. Click Authorize, and then add expiring access token. Enter your Client ID and Client Secret when prompted. Parabola will automatically handle token exchange and renewal with this option; alternatively you can use a manual Bearer token.
   3. Once authenticated, select the Flexport resource you want to pull (Shipments, Bookings, Invoices, etc).
   4. Configure any filters such as date ranges, statuses, or specific identifiers.

Available data

Using the Flexport integration in Parabola, you can bring in a comprehensive range of logistics and freight data.

• Shipments: The core movement record, including key dates (ETD/ETA/actuals), milestones, buyers/consignees, related bookings, documents, customs entries, calculated weight/volume, dangerous goods, costs, and statuses.
• Bookings: Space reservations with carriers, including service details and requested dates. Includes associated Booking Line Items that describe booked goods and quantities.
• Shipment Containers (ocean): Container‑level details for ocean moves, including container numbers and attributes.
• Commercial Invoices: Commercial invoice headers and values associated to shipments or orders.
• Invoices: Flexport billing invoices you receive for logistics services and charges.
• Customs Entries: Declarations and entry details tied to shipments for brokerage and compliance.
• Documents: Files and metadata (e.g., BOL, packing list, invoice PDFs) attached to shipments and other records.
• Products: Catalog items, descriptions, and classification data used on documents and entries.
• Network – Companies, Company Entities, Contacts, Locations: Your trading partner graph (buyers, shippers, consignees), organizational entities, people, and addresses/locations.

Common use cases

• Shipment tracking: 
  
  • Inbound freight visibility & tracking
  • ERP shipment reconciliation
  • Cross‑carrier consolidation
• Cost tracking: 
  
  • Cost reporting by carrier and/or lane
  • Centralized invoice database
  • Reconciling shipment costs with POs and quotes
• ISF monitoring and reporting: 
  
  • Master dashboard for tracking filing statuses
  • Alerts for missing or delayed filings
• Shipping milestone alerts: 
  
  • Slack or email alerts based on key milestone changes (e.g., ETA shifts, CPC departures)

Tips for using Parabola with Flexport

• Use transformation steps such as Expand JSON to re-format data to match your other systems or reporting dashboards.
• Schedule your flow to run daily (or more frequently) so your operations team has current ETAs, milestones, and charges.
• Use incremental pulls: Store the last successful run time and filter on updated dates to avoid reprocessing historical data.
• Alert on exceptions: Add conditional steps to flag missing documents, large ETA deltas, or invoice variances and send Slack/email alerts.
• Document handling: Pull document metadata first, filter to the file types you need, then retrieve and archive files to your DMS with consistent naming.
• Map business keys: Keep a crosswalk of Flexport IDs (shipment, booking, container) to your ERP/warehouse references for reliable joins.