If you are an Enterprise customer with individual subsidiary organizations, remember that shipper settings are organization specific. Settings must be configured at the individual subsidiary organization level to ensure each subsidiary’s operations work as expected.
Dashboard → Settings → Tagging Rules
A tagging rule is a saved instruction that watches records as they arrive and applies a tag or a GL code whenever one matches. Write the rule once instead of tagging thousands of records by hand.
If every order from a particular supplier should be tagged Co-Man, that’s one rule.
The Rules Table
The Tagging Rules page lists every rule you’ve created, newest first, with the record types it covers, the tag or GL code it applies, its description, and when it was created.- Click a row to open the rule’s details, written out in plain language with facilities and trading partners resolved into real names and addresses.
- Create Tag Rule opens the create dialog.
- Select turns on multi-select so you can delete several rules at once.
- Delete removes a rule permanently, after a confirmation.
Rules can’t be edited in place. To change one, create the corrected rule and delete the old one.
What a Rule Can Apply
Rules belong to one organization and can only reference facilities and trading partners that organization can see.
Create a Rule
1
Open the create dialog
Click Create Tag Rule. The dialog opens in Guided conditions mode, which is what almost everyone should use.
2
Build your conditions
Add one condition row per thing that must be true. Pick a field, an operator, and a value.All rows must be true for the rule to fire. Guided mode always combines conditions with AND — there’s no “any of these” option at the row level. To mean “any of these facilities”, use one row with the contains operator and pick several values.
3
Choose what to add
Pick Tag or GL code, then type the tag text or GL code the rule should apply.
4
Describe the rule
The description is optional and purely for your team, but it’s the only place the rules table can explain what a rule is for. Write one.
5
Choose the record types
Under To, tick Order, Load, or both.
Fields You Can Match On
The value picker changes to match the field — a list of order types, a searchable trading partner list, a searchable facility list with addresses, or Yes/No.
Operators
contains and equals behave almost the same when you pick a single value. Use contains when you want to pick several, equals for one exact match.
Ticking Both Order and Load
In guided mode, ticking both Order and Load creates two separate rules, one per record type. Each gets its own row in the table, and they’re deleted and rerun independently. That’s deliberate, because the conditions mean slightly different things on each:- On an order: the conditions are checked against the order itself.
- On a load: order-level conditions — order type, trading partners, outsourced — are checked against the load’s linked orders, and the load matches if at least one of its orders satisfies them. Pickup and dropoff facility are checked against the load’s own stops.
When Rules Run
You don’t have to do anything for rules to apply to new work. Rules run automatically when:- Orders are created or updated, including orders that arrive through an ERP integration, the API, inventory monitoring, or document analysis.
- Loads are created or synced from an integration.
- Quotes are created.
- An order changes: Owlery also re-checks load rules for that order’s loads, because a load rule can depend on order fields. Editing an order’s trading partner can change its loads’ tags without anyone touching the loads.
Apply Rules to Records You Already Have
Three controls on the Tagging Rules page cover this.
Reruns process records in batches and can take a while on a large dataset. The success message appears once the run is finished.
The Remove Old Tags Checkbox
Both Update All dialogs carry a checkbox to clear old values first.- Left unticked (the default): the rerun only adds. Tags that rules applied previously stay put, even if the rule that created them has since been deleted or rewritten.
- Ticked: every automatically applied tag or GL code across your organization is cleared first, then your current rules are applied fresh.
This only clears values that rules applied automatically. Tags someone added by hand are never touched.
Automatic Tags vs. Tags People Add
Owlery tracks two separate sets on each record: tags a person applied by hand, and tags a rule applied automatically. Tags applied by hand take precedence. If anyone has hand-tagged a record, that record shows its manual tags and the automatically applied ones aren’t displayed. The rules still ran — their results just aren’t what you see. If a rule’s tag seems to have vanished from one record, a manual tag on that record is the usual reason.GL Code Rules
GL code rules work a little differently from tag rules.- Orders only. Choosing GL code locks the target to Order and disables Load and Quote.
- One GL code per record. Even if several GL code rules match the same order, only one GL code is kept. Write your GL code rules so they don’t overlap rather than relying on an order you can’t control.
- GL codes flow down to the order’s loads, so invoicing and payments can see them.
- GL codes from rules also feed the GL code picker elsewhere in the product, such as when you set up payment statement contacts.
Where to Go Next
Troubleshooting
Why a rule isn’t applying, and answers to the questions that come up most.
Advanced Expressions
Write a rule as a raw JSON expression when guided mode can’t express it.