Help Center Membership Management: Ordering and the pharmacy Shipping and tracking
Shipping and tracking
Shipping e-mails: what forwarding does
Many pharmacies e-mail the patient when an order ships, with a copy to the clinic. The portal can read those e-mails and put the tracking number on the patient's order.
Set it up:
- Admin → Settings → Pharmacies → Shipping e-mails. Click Create forwarding address (or New forwarding address to replace it, confirm: "Create a new forwarding address? The old one stops working and the mailbox rule must be updated."). Needs Change settings. The address appears in Forward shipping e-mails to (click it to select and copy). This section only shows when shipping e-mails are available for your account.
- In the clinic mailbox, make a rule that forwards the pharmacy's shipping e-mails to that address, forward as attachment, so the original "To:" line (the patient's e-mail) survives.
- Which e-mail format each pharmacy sends (for example the Stryker shipping notification, or "Generic, any e-mail with a UPS / FedEx / USPS tracking number") is chosen on the pharmacy's card under Shipping e-mails from this pharmacy. This is set up by Prescripta.
What happens to each forwarded e-mail:
- The portal finds the tracking number (UPS numbers starting with 1Z, USPS numbers, FedEx numbers) and the carrier, and the shipping service when it says one (Ground, 2nd Day Air…).
- It finds the patient by the e-mail address the pharmacy wrote to: first the addresses on the original To/Cc line, in order, then any address in the body. The first one that belongs to a patient in the portal wins (an active membership is preferred). Archived patients are not used.
- Patient found: the tracking goes on the patient's open order. If the order was Ordered, it becomes Shipped. If the order is not placed yet, the tracking is added to it without changing its status.
- Patient found, but nothing open: this means the order was placed outside the portal. The portal writes the order itself, Ordered, dated the e-mail's date, with the saved medication as a best guess of the prescription, then adds the tracking (Shipped). When the morning pull finds the real pharmacy order within 14 days, it fills in the real prescription and date on that same order (no second order).
- The same tracking number twice is ignored.
- Not matched: listed under Pharmacy → Shipping → Shipping e-mails not matched to a patient, when the e-mail had no tracking number, or no patient with that e-mail address is in the portal.
Pharmacy → Shipping tab
Who can see it: everyone who can open the Pharmacy page. Buttons are limited as listed below.
Card 1: "Shipped: tracking received" (the shipped list)
The header has a pill: "N to check", the number of orders with tracking that nobody has marked delivered yet.
Text on screen: "Every order with a tracking number that nobody has marked delivered yet (however old), plus everything from the last 30 days. Tracking comes from the pharmacy's shipping e-mails (forwarded from the clinic mailbox), a pharmacy API where one reports it, or typed in on the patient. The portal does not see the carrier's delivery scan: click the tracking number to check it on the carrier's site, then tick the packages that arrived (or several) and Mark delivered: the order closes and its tracking stays on the patient. Delete removes the row from this list only."
The portal does not check the carrier for delivery, on purpose. It only knows a tracking number was received. Staff check the carrier's page and then mark the order delivered.
Show drop-down:
- Not marked delivered yet (N): the starting view. Every order with a tracking number that has not been marked delivered and is still open, however old.
- All shipments (N): the above plus everything else with tracking from the last 30 days (including delivered and closed ones).
| Column | What it shows |
|---|---|
| tick box | to mark several delivered (only for people with Update order status, and only on rows not yet marked delivered) |
| Recorded | when the tracking number was recorded (MM/DD/YYYY h:mm AM) |
| Patient | link to the patient page |
| Carrier | UPS, FedEx, USPS or Other |
| Tracking | the number; click it to open the carrier's tracking page in a new tab |
| Service | e.g. Ground, 2nd Day Air (when known) |
| How | shipping e-mail, pharmacy API or typed in |
| buttons | Delivered and Delete |
How to mark orders delivered:
- Click the tracking number and check the carrier's page.
- Tick the packages that arrived, or tick the header box (Select every order listed) to choose all.
- Click Mark delivered (N). With more than one, a confirm box says: "Mark N orders as Delivered? Each order closes and leaves the in-transit list; its tracking stays on the patient."
- Or click a row's own Delivered button (no confirm).
Needs Update order status (Ordered / Shipped / Delivered). Each order moves to Delivered / Received and closes. Result: "3 marked delivered, 1 already closed, 1 could not be changed (…)". Clear selection unticks all. Before anything is ticked, a hint says: "Check the tracking, then tick the packages that arrived, or use the box in the header to select every one listed."
Delete (needs Change settings) hides the row from this list only. The order keeps its tracking and status.
Empty messages: "Nothing to check, every shipped order has been marked delivered." / "No shipments recorded yet."
Card 2: "Shipping e-mails not matched to a patient (N)"
Text: "A shipping e-mail is matched to the patient the pharmacy wrote to. A matched patient always gets the shipment on their record, if nothing was open, the portal writes the order from the e-mail and the next pharmacy check fills in the prescription. Listed here: e-mails whose address belongs to nobody in the portal, or with no tracking number in them. Open the patient and add the tracking by hand, then delete the row."
| Column | What it shows |
|---|---|
| Received | when the e-mail arrived, and its subject |
| Patient | the name the pharmacy wrote, the e-mail address(es), and "not in the portal · from sender's domain". Or "no address in the e-mail". |
| Tracking | carrier and number (a link to the carrier), or "none found" |
| Why | No tracking number found in the e-mail or No patient with that e-mail address; a red line under it if Find at pharmacy failed |
| buttons | see below |
Buttons (shown to people with Change settings):
- Find at pharmacy: asks every connected pharmacy for the newest order sent to that e-mail address (the pharmacy only e-mails a shipping notice to an address it has on the order). Office addresses such as info@, office@, staff@ and no-reply@ are skipped. While it works the button says Asking the pharmacy… (up to about 40 seconds). When an order is found, it is put on Found at the pharmacy (Why: "looked up from a shipping e-mail") and that tab opens with the Add / link pane already open, name, date of birth, phone, address and prescription come from the pharmacy. Add or link the patient there; the shipment and tracking attach to them and both rows disappear. If the order the pharmacy returns is already in the portal (it was found by the daily check or added earlier), nothing is put on Found at the pharmacy, the shipment and tracking attach straight to that order and the row simply disappears from this list. Also needs Add / edit manual patients, review Zenoti matches and the pharmacy feature.
- If nothing is found, the reason shows in red on the row, for example "No order at the pharmacy for …, the address on the shipping e-mail is not on any order there" or "No patient e-mail address in this shipping e-mail".
- If it takes too long: "The pharmacy lookup is taking longer than usual, try again in a minute."
- Found at pharmacy, add / link: replaces Find at pharmacy once a pharmacy order has been found for this e-mail. Opens that row on Found at the pharmacy.
- Add as patient: opens Members with the add form pre-filled with this name and e-mail, as No membership. When you save the new patient with that e-mail, the waiting shipment attaches to them by itself: it goes on their open order, or the portal writes an order from the shipping e-mail. The row leaves this not-matched list. There are no extra steps. Future shipping e-mails to that address will match on their own too.
- Delete: removes the row from the list.
Empty message: "Nothing waiting, every shipping e-mail found its patient."
Typing a tracking number by hand
Patient page → Medication order → the open order → Add tracking number. Shown when the order is Ordered, Shipped or Delivered and has no tracking yet, to people with Update order status. Pick the carrier (UPS, FedEx, USPS, Other), type the number (at least 6 characters), click Save (or Cancel). Message: "Tracking saved." If the order was Ordered it becomes Shipped, and it shows on Pharmacy → Shipping with How = typed in.
Once an order has tracking, the line reads "Tracking: UPS 1Z… · Ground · from the shipping e-mail" (or "from the pharmacy" / "entered by staff"). Click the number for the carrier's page.
Questions people ask
Q: Does the portal know when a package is delivered?
A: No, on purpose. It only knows a tracking number was received. Click the tracking number to check the carrier's page, then mark it delivered on Pharmacy → Shipping.
Q: How do I mark shipped orders delivered, one at a time or all at once?
A: Either. Tick several and click Mark delivered, use the header box to select every order listed, or click Delivered on one row.
Q: An old shipment is still on the list.
A: Orders that have not been marked delivered stay on Not marked delivered yet however old they are. Check the carrier and mark it delivered, or Delete to hide the row.
Q: Where are delivered orders?
A: Switch Show to All shipments (last 30 days). They are also in each patient's order history.
Q: A shipping e-mail arrived for someone who isn't in the portal, what now?
A: Pharmacy → Shipping → that row → Find at pharmacy. Then add or link the patient on Found at the pharmacy. The shipment attaches to them.
Q: The e-mail says "No tracking number found in the e-mail."
A: The forwarded message had no number the portal could read. Make sure the mailbox rule uses forward as attachment. Add the tracking by hand on the patient and delete the row.
Q: A shipping e-mail matched the patient but there was no order in the portal. What happened?
A: The portal wrote the order from the e-mail (Ordered, then Shipped), using the saved medication as a guess. The morning pull replaces the guess with the pharmacy's real prescription.
Q: The shipping e-mail matched the wrong patient.
A: The match is by e-mail address. Two patients sharing an e-mail address (for example family members) can be confused; an active membership is preferred. Fix the patient's e-mail on the patient page and add the tracking by hand to the right patient.
Q: Our forwarding address stopped working.
A: Someone may have clicked New forwarding address, which turns off the old one. Copy the current address from Admin → Settings → Pharmacies → Shipping e-mails into your mailbox rule.
Q: I can't see the Delete or Find at pharmacy buttons on the Shipping tab.
A: They need Change settings (and Find at pharmacy also needs Add / edit manual patients, review Zenoti matches). The Delivered buttons need Update order status.