Why Use Commodities?
The Commodities feature lets you create and maintain a clear list of the products you ship, from general items like “Fresh Blueberries” to specific SKUs. Once configured, commodities appear in shipment templates, individual shipments, and Analytics filters (coming soon), helping your team gain complete visibility into what is moving through your supply chain and how it is performing.
Benefits of using commodities:
- Cleaner data – Eliminate “mystery shipments” by tagging each load with exactly what is inside.
- Actionable analytics (coming soon) – Break down shipment KPIs by commodity or commodity category to:
- Identify the most reliable carriers for specific categories such as temperature-sensitive produce.
- Pinpoint lanes with low on-time performance for specific SKUs.
- Spot the most common locations of temperature, shock, or light alerts for different types of commodities.
- Smarter shipment setup (future) – Automatically apply alert presets (such as temperature or shock) based on commodity type instead of adding them manually to each shipment or creating multiple templates.
How It Works
Creating a Commodity
- Go to Configure and select Commodities.
- Click Create Commodity.
- Enter the following:
- Commodity Name – A free-text name (for example: Blueberries). This name must be unique within your account.
- Category – Select from a list provided by Tive. Choose the most accurate category for how your commodity is handled in transit. This will allow you to view similar commodities together when analyzing performance.
Tip: Keep names short and avoid duplicates (for example, use “Navel Oranges” consistently instead of mixing with “Navels”). Limit creation rights to specific roles to keep the list organized.
Using Commodities in Shipments
- Shipment creation – You can add one or more commodities to a shipment.
- Templates – Save commonly shipped commodities in templates so they auto-fill for new shipments.
- API – Add commodities to shipments via the API.
Note: Commodities are optional for now. In future releases, admins may be able to make them mandatory.
Managing the Commodity List
- Renaming commodities – Updates all shipments that reference the commodity.
- Deleting commodities – If a commodity has been used in a shipment, it will be archived instead of deleted. Archived commodities remain visible in past shipments and analytics.
- Permissions – Only users with the Manage Commodities permission can add, edit, or delete commodities.
Key Points to Know
- Commodity names must be unique within your account.
- Choosing the correct category ensures accurate analytics grouping.
- Archived commodities remain available for historical reference.
Best Practices
- Standardize naming – Decide on a consistent format (for example, singular vs plural) and apply it across the list.
- Limit creators – Restrict the ability to create or modify commodities to prevent overlap.
- Review regularly – Archive or merge rarely used commodities to keep the list relevant and clean.
If you have questions or need help cleaning up your commodity list, contact support@tive.com.