Krengel Offers Shipping App for UPS

May 18, 2010 Alex Woodie

One of the companies hawking new wares at the recent COMMON conference in Orlando, Florida, was Krengel Technology, the Minnesota provider of integration tools for i/OS applications. At the show, Krengel was touting a new product called KRENGELSHIP that provides RPG connectivity to the computer systems and Web services interfaces offered by shipping giant UPS to expedite package registration, pickup, and delivery.

KRENGELSHIP (which the company always spells with capital letters) provides four basic functions for i/OS shops that need to ship packages via UPS. These include address verification, time in transit delivery estimates, rate request, and package tracking. Each of these four functions directly corresponds to a Web services API that UPS makes available to its customers and potential customers over the Web. Krengel wagered that a good chunk of UPS’ i/OS customers either lacked the skills or the time to leverage these APIs themselves, so it decided to build an RPG-based product for them that they could use to simplify access to UPS services.

Krengel offers two types of interfaces with KRENGELSHIP. The first is a simple menu interface that allows non-technical employees to work with UPS’ Web services without getting involved with the nitty-gritty programming. This interface works pretty much out of the box.

The second is actually a programming interface (API) for use by programmers who want to directly integrate KRENGELSHIP into their own i/OS applications, thereby providing a more seamless experience for users.

For more information or trial software, visit the company’s Web site at www.krengeltechnology.com.