Royal Mail Click & Drop

This guide walks you through integrating Royal Mail Click & Drop with Advanced Shipment Tracking (AST) PRO to automate tracking sync, reduce manual steps, and improve your WooCommerce store’s post-purchase experience.

🔄 How the Integration Works

The Royal Mail Click & Drop app for WooCommerce streamlines your shipping workflow by:

• Automatically fetching processing orders from your WooCommerce store
• Letting you generate shipping labels via the Click & Drop platform
• Adding tracking information to WooCommerce order notes
• Updating the order status to Completed once the label is generated

However, the tracking data is only stored in order notes by default. Without AST PRO, that data won’t appear in the customer’s shipping confirmation email or order details page.

✅ What AST PRO Does

AST PRO enhances the Royal Mail Click & Drop integration by:

• Automatically detecting tracking info from the WooCommerce order notes
• Extracting the tracking number and shipping carrier
• Saving the data to AST’s Shipment Tracking Order Meta
• (Optional) Updating the order status to Shipped
• Triggering a single shipping confirmation email with the tracking widget
• Displaying tracking details on the My Account > View Order page

This ensures a seamless, automated experience for both store admins and customers.

⚙️ How to Enable the Integration

1. Ensure AST PRO is installed and activated
2. In your WordPress admin, go to WooCommerce > Shipment Tracking > Integrations
3. Enable the Royal Mail Click & Drop integration
4. (Optional) Enable Auto-complete shipped orders – AST will automatically update the order status to Shipped when tracking is added

🧩 Carrier Name Mapping (Avoid Missing Tracking Links)

Royal Mail Click & Drop may use carrier names that differ from AST’s internal list. If unmatched, the tracking link may not appear in the email.

🔧 How to Map Carrier Names:

1. Go to WooCommerce > Shipment Tracking > Shipping Carriers
2. Click Edit next to Royal Mail
3. Enter the exact carrier name used by Click & Drop in the Custom API Name field (e.g., Royal Mail, RM)
4. Use the ➕ icon to add additional name variations
5. Click Update to save

This ensures AST correctly identifies the carrier and generates valid tracking links.

✉️ Managing Email Notifications (Avoid Duplicate Emails)

By default, WooCommerce may send multiple emails when Click & Drop updates the order:

• One triggered by the order note with tracking
• Another from the “Completed” status update

To avoid confusion and ensure customers receive a single, informative email, follow these steps:

1. Rename Completed to Shipped
   Go to WooCommerce > Shipment Tracking > Order Statuses
   Disable “Rename the ‘Completed’ order status label to Shipped”
2. Enable Shipped Status
   Activate AST’s custom Shipped order status and enable email notifications for it
3. Adjust Email Settings
   Go to WooCommerce > Settings > Emails
   • Disable emails for the Completed order status
   • Disable Order Note to Customer emails

This setup ensures customers receive just one well-formatted shipping email with tracking info.

💡 Best Practices

• Run a test order to ensure tracking info is being pulled from order notes properly
• Update carrier name mappings as needed to ensure links work
• Verify email behavior after enabling the Shipped status and adjusting email triggers

🔚 Final Note

⚠️ Important: AST does not generate shipping labels. Label generation is handled by Royal Mail Click & Drop. AST PRO’s role is to extract tracking data from order notes and automate customer-facing tracking updates.