dBlogIt | Dustin Boston

If you want to be able to ship to APO/FPO addresses from CRE Loaded you’ll have to do some work. This is a little HOW TO guide for configuring CRE Loaded to work with APO/FPO orders.

Customers must use the standard address format

There is a standard, accepted format for military orders so you’ll need to make sure that your customers are doing it right. Here’s the stuff that matters:

• City: APO or FPO
• State: AA, AE, or AP
• Country: United States

Via Oconus

You can only use the USPS for APO/FPO Orders

APO/FPO orders can only be shipped via USPS so we’re going to have to create an account with USPS and we’re going to have to download the latest USPS shipping module for CRE Loaded. After that you’ll need to do a little database stuff and then you’ll be set.

Create an account with USPS

Go to http://www.usps.com/webtools/ and create an account. Just select everything, although you probably won’t need it all. This will give you access to the APIs that CRE Loaded needs.

They’ll send you an email with your User ID. Reply back to the email address they provided to tell them that you need to have access to the production servers. (Our system has already been tested so we pretty much know that it will work). If you don’t do this part your system won’t work.

Download and install the latest USPS module

In order to get CRE Loaded to do APO/FPO you’ll need to download and install the latest USPS shipping module. The way the USPS handles shipping recently changed so it’s important that you download this fix.

Here are the installation instructions from CRE Loaded:

1. Unzip the files in the package
2. Upload to your site
   1. includes/modules/shipping/
   2. includes/langauges/(YOURLANGUAGE)/ modules/shipping/
      replace (YOURLANGUAGE) with english or french, or whatever language you are running in your store
3. Go to your CRE Loaded store admin -> modules -> shipping -> locate the new module
4. Click Install

Configure the USPS shipping module

• User ID: The User ID that USPS sent you
• Password: This must be empty
• Server: Production
• Configure the rest to your liking

Update the database

CRE Loaded is definitely not for the faint of heart. You’ll have to update your database for good measure, especially if you’ve been using the older USPS shipping module. Open up your CRE Loaded database and execute the following:

ALTER TABLE `configuration` CHANGE `set_function` `set_function` VARCHAR( 555 ) CHARACTER SET latin1 COLLATE latin1_swedish_ci NULL DEFAULT NULL;

UPDATE `configuration` SET `set_function` = 'tep_cfg_select_multioption(array(''Global Express'', ''Global Express Non-Doc Rect'', ''Global Express Non-Doc Non-Rect'', ''Express Mail Int'', ''Express Mail Int Flat Rate Env'', ''Priority Mail Int'', ''Priority Mail Int Flat Rate Env'', ''Priority Mail Int Flat Rate Box'', ''First-Class Mail Int''),' WHERE `configuration_key` ='MODULE_SHIPPING_USPS_TYPES_INTL' LIMIT 1 ;

Via CRE Loaded forums

All done!

After you’ve configured the signed up with USPS, installed the module, and updated the database you’ll just have to wait for USPS to give you access to the production server. Once they’re done you’re all ready to go.