Implementing the DCSA Booking Standard

This is a guide to implementing the DCSA Booking (BKG) standard version 2.0, written for the technical teams of DCSA adopting organizations.

Reference Documentation

To get acquainted with the standard, refer to the introductory Booking standard page.To understand the key concepts, user stories, use cases and data overview of the standard, refer to the Booking documentation page.For an overview of the business processes addressed by the standard, refer to the DCSA Industry Blueprint.To understand the data structures used by the standard and how they can be mapped to your own organization's data types, consult the Booking model in version 2024.Q4 of the DCSA Information Model.

Implementing the Standard

To get acquainted with the general principles applicable when implementing any DCSA standard, consult the DCSA API Design and Implementation Principles.To review the reference implementation of the Booking standard, created by DCSA to verify the standard and used for measuring the conformance of adopter implementations, consult the Booking module of the DCSA conformance GitHub repository.To ensure that your organization becomes a successful adopter in the DCSA Bill of Lading standard API ecosystem, use the DCSA conformance framework periodically throughout your implementation project, to measure the conformance of your implementation and to improve it as needed.You can use a DCSA conformance sandbox as a counterpart in your development, since it allows you to easily test the most relevant scenarios that your application needs to support.For a more in-depth technical specification of the standard (including how to use the Feedback object) please read Booking Technical Implementation Guidelines.
Carrier Implementation
To implement the Booking standard API as a carrier, use your organization's technology stack to implement each of the "/v2/bookings" endpoints of the DCSA Booking OpenAPI specification page.Use the instructions in the Booking Conformance for Carriers page to verify that your application implements the DCSA standard in an interoperable way.
Shipper Implementation
To create and manage bookings through the DCSA Booking standard API implementation of any carrier, use your organization's technology stack to build a backend API client application using the DCSA Booking OpenAPI specification page.As an alternative, you can also use directly the corresponding API specification page of one of the carriers with which you need to create and manage bookings through the DCSA Booking standard API.To optionally receive notifications through the DCSA Booking API Notifications endpoint about bookings made by your organization with a carrier who offers notifications support, use your organization's technology stack to implement the "/v2/booking-notifications" endpoints of the DCSA Booking OpenAPI specification page and use the carrier's proprietary process to register your endpoint.Technical Implementation guide

Version overview

List of patches released

Version

Date of Publication

Change

Purpose of change

2.0.1

25 April 2025

Added a new optional property routingReference (Routing Reference) in the Booking request.

This allows customers who integrate with the DCSA Booking API and Commercial Schedules API (point-to-point) to place a booking request with a specific routing previously fetched from Commercial Schedules, so that the booking will be created with the exact routing they need, without spending extra time re-keying information (such as vessel and service name) or on booking amendments due to routing discrepancies.

The same optional property has been added to the point-to-point API response endpoint of the Commercial Schedules API.

2.0.1

25 April 2025

Added a new party function NAC (Named Account Customer) in the Document Parties in the Booking request and confirmation.

This allows the carrier to process the booking correctly, matching space against the specific NAC allocation and applying the correct rate from the pricing system, avoiding rate disputes and amendments.

Example: Assume a freight forwarder has a contract with special rates and weekly allocation for 3 different customers (NACs). When they submit the booking request to the carrier they should provide the service contract reference and specify which of the 3 NACs they are booking for so that the carrier can apply the correct rate and space allocation.