The platform replaces legacy systems like Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) and rate bureaus.
With the launch of connectNG, project44 says it has began a new product enhancement strategy whereby the company will issue upgrades on a near-monthly basis. This new approach is fueled by the $10.5 million in funding project44 secured in September 2016 aimed at boosting its product development capabilities and speed of delivery.
“As the pioneering voice of API-based technology in this industry, we’ve recognized that the need for real-time, smart supply chain connectivity has yet to be fully addressed by existing mode-specific market solutions,” said project44 CEO, Jett McCandless. “A true network approach is needed that encourages the integration of other technologies and builds a multimodal ecosystem of shared API connectivity. That’s what we’ve delivered with connectNG, and we will continue push the boundaries of what’s possible as we further advance our suite of services.”
With the new release, the company says that customers and partners will access project44’s Capacity Provider Network (CPN) through the Core Services API that provides access to capacity providers. In addition to refreshing the API itself, connectNG features upgrades that leverage the popular Swagger open source framework and related publishing tools. This yields an entirely revamped API documentation experience, making the Core Services API easier for new customer and partners to learn and use, it says.
The new web services interface also includes:
- Leveraging Amazon Web Services (AWS) trusted security platform and features such as Virtual Private Clouds, encryption and firewalls.
- Encrypting of all data and credentials in-flight and at rest. Security controls specifically include private management subnet, VPNs and multi-factor authentication.
- Running of regular code scans to check for vulnerabilities and compliance with best practices.
Data Normalization
connectNG™ collects, normalizes and enriches data to help customers quickly extract meaningful information from a variety of carrier providers or supply chain partners in a standard way.
- project44 provides carriers flexibility to write APIs that translate whatever data and information is important to their business. And for the first time ever, project44’s CPN ensures that flexibility doesn’t overwhelm or create extra work for the shippers and 3PLs receiving that information.
- This improves the integrity of data flowing through our customers’ TMS platforms by reducing over 91 percent of the data anomalies, data redundancies and data duplications typical with EDI and legacy technologies, it says.
“With this next-gen data normalization capability, project44 clients eliminate over 73 percent of the manual database tasks required by EDI and legacy technology,” stated Steven Jones, vice president of product management at project44. “That includes time consuming tasks like phone calls and emails to check data accuracy, database management, rate loading, data scrubbing and more.”
