Shipments
A shipment transfers threads (including whole assemblies) to a team in another organization, together with the data you choose to include — fields, files, and identifiers. As the Shipments page puts it: “Ship threads to teams in other organizations and review what other teams send to you. You keep your originals — a shipment creates copies owned by the receiving team.”
Shipments require an active connection whose direction allows your team to send to the recipient.
The Shipments page
Section titled “The Shipments page”The page has two tabs:
- Outbound — shipments your team is sending, filterable by All, Drafts, In transit, and Completed.
- Inbound — shipments other organizations send your team, filterable by All, Needs review, Processing, and Received.
Every shipment shows a status: Draft, Awaiting response, Changes requested, Processing, Completed, Rejected, Canceled, Processing failed (retrying), or Abandoned. A stepper on the detail page tracks progress through Draft → Sent → Processing → Complete.
Compose a shipment
Section titled “Compose a shipment”-
Start a draft: click New shipment on the Shipments page, or select threads anywhere in DICE and use the batch bar’s Add to shipment action (which can add to an existing unsent shipment or start a new one). Give it a Name and optional Description — “Context the receiving team should see.”
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Choose the recipient. The picker lists connected teams; a team the connection doesn’t permit you to send to is disabled with “Connection does not allow sending data to this team”. If you have no connections yet, set one up first.
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Build the Manifest — “What the receiving team gets.” Use Add threads to search your team’s threads or scan an identifier. A thread can only be shipped once: already-shipped threads are hidden, and “threads already in another active shipment are shown but can’t be selected” (they link to the shipment holding them).
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Optionally Customize each item — “Choose what travels with this shipment.” Pick exactly which Fields, Files, and Identifiers to include; for assemblies, include or exclude individual parts and choose assets per part. “Excluding a part leaves out everything installed in it. Excluded parts stay with your team and can be transferred separately.” Changes save automatically.
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Optionally mark one item as the Primary thread — the headline item of the shipment, shown with its own summary card. It stays in the manifest if you later Remove as primary.
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Click Send shipment. The status becomes Awaiting response: “Waiting for the receiving team to review and respond.”
Once sent, the manifest is locked and your source threads are locked too: a thread in a sent shipment “cannot be edited until the shipment is sent back for changes, canceled, or rejected.”
Messages
Section titled “Messages”Each shipment has a Messages panel both parties can post to — note the visibility warning: “Anyone at the other team can read what you post here.” Responses like rejections, change requests, and abandonments also appear here with their notes.
Receive a shipment
Section titled “Receive a shipment”Inbound shipments needing review show three actions: Accept, Request changes, and Reject.
Before deciding, review the preview — “What you will receive” — a per-thread breakdown of the copies the shipment would create (fields, files, and identifiers), plus any provenance disclosure, including certificates. Items marked Thread copy “become your team’s own data when you accept”; items marked Provenance disclosure are “shown through provenance after you accept; not copied as your data.”
- Accept — the point of no return. The dialog “Accept this shipment?” warns: “Accepting starts processing immediately: copies of the included threads, fields, files, and identifiers are created in your team, and DUST identifiers are registered to your organization. Once processing starts, the shipment can no longer be rejected or canceled.”
- Request changes — returns the shipment to the sender for editing; a reason is required “so the sender knows what to fix.” The sender edits the manifest and uses Resend shipment.
- Reject — “Nothing is copied to your team. The sender keeps their threads and can start a new shipment later.” An optional note can be included.
After acceptance
Section titled “After acceptance”Accepting starts Processing: “Copies are being created for the receiving team. All items ship together.” The page updates automatically and it’s safe to leave — processing finishes on its own.
When it completes:
- Receiving team — the copied threads are yours. Select received threads on the shipment page to organize them with Move to folder and Add to category.
- Sending team — the shipment becomes your receipt — “This is your shipment receipt. It records what you shipped … and when.” Your source threads are marked shipped — “The receiving organization now works from its own copy. You keep this original, but it can never be shipped again.” Your originals stay editable, but changes reach the recipient’s copies only through an explicit disclosure push — see Disclosures. The transfer itself is recorded permanently in the Fabric lineage of both sides’ threads.
If processing fails
Section titled “If processing fails”Processing is all-or-nothing. If it fails, the shipment shows “Processing failed”: “This accepted shipment didn’t finish processing. Nothing was created on the receiving team. Retry to run it again, or abandon it to release its threads.” The last error is shown on the page. The sender has three options:
- Retry — runs processing again on the same accepted shipment.
- Abandon — gives up on this attempt: “This gives up on the accepted attempt and releases its threads so they can be shipped again.” A reason is required and “recorded in the shipment’s history.”
- Start new shipment — available on a failed shipment; creates a fresh draft from this shipment’s manifest (“New shipment draft started from this manifest.”), so you can adjust and send again without rebuilding the item list.
Cancel a draft
Section titled “Cancel a draft”An unsent shipment can be canceled at any time. The dialog “Cancel this shipment?” confirms the stakes: “The draft and its manifest are discarded. Your threads are not affected.”