Overview
Sometimes Helm doesn't match an email to a shipment on its own, or it'll show you a shipment that isn't actually related to the email you're looking at. This guide covers how to search for the correct shipment yourself, link it to the email, and unlink anything that doesn't belong.
Helm Shipment Matching
A few reasons a match can be missing, wrong, or ambiguous:
The email doesn't contain a unique identifier: if nothing in the email or its attachments ties clearly to one file, Helm has less to work with.
Identifiers get reused: container numbers, PO numbers, and booking references aren't always unique to one shipment over time, so Helm can surface the wrong one or several candidates at once.
The file doesn't exist in the system yet: if the shipment hasn't been created in CargoWise, there's nothing for Helm to match to.
When this happens, this is when the search, link, and unlink steps below exist. They're there so you're never stuck with whatever Helm suggests first.
Unlinking an Incorrect Shipment
If a shipment shows up that shouldn't be tied to this email, you can unlink/un-match it. This typically happens when identifiers like container numbers or PO numbers get reused across shipments:
Find the incorrect shipment/PO/etc. in the list
Click Unlink
Why this matters
If an incorrect shipment stays linked, it doesn't just disappear from the list. Whoever opens it next has no way to know it's wrong just by looking, so a document could get uploaded to the wrong file, or someone could check details on a shipment that has nothing to do with the email in front of them. Unlinking takes a one second now and avoids that confusion (and the cleanup work) later.
How to Search for a Shipment and Link to a Shipment
When Helm doesn't find the right shipment, you don't have to leave Outlook to fix it. Searching lets you find the correct file yourself, using whatever identifier you already have on hand, and then tie it directly to the email in a couple clicks. It's the fastest way to get back on track without switching over to CargoWise.
Open the search bar in Helm
Enter any identifier you have:
File number
MBL/HBL
Container number
Purchase order / booking reference
Press Enter to see the results
Click Link File for the results that come back
This ties that shipment to the email going forward, so it's ready to go the next time you open this thread.
If the search returns nothing, then one or more of the following happened:
The shipment or file may not exist yet
The email may have come through a shared mailbox that isn't enabled for processing
You can jump into CargoWise directly to look it up, and which of the two reasons above is the problem.
Best Practices
Prefer high-signal identifiers (file number, MBL/HBL, container number) over ones that get reused across shipments, like Container ID or PO number
Unlink unrelated shipments as you go rather than leaving them for later