Canadian retailers running Odoo hit the same wall at checkout and in the warehouse. Odoo ships with generic delivery.carrier methods that are fixed-price or rule-based, but nothing that speaks to Canada Post. Staff end up copying weights and postal codes into the Canada Post website, keying rates back into sales orders by hand, printing labels from a separate portal, and reconciling tracking numbers across two systems. Odoo Enterprise bundles a handful of built-in third-party carrier integrations, but Canada Post is not one of them, and its contract pricing, oversize rules and customs paperwork are not something a static shipping rule can model. This is exactly where native Odoo runs out of road.

We build a dedicated carrier connector that registers Canada Post as a first-class delivery method inside Odoo. The module extends delivery.carrier with a canadapost value on the delivery_type selection and implements the standard carrier hook methods (canadapost_rate_shipment, canadapost_send_shipping, canadapost_get_tracking_link, canadapost_cancel_shipment) so it plugs into sales orders, delivery orders and the eCommerce checkout the way any Odoo carrier does. Behind those hooks sits a thin service layer that calls the Canada Post Sell Online / REST API over HTTPS, parses the XML price-quote and shipment responses, and maps them onto Odoo records. Credentials (API key/secret, customer number, contract number and paid-by-customer number) live on encrypted config fields with a per-carrier test/production toggle rather than in code.

Rating is computed in real time. When a customer picks Canada Post at checkout or a warehouse user rates a delivery order, we build the request from the package dimensions and weight on stock.quant.package / stock.move.line, the origin postal code from the warehouse address, and the destination from res.partner. The connector returns available services (Regular Parcel, Expedited Parcel, Xpresspost, Priority, and US/international equivalents) with priced options; contract pricing is used automatically when a contract number is configured, and non-contract commercial rates otherwise. Label generation calls the Create Shipment endpoint, stores the returned PDF/ZPL label as an ir.attachment on the picking, writes the tracking PIN back to carrier_tracking_ref, and exposes the Canada Post tracking URL. A scheduled ir.cron job polls tracking status and posts delivery events to the picking chatter, and end-of-day manifests (transmit shipments / close manifest) are generated as a QWeb-rendered report plus the carrier manifest artifact.

For cross-border orders we generate the customs declaration required by Canada Post — item descriptions, HS tariff codes, country of origin, declared value and currency — sourced from product fields and the sale order lines, so US and international shipments clear without re-keying. All access is governed by ir.model.access.csv and record rules so warehouse users can rate and ship while only managers edit carrier credentials, and every API call is logged for support and audit.

Because this is build-to-order, nothing ships blind. We start with a scoping call to confirm your services, contract vs non-contract pricing, package profiles, multi-warehouse origins and customs needs, then build against Odoo 17.0, 18.0 or 19.0 (Community or Enterprise — we note where an Enterprise-only feature such as advanced shipping connectors overlaps). You get the work validated on a staging database with your own Canada Post developer credentials before we cut over to production. Typical delivery is one working week from confirmed scope.