Working together on a SAM or SAA

A line's manifest is rarely one person's work. Head office, the port branch and the forwarders whose consignments are on it all need changes made, and customs answers each amendment as a whole. This page explains how several people work on one manifest on SCMTR.io without overwriting each other, how anyone can ask the line for a change, and how the line sends approved changes together as one SAA.

Can two people edit the same manifest at once?

One person edits at a time; everyone else can read it and ask for changes.

When you open a saved SAM, SDM or SAA that nobody is editing, press Start editing — it is yours while your editor is open, and your toolbar says Editing — only you. Close the tab and it is free again at once; a tab whose browser stopped answering lets it go within about three minutes.Anyone else who opens it sees it read-only: "<name> is editing since hh:mm IST", with every field locked. Your own second tab counts as another editor too, so two tabs of yours never overwrite each other.They can press Take over — it asks once more ("Take over from <name>?") before anything happens. Your editor saves your work and hands it over, and you see "<name> took over at hh:mm IST — your work up to hh:mm IST was saved". They see a countdown with Cancel — leave it with them; if your editor does not answer within 40 seconds (your browser was closed, say), the copy is theirs anyway.They can press Request a change instead — see below.Every save checks that nobody else has saved since you opened the copy. If somebody has, nothing is overwritten and you choose: Keep mine as a separate copy (yours is saved beside theirs — the choice that loses nothing) or Open their version (your unsaved changes are dropped).Leave your tab in the background for more than about three minutes and someone else may start editing; your unsaved changes stay on your screen, and if you save after they did, you choose as above.Someone who may send can sign a copy while another person is editing it: Sign & upload says it is signing the copy as last saved, and if a newer version was saved since it was opened, nothing can be sent from it — signed here, downloaded to sign elsewhere, or a signed file brought back — until that version is shown.

Anyone in the organisation who may edit can take a manifest over — not only the person who first saved it. A Viewer can read it but not edit it.

Why one editor at a time?

Customs answers an SAA all or nothing: if one line in it is wrong, nothing in it is applied. And the totals and the line and container numbers of an amendment depend on the whole manifest at the moment it is built. Two people editing one copy at once would each build on a manifest that the other had changed — the same arithmetic behind the refusals on file for wrong totals (89, 90) and reused numbers (307, 394): each was built on a copy that no longer matched what customs held.

How do I ask the line to change its SAM?

In the manifest, press Request a change (from the editing banner, or the Change requests panel). As a forwarder, use Ask the line to amend its SAM — shown when you sign your CSN amendment (SCA) and the change needs the line's SAA — or the box on the line's share link. Say what to change; where SCMTR.io can work out the fields itself (for example the packages or the cargo movement your CSN now carries), it lists them for you.

The order matters: your amended CSN first, the line's SAA after customs accepts it. Customs compares a line quoting a CSN with the CSN it holds, and has refused SAAs (error 368) that moved a line ahead of the CSN. So the line's request card shows where your amended CSN stands — not sent yet, with customs, accepted, or refused — and says to send the SAA only once it is accepted. The message to a line that is not on SCMTR.io says the same.

A request from your own colleague goes to your line's people who may send.From your CSN page, a forwarder's request reaches the line only if the line's organisation is a verified shipping line on SCMTR.io that takes requests (a line can switch off "Forwarders may send us change requests" in Settings → Workspace). If it does not, SCMTR.io gives you a ready message to send the line yourself (copy, or WhatsApp).On a line's share link, the box to ask appears only when the link was shared by that line's own verified organisation on SCMTR.io; then a request reaches it. Give your name and a phone or e-mail there, because that is how the line answers you. On a link shared by anyone else, send the differences the check shows to the line yourself.A forwarder sees only its own requests and what the line said about them — never anyone else's.

Who approves a request?

The line's people who may send: its admins, and — if the line lets only signers send — its signers; otherwise any member who may edit. They approve (with an optional note) or decline — a decline asks once more and needs a reason, because the person who asked is told at once and sees it. Where only signers send, nobody approves their own request: a colleague who may send does. A declined request is not reopened; ask again with what has changed.

Approved changes appear in the manifest's Change requests panel. Where a request names a field, Apply puts it on the right line (matched by the bill of lading, never only by the line number). Once the working copy is saved with every change in it, the request reads "In the working copy — to go in the next SAA" — until then the panel says the change is not saved yet, and if the copy is later saved without it, the request goes back to approved. Changes made by hand are marked with Mark included, which checks the saved copy carries them. When the SAA is sent, a request is marked Sent in an SAA only if the sent file carries its change, and its requester is told. If the line sent the change another way (other software, say), Close — sent another way records that, and tells the requester. A requester can Withdraw this request while it waits.

All of a line's requests are on Change requests under Shipping line filing, in four tabs: Waiting for you (for someone who may not decide, Waiting for a decision), Approved, not sent, Sent and Declined, grouped by vessel call. A forwarder sees Requests you sent there, and the link to it after asking.

Who is told: a new request goes to the line's people who may send (a branch's own people first, for its ports); the person who asked is told when it is approved, declined, put in the working copy and sent. Each person chooses how they are told — the bell, e-mail, the phone — on Settings → Alerts.

Can the line send all approved changes together, as one SAA?

Yes, and customs asks lines to do so: ICES Advisory 37/2026 advises lines to compile amendment requests and file a consolidated SAA. On Settings → Workspace the line chooses when approved changes go:

Each as it is approved (the default);Every N hours (every 2 to 24 hours, counted from midnight India time);At set times (India time, up to four a day).

When the line batches, the Change requests panel shows Next consolidated SAA: hh:mm IST.

An SAA is signed with the line's own DSC, so SCMTR.io never sends one by itself. At the chosen time it tells the people who may send that the approved changes for a vessel are ready to go in one SAA; they open the manifest, build it once, check it once and sign it once. A change approved more than 14 days ago is no longer announced — send it, or close it.

Can one SAA go while another is still waiting for customs?

Not on the same manifest. While an SAA or SDA sent from SCMTR.io has no reply from customs, a second one for the same manifest is held back for an hour — the second would be built on a manifest customs has not yet changed. Customs usually answers within the hour — often within minutes. After the hour, the second can go with a short reason, which is recorded. Keeping customs' reply with the earlier send releases it at once: drop the _ACK file customs e-mailed on Shipping line filing and press Keep it with that upload. Two lines' manifests on the same vessel never hold each other back.

What if one change in the batch is wrong?

Because customs refuses an SAA as a whole, Build amendment lists any line that still has an error and offers to leave it out of this SAA and send it later, so one bad line does not hold up the rest. A removed line and the same bill added back are always kept together.

Is anything sent to customs without me?

No. Every SAA is built, checked, confirmed and signed by a person who may send for the line.