Works with messy MSC sheets
Multi-section workbooks and mixed formats are supported.
Shipment Tracking · MSC
MSC ETA refresh without manual copy-paste
Upload a tracking board with MSC BLs, confirm AI mapping, and pull updated ocean freight ETAs into your sheet.
Why MSC ETAs go stale
MSC is the largest container line in the world, which means most importer spreadsheets have more MSC rows than anything else — and the manual refresh burden scales with that share. Teams tracking Mediterranean Shipping Company bookings tend to describe the same routine: open the tracking page, paste a Bill of Lading, wait, read the arrival date, switch back to Excel, type it in, repeat. At forty rows that is most of a morning, and it has to be redone the moment anyone asks whether the sheet is current.
Melsun Shipment Tracking runs that loop for you against your own file. Upload the tracking board, confirm which column holds the Bill of Lading and which holds the shipping line, and Melsun refreshes every MSC row and returns the workbook with new columns appended beside your existing data.
The practical difference is that the sheet stays the deliverable. Finance still gets the file they recognize, the warehouse still reads the same columns, and nobody has to log into a new dashboard to answer a question about arrival dates.
Carrier-aware routing
Rows labeled MSC are routed to the MSC lookup path automatically.
Free trial for importers
Every signed-in account gets five tracking runs to prove the workflow.
How it works
- Upload Excel, CSV, or PDF with MSC Bill of Lading numbers.
- Confirm BL and shipping line mappings.
- Run the job and review refreshed ETAs.
- Export the updated sheet for ops, finance, or customers.
Uploads accept .xlsx, .csv, and .pdf up to 5 MB, with up to 100 rows per run. Legacy .xls workbooks are rejected — save as .xlsx first.
Read the Excel BL tracking guide or browse all carriers on the carriers hub.
MSC Bill of Lading formats
MSC Bills of Lading follow a recognizable prefix-and-body structure. Knowing the shape helps when you are cleaning a sheet assembled from several forwarders, because a value that does not match any accepted pattern will be flagged rather than tracked.
| Format | Example | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| MEDU prefix | MEDUXO544191 | The most common MSC format: a four-letter prefix followed by an alphanumeric body. |
| Other four-letter prefixes | MEDUM1234567 | MSC issues several prefixes. Any four-letter prefix followed by a digit and body is accepted. |
| Numeric references | 123456789012 | Numeric-only references between six and twelve digits are accepted when the line is identified as MSC. |
The shipping line column can read MSC, Mediterranean Shipping, Mediterranean Shipping Company, or Mediterranean Shipping Co. All normalize to MSC, so you do not need to standardize the label before uploading.
What Melsun adds to your sheet
Every tracked MSC row comes back with these columns appended to the right of your existing data.
| Column | What it contains |
|---|---|
| Melsun ETA | The refreshed arrival date pulled from the carrier. Reads TRACKING UNAVAILABLE when the lookup could not be completed. |
| Melsun Status | One of Pending, Tracked, Unavailable, Failed, or Unsupported carrier, so you can filter the rows that still need attention. |
| Melsun Milestone | The latest movement recorded for the shipment, such as loaded for export, discharged at transshipment, or discharged at destination. |
| Melsun Milestone Date | The date attached to that milestone. |
| Melsun Location | Where the milestone happened, as reported by the carrier. |
| Melsun Vessel / Laden / Empty | Vessel and voyage where the carrier publishes it, plus laden or empty container state. |
| Last Updated (UTC) | When the row was refreshed, so a shared sheet always carries its own age. |
MSC lookups resolve a full movement history, so milestone, location, and vessel columns are typically populated. MSC rows take roughly fifteen to thirty seconds each, which is why a large sheet runs in the background rather than instantly.
Troubleshooting
- An MSC row returned TRACKING UNAVAILABLE
- The two usual causes are a Bill of Lading that MSC does not recognize and a lookup that was interrupted by the carrier's bot verification before it finished. Verify the number first, then retry the failed rows. Retrying on a completed task does not consume another run.
- Why does an MSC sheet take longer than expected?
- Each MSC row is resolved individually against the carrier and takes roughly fifteen to thirty seconds. A fifty-row MSC sheet therefore takes meaningfully longer than a fifty-row sheet spread across several carriers. The job runs in the background, so you can leave the page and come back to the finished file.
- My MSC workbook has several sections and stacked headers
- Multi-section workbooks are supported. The AI mapping step identifies the Bill of Lading and shipping line columns and shows you sample rows with a confidence score before anything runs, so you can confirm it read the sheet the way you expected before spending a run.
FAQ
- Can I track MSC containers from Excel?
- Yes. Melsun Shipment Tracking is built for spreadsheet workflows. You upload the MSC Bill of Lading list you already maintain and get the same file back with refreshed ETA, milestone, and status columns appended.
- Is MSC supported alongside Maersk?
- Yes. One sheet can mix supported carriers — Melsun reads the shipping line value on each row and routes it to the right carrier, so Maersk, MSC, CMA CGM, and ONE rows can all be processed in a single run.
- What file formats can I upload for MSC tracking?
- Melsun accepts .xlsx, .csv, and .pdf files up to 5 MB, with up to 100 rows per run. Legacy .xls workbooks are not supported, so save those as .xlsx before uploading. Excel and CSV uploads come back as the same file with columns added; PDF uploads produce a new Excel workbook.
- Do I need an MSC account or API access?
- No. There are no carrier credentials to set up and no integration to request. You sign in to Melsun, upload a sheet, and run tracking.
- How accurate are the MSC dates?
- The dates come from MSC itself rather than an estimate Melsun calculates, so accuracy matches what the carrier publishes at the moment of lookup. Every row carries a Last Updated (UTC) value, which means a sheet shared with a customer always shows how fresh it is.
Other carriers
Maersk
Stop opening Maersk tracking pages one by one. Upload Excel or CSV, confirm AI column mapping, and download updated ETAs.
CMA CGM
Importer and trader sheets go stale quickly. Melsun refreshes CMA CGM Bill of Lading ETAs and returns an updated file.
ONE Line
Refresh Ocean Network Express Bill of Lading ETAs without rebuilding your tracking board from scratch.