Tracking Israel Post Items

Tracking numbers for post items are great way to track your online shopping orders, sent packages, etc. What is more great, is the ability to get email notifications about status change of your items. Yet, Israel Post website does not provide email notifications. You have to manually enter your tracking number each time you want to check its status. There is not even a way to create a bookmark to your tracking number status page.

Frustrated by this, I started investigating how their system works by looking at the website code/html, trying to create a direct URL to my item status page. Maybe I can take this link and use webpage monitor service which can send a notification once something is changed within that page. What I found was that the Israel Post website sends a GET form with the tracking number and gets a JSON response and then dynamically updates the page. I was disappointed since I couldn't find a web monitor that can handle JSON.

Introducing PostIL Tracker

So I decided to write a script using Google App Script which does just that: sends a GET form and interprets the returned JSON data. One thing led to another and I found my self adding a web interface to it (AKA web app). Another nice feature of Google App Script is the ability to set a timed trigger which runs a specific routine, so I created a routine which routinely checks the status of the post items and send email when the status is changed. Voila!

I have decided to share this app with all other Israel Post frustrated, and added it to Chrome Web Store. Alternatively, you can simply run the script by clicking here.

You must have a Google account to run this. You must also authorise the script to use the mentioned resources (don't worry, I don't still your data. Everyone's privacy is respected).

Here is what it looks like:

Screen shot from PostIL Tracker

All you have to do is add your items tracking numbers at the top and your email address at the bottom (for status change notifications). The script will do the rest - in the cloud (using Google App Script resources).