ITS User Manual

Welcome. ITS, the AfCFTA Integrated Transit System, is the continental hub for the electronic transit declaration. Goods travel under one declaration from the office of departure to the office of destination, and every customs administration on the way records its stamps against that same record. ITS keeps the record, tells each administration on the corridor what happened, and lets anyone holding the paper check that it is genuine.

This manual explains the ITS web portal screen by screen. It assumes you have never seen ITS before.

Who this manual is for

• The AfCFTA Secretariat, which watches the whole continent: volumes, delays, refusals and the register of declarations.
• State Parties, the national customs administrations, which follow the declarations touching their territory and keep their own customs offices and users up to date.
• Regional Economic Communities (RECs), which do the same for the member states they administer.
• Anyone holding a transit document, such as a roadside officer, a declarant or a consignee, who wants to check that it is genuine or see where a consignment has reached. These public pages need no account.

You do not need any technical background. Everything in this manual is done with a mouse and a keyboard in a normal web browser.

ITS is system-to-system for now

Declarations are lodged, stamped and amended by each administration's own customs system, which talks to ITS directly. Nobody lodges, stamps or amends a declaration in this portal. The portal is where you find, read, follow and print them. If you connect a customs system to ITS, your instructions are in the Get started section and the Guides, not here.

How this manual is organised

Read the first two chapters once, in order. After that, jump to the screen you are working on.

Learn the system

• Understand ITS: what ITS is and what it deliberately does not do.
  • How ITS works: the journey of one declaration, border by border.
  • Who uses ITS: the Secretariat, State Parties, RECs, officers and the public.
  • Key concepts: serial number, verification code, version, stamp and the rest, in plain words.
• Getting started: signing in and finding your way around.
  • Sign in
  • Find your way around
  • Your session and signing out

Check a document without an account

• Public services: the two pages anyone can open.
  • Verify a document
  • Track a consignment
  • What the public never sees

Follow the declarations

• Overview: the analytics for your scope.
  • Failed transmissions: what ITS refused, and why.
• Declarations: the register, its filters and its search.
  • Declaration details: the seven tabs of one declaration.
  • The transit document: viewing, downloading and printing the form.
  • Attachments: the supporting documents filed against a declaration.
• Notifications: the bell and the notification centre.
• Reports: the six subject areas and the report library.

Look after your administration

• Governance: State Parties and RECs, for the Secretariat.
• Customs offices: the register of stations.
• Administration: Users · Roles and permissions

Look things up

• Walkthroughs: complete jobs followed from start to finish, across several screens.
• Reference: What each role can do · Statuses and colours · Glossary · Troubleshooting · Known limitations

The System integration workspace, where an administration connects its customs system and moves from sandbox to production, is not covered here. A separate onboarding guide will follow.

What you see depends on who you are

ITS scopes every screen to the organisation you sign in for. The same page shows the Secretariat the whole continent, shows a State Party its own country, and shows a REC its members. This manual points out the differences wherever they matter, in boxes like this one:

What you see depends on who you are

You are	You see
The Secretariat	Every declaration and every figure, across Africa
A State Party	The declarations touching your country's territory
A REC	The declarations touching the member states you administer

What each role can do lists who sees what, screen by screen.

How to read the steps and screenshots

Task pages are written as numbered steps. One step is one action. Do them in order.

Every screenshot was taken from the running portal, so what you see on screen should match the picture. Where a screenshot points something out, that part is outlined in orange. Screenshots show demonstration data: the declarations, parties and figures in your ITS will be different. Personal names and e-mail addresses are blurred.

Screenshots were taken as three accounts: the Secretariat, a State Party (Tunisia) and a REC (IGAD). A caption says which when it matters.

Conventions

You see	It means
Bold	Exactly what is written on the screen: a button, a tab, a field label, a state. Example: select Transit document.
Monospace	Text you type, a serial number or code, or a key you press, such as Esc.
⌘K / Ctrl+K	Two keys pressed together. The first form is for Mac computers, the second for Windows.
A note box	Something worth knowing before you carry on. A caution box warns about something on screen that can mislead you.

note

Screenshots are taken in English. ITS is also available in the other five official languages of the African Union: Arabic, French, Portuguese, Spanish and Kiswahili. See Find your way around.