Find your way around

Every signed-in page of ITS has the same frame: a dark green header across the top, with a notch in the middle holding the main tabs, and the page itself below. Learn the header once and you can work anywhere in the portal.

The header, left to right

Part	What it is for
AfCFTA emblem and Integrated Transit System	Takes you to your starting page (see Where you land)
The city clocks	The time now in fourteen African cities, each with its offset from GMT
Overview	The analytics for your scope. See Overview
Declarations	The register of declarations. See Declarations
Reports	The six subject areas and the report library. See Reports
Users & roles	Your organisation's accounts. See Users
All areas ⌘K	Every area you may open, in one panel. See All areas
EN	The language menu. See Language
The bell	Your latest notifications. See The bell
Help	State Parties and RECs only. See Help
Your name	Your account menu and Sign out. See Your account

The tab you are on is underlined in amber. A tab your account cannot use is not shown.

The city clocks

The strip at the top shows the local time in Praia, Dakar, Accra, Abidjan, Casablanca, Algiers, Lagos, Kinshasa, Cairo, Johannesburg, Addis Ababa, Nairobi, Dar es Salaam and Port Louis, each with its offset from GMT. It scrolls when there is not enough room for all of them. It is there because a corridor crosses time zones: an office in Lagos reading a stamp from Nairobi can see at a glance what time it is there.

Times elsewhere in the portal are not all in the same zone

Stamp times on the declaration pages are shown in your browser's time zone, without a label. The account menu's Signed in time is in UTC, and the public Track page labels its times UTC although they are in your browser's zone. See Known limitations.

All areas

All areas opens one panel listing every area your account may open, grouped by what you are doing. It is the only way to reach some pages, such as Notifications, Failed transmissions and Customs offices.

1. Select All areas in the notch, or press ⌘K (Mac) or Ctrl+K (Windows).

   

2. Select an area, or type part of its name in Search areas, registers and reports to narrow the list.

3. To close the panel without choosing, press Esc or select All areas again.

Group	Area	What it opens
Work	Overview	The corridor map, volumes and time at the border
	All declarations	The full register
	Notifications	What ITS has told your administration. See Notifications
	Failed transmissions	What ITS refused, and why. See Failed transmissions
Read	Reports	The subject areas and the saved reports
	Track a consignment	The public Track page
	Verify a document	The public Verify page
Set up	Governance	Who may submit for whom. Secretariat only. See Governance
	Customs offices	The register of stations. See Customs offices
	Users & roles	Accounts and roles
	System integration	Connecting your customs system. Not covered in this manual; an onboarding guide will follow

A small number beside Customs offices counts the office codes used on declarations in your scope that your register does not yet carry.

What you see depends on who you are

The Secretariat sees Governance under Set up. A State Party and a REC do not.

caution

The panel describes Reports as Six subject areas, but there are five subject areas plus All reports.

Language

ITS is available in the six official languages of the African Union. Each is written in itself:

Choose	Language
English	English
Français	French
العربية	Arabic; the whole portal switches to right-to-left
Português	Portuguese
Español	Spanish
Kiswahili	Kiswahili

1. Select the language button, labelled EN in the console or English on the public pages.

   

2. Select a language. The change is instant and is remembered in this browser.

Translations are incomplete

The translations are machine-quality in places and incomplete in others. In French and Arabic the main tabs stay in English, and some words are translated wrongly. The footer of the landing page shows a placeholder instead of the year in several languages. Where a translated screen is unclear, switch to English. See Known limitations.

The language button can be hard to reach

In the console, the city clocks can overlap the language button so that it cannot be selected, and in Arabic the header's notch covers it. For a State Party or a REC, on a screen about 1440 pixels wide, the button is not shown at all, because Help takes its place. If you cannot reach it, choose the language on the public landing page before signing in: the choice is shared.

The bell

The bell opens your latest notifications without leaving the page. A number on the bell counts the notices needing attention (99+ above ninety-nine); pointing at the bell shows it as Needing attention: 4.

1. Select the bell.

   

2. Select a notice to open what it is about, or View all notifications to open the notification centre.

Mark all read, at the top of the panel, marks every notice read for you. It does not change anything for your colleagues.

caution

The number on the bell does not always match the notification centre. It counts notices needing attention, not unread ones, and it can lag behind. See Notifications.

Help

State Parties and RECs have a Help link beside the bell. It opens one line: For integration help, contact your ITS technical administrator. It gives no name, address or link.

For questions about connecting a customs system, see Support.

Your account

Select your name at the far right of the header to see who you are signed in as.

Row	What it shows
Name and e-mail address	The account you are signed in with
Organisation	The organisation you work for
Station	The customs office your account is posted to, if any
Role	Always a dash today
Signed in	When you signed in, in UTC
Sign out	Ends your session. See Your session and signing out

A dash means the portal cannot say, not that the row does not apply to you.

What you see depends on who you are

Organisation shows the Secretariat's name for the Secretariat, but a dash for a State Party or a REC administrator, although the account plainly belongs to one. Role is a dash for everyone. Neither dash means your account is incomplete.

There is no profile, settings or password page here. To change your password, sign out and use Forgot Password? on the sign-in form.

Pages that are not in the tabs

Page	How to reach it
Failed transmissions	Overview → Failed Transmissions, or All areas
Notifications	The bell → View all notifications, or All areas
Customs offices	All areas
Governance (Secretariat)	All areas
Track a consignment, Verify a document	All areas, or the public landing page
One declaration	Its serial number in the register

Keyboard shortcuts

Keys	What they do
⌘K / Ctrl+K	Open or close All areas
Esc	Close All areas, a menu or a panel
Enter	Run the search in the Declarations register

Related pages

• Sign in
• Your session and signing out
• Overview
• Notifications