How can I automatically apply a shipping service and skip shipping selection during checkout?

Question

In certain circumstances, you may want to automatically add a particular shipping rate to an order. For instance, you might want to:

• use a particular service for estimation purposes
• force a particular shipping service based on business logic (e.g. it might be free or fixed cost)
• have the customer skip the shipping pane in checkout

Answer 1

You can use Rules for this. You can modify the rule export below and either import it directly into Drupal or include it in MYMODULE.rules_defaults.inc:

/**
 * Implements hook_default_rules_configuration().
 */
function MYMODULE_default_rules_configuration() {
  $configs = array();

  $configs['rules_auto_add_shipping_service'] = rules_import('{ "rules_auto_add_shipping_service" : {
      "LABEL" : "Auto-add shipping service",
      "PLUGIN" : "reaction rule",
      "OWNER" : "rules",
      "TAGS" : [ "Commerce Shipping" ],
      "REQUIRES" : [ "rules", "commerce_order", "commerce_shipping", "entity" ],
      "ON" : { "commerce_order_update" : [] },
      "IF" : [
        { "data_is" : { "data" : [ "commerce-order:type" ], "value" : "commerce_order" } }
      ],
      "DO" : [
        { "commerce_shipping_delete_shipping_line_items" : { "commerce_order" : [ "commerce_order" ] } },
        { "commerce_shipping_method_collect_rates" : {
            "shipping_method_name" : "flat_rate",
            "commerce_order" : [ "commerce_order" ]
          }
        },
        { "commerce_shipping_rate_apply" : {
            "commerce_order" : [ "commerce_order" ],
            "shipping_service_name" : "standard_shipping"
          }
        }
      ]
    }
  }');

  return $configs;
}

In the example above, the rule fires when an order is updated. When an update occurs it:

1. Removes all shipping line items from the order. (commerce_shipping_delete_shipping_line_items)
2. Collects rates for the specified shipping method. You can edit the shipping_method_name from flat_rate to any service you are using (it doesn't have to be Flat Rate).
3. Applies a particular rate. This rate must be collected during the previous step.

Now, your order will always have a shipping rate applied to it.

To skip checkout, you can disable the shipping pane using the UI or use something like the snippet below to handle it in code:

/**
 * Implements hook_commerce_checkout_pane_info_alter().
 */
function MYMODULE_commerce_checkout_pane_info_alter(&$checkout_panes) {
  // No need for shipping since it's auto-selected.
  $checkout_panes['commerce_shipping']['enabled'] = FALSE;
}