Dock Management - Load Types, Bulk Booking Import, and More From Your Carriers

A container unload and a two pallet drop are not the same job, but until now your schedule treated them as though they were.

Load types let you describe the kinds of work your site handles. Set one up once and every booking that uses it inherits the right settings.

• The right duration, automatically. Give a load type a duration and the end time is worked out when you pick it. Leave it blank and your warehouse default still applies.

• Inbound or outbound, without asking. Direction comes from the load type, so it is recorded correctly on every booking and ready for reporting.

• Live or drop. Record whether the driver waits or leaves a trailer.

• Carriers choose too. Mark a load type carrier bookable and it appears when they book through their link, with the correct duration applied to the slots they are offered. You can also choose which load types each carrier is allowed to book, so a parcel carrier cannot take a container slot.

Load types replace the Direction field on the booking form. Bookings you have already created are not affected.

Keep the list short. A good rule: only create a load type if it changes how long the job takes or whether it is inbound or outbound.

You will find it under Settings > Load Types.

Open

Planning next week in Excel? Bring it in as it is.

Download a template for the warehouse you are importing into, fill it in, and upload it back. The template already contains that site's carriers, docks and load types as dropdowns, so there is nothing to map and nothing to spell correctly.

• Review before anything is created. Every row is checked and shown to you first, with a clear reason against anything that will not import.

• Good rows still go in. A few problem rows do not block the rest. The ones that could not be created can be downloaded as a ready-to-fix file, with the reason in its own column.

• Undo the whole import. If it was not what you expected, remove every booking it created in one click.

Up to 500 rows at a time. You will find it under the arrow next to Add Booking on the Bookings page.

Open

Any of your booking fields can now appear on the carrier booking form. Ask for a reference number, a PO, a container number, whatever your site needs, and it arrives attached to the booking instead of in a follow-up email.

You can also require carriers to attach a document before they can submit, so the delivery docket or packing list is there before the truck is.

Both are off by default. Turn fields on individually under Settings > Booking Fields, and the document requirement under Settings > Organisation.

Open