Dispatch & Calendar

Crews and Dispatch

Who can be on a crew, how to plan each day's pick-ups and local deliveries on the Daily Board, and how jobs move out through Ready for Delivery.

Getting people and trucks onto moves happens in two places: the Daily Board, where each day's routes and their crews are built, and the Dispatch tab on the booked estimate, which shows the same assignments from the job's side. The Daily Board and the rest of Carrier Dispatch are there when your company has the dispatch package.

Who can be on a crew

The Daily Board keeps no saved crews. Each day's crew is put together on the board, route by route, from:

  • Foreman and Drivers — users with the Foreman or Driver role. Give someone that role in Settings → Users.
  • Labor — helpers who ride along but never sign in. They go in Settings → Labor instead — no login and no user seat — and that list is what the Daily Board's Labor picker offers.

The Daily Board

Carrier Dispatch → Daily Board plans one day at a time. Use the arrows or the date picker to choose the day; the badge counts the stops still unassigned. Each day starts with six routes (Route 1 to Route 6). Add route adds another, and Previous 6 / Next 6 page through them.

The Unassigned Booked Estimates list on the right holds the day's stops, each labeled Pick-up or Delivery:

  • the pick-ups dated that day (a pick-up a carrier handles stays off the board), and
  • the local deliveries our crew does whose delivery date is that day.

A delivery a carrier (trailer driver) handles never shows on the board. If your company uses departments, tabs above the list narrow it to one department.

To build a route:

  1. Choose the Route trucks (use Add truck for a second one) and the Driver warehouse arrival time.
  2. Under Personnel, pick the Foreman, the Drivers and the Labor. Foreman and Drivers list users who hold that role; Labor lists the people in Settings → Labor.
  3. Drag a stop from Unassigned Booked Estimates onto the route's Drop Booked Estimate here box.
  4. Pick the customer's arrival window (From / To) and click Save booked estimate to route.

Saving a pick-up on a route sets the job's pick-up date to that day and marks it Dispatched; a job whose goods were already picked up keeps its pick-up date. Saving a delivery gives the route's crew and truck to the delivery only; the pick-up date and the job's status are not touched.

The X on a stop takes that one stop off the route. A pick-up taken off this way also loses its pick-up date (a job already picked up keeps it), so it leaves that day's board and the calendar until a date is set again. A delivery taken off keeps its delivery date and goes back to the unassigned list.

Email crew sends the route's schedule to its crew right now. The Night-before alert sends nothing unless you arm it: click Email and/or Text on the route and the crew gets a reminder the evening before.

A truck marked Out of Service in Fleet can't be put on a route. See Fleet and Live Tracking.

The Dispatch tab on the estimate

Open a booked estimate and choose Dispatch. It has a Pick-up tab and a Delivery tab. Each has its own date, Arrival window and Confirmed box, and who does it:

  • Pick-up — Our crew or a Carrier (with the carrier's driver).
  • Delivery — Local crew or a Trailer driver (the delivery carrier and its driver). The Delivery tab also shows the customer's FADD.

For our crew, choose one of that day's Daily Board columns, or Leave it for the dispatcher. Crew changes made here save to that column straight away, for every job on it that day — it is the same record the board shows. Click Save pick-up or Save delivery to apply your changes. Once a leg is on a column, change its day or window from the Daily Board, or choose Leave it for the dispatcher and save first.

Customer Service puts the delivery date here. Scheduling a delivery never moves the pick-up date. A local crew delivery shows on the Operations Calendar and the Daily Board only once it has a delivery date.

Ready for Delivery

Carrier Dispatch → Ready for Delivery lists booked jobs waiting for a delivery plan: jobs marked Picked Up or Ready for Delivery, and jobs in storage within 10 days of their FADD. A Long Term Storage job shows only once it is marked Ready for Delivery. Tabs split them by region: Northeast, Southeast, Midwest, Southwest, West, Local and Other. Local means the pick-up and delivery addresses are in the same state. Each region's Carrier Link copies a link to your public load board for carriers.

Click Assign on a job to open Assign delivery:

  • Delivery carrier — choose the carrier (its trailer driver is optional) and click Assign delivery carrier. The job goes to that carrier's closing sheet. See Closing Sheets.
  • Our crew (local) — pick the Delivery date (and an arrival window if you like) and click Schedule local delivery. The job moves to the Operations Calendar and the Daily Board on that day.

Either way the job leaves Ready for Delivery. An in-state job can still be given a carrier.

When a job owes storage

A job that owes storage carries the flag This job owes storage – cannot be dispatched out. on Ready for Delivery, the Operations Calendar, the Daily Board, the Dispatch tab and closing sheets. It is a warning, never a block: you can still assign a carrier or crew, put it on a route or a closing sheet, and move it to In Transit or Delivered. Staff decide.

When a job that owes storage gets a delivery date or a delivery carrier, it lands on the Collect before delivery list in Reports → Storage, and people who have the Collect storage before delivery alert on get a notification in the bell. The switch is in My Profile → Notifications. It is on by default for Dispatchers; anyone else can turn it on there.

Following the move

The rest of Carrier Dispatch:

  • In Transit — jobs marked In Transit or Dispatched. A job whose storage spots are still taken shows at the top under Storage release confirmation required; click Confirm storage released once the goods have left the warehouse.
  • Delivered — completed deliveries.
  • Closing Sheets — settling each delivery with its carrier.

If you cannot change assignments

Block Agent, Driver & Carrier Assignment stops crew, driver, carrier and truck changes, on the board and on the Dispatch tab. Block Future Operations stops changes to future days. Only an administrator can change either. See User Roles and Access.