Dispatch & Calendar

Scheduling Deliveries

Put a delivery date on a booked job from its Dispatch tab, choose our local crew or a trailer driver, and move stored jobs out through Ready for Delivery.

Every booked job has two legs: the Pick-up and the Delivery. Each leg has its own date, arrival window and Confirmed box, and is done either by our own crew or by a carrier. Both legs live on the booked estimate, so the estimate's Dispatch tab, the Daily Board and the Operations Calendar always show the same plan.

Scheduling a delivery never moves the pick-up date. A job that owes storage is flagged, never blocked.

Putting a delivery date on the job

Customer Service usually sets the delivery. Open the booked estimate, choose Dispatch, then the Delivery tab. Each tab shows its date under its name, or "no date".

  1. Check the customer's FADD (first available delivery date) at the top of the tab. It is set on the Estimate tab.
  2. Pick the Delivery date and the Arrival window (From and To).
  3. Under Delivered by, choose Local crew or Trailer driver (see below).
  4. Tick Confirmed once the customer has agreed the day.
  5. Add Delivery notes for the crew if needed, for example "call the warehouse before arrival".
  6. Click Save delivery.

A message tells you where the delivery now shows. An estimate that isn't booked yet shows "Book this estimate before dispatching it." and can't be scheduled until it is booked.

Once the delivery is on a Daily Board column, its date and window are locked on this tab. Change them from the Daily Board, or choose Leave it for the dispatcher and save first.

Local crew or trailer driver

  • Local crew — our own crew does the delivery. Under Daily board column, choose one of that day's columns, or Leave it for the dispatcher (not on a column). A chosen column shows its truck and crew (Foreman, Drivers and Helpers). Crew changes made here save to that column straight away, for every job on it that day: it is the same crew the dispatcher sees on the board.
  • Trailer driver — a carrier delivers. Choose the Delivery carrier and, if you know it, the carrier's Trailer driver. Load-out and carrier pay happen on the closing sheet. See Closing Sheets.

The tab starts on Local crew when the pick-up and delivery addresses are in the same state, and on Trailer driver otherwise; a delivery carrier already on the job wins. You can switch either way, so an in-state job can still go by carrier.

If your company doesn't have Carrier Dispatch, there are no Daily Board columns to choose, and a local crew delivery shows on the Operations Calendar only.

On the Operations Calendar and the Daily Board

Only a local crew delivery with a delivery date shows up, and only on that date. A trailer driver delivery never shows on either, whether the job is in-state or not.

  • Operations Calendar — a Delivery card on the delivery date, beside the job's Pick-up card on its pick-up date. See Operations Calendar.
  • Daily Board — the day's Unassigned Booked Estimates list holds that day's pick-ups and local deliveries, each labeled Pick-up or Delivery. Drag a delivery onto a route, pick the customer's window and click Save booked estimate to route. The route's crew and truck go to the delivery only: the pick-up date and the job's status stay as they are.

The X on a delivery stop takes it off the route and puts it back in the unassigned list. It keeps its delivery date. See Crews and Dispatch.

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.

Ready for Delivery, the Daily Board and Closing Sheets are part of Carrier Dispatch. If your company doesn't have Carrier Dispatch, they aren't in your menu: set each delivery from the estimate's Dispatch tab instead.

A Long Term Storage job shows only once it is marked Ready for Delivery. The tabs split the list by region: All, Northeast, Southeast, Midwest, Southwest, West, Local and Other. A job sits on Local when its pick-up and delivery addresses are in the same state, whoever delivers it; Other holds jobs whose delivery state isn't known. Each region's Carrier Link copies the link to that region's public load board for carriers.

Click Assign on a job to open Assign delivery:

  • Delivery carrier — search for the carrier, choose the Trailer driver (optional) and click Assign delivery carrier. The job goes to that carrier's closing sheet.
  • Our crew (local) — pick the Delivery date and, if you like, the Arrival window (optional), then click Schedule local delivery. The job moves to the Operations Calendar and the Daily Board on that day.

A job leaves Ready for Delivery as soon as a delivery carrier is assigned, or our crew's local delivery has a delivery date, whether you set it here or on the Dispatch tab. Choosing Trailer driver without a carrier, or Local crew without a date, keeps the job on the list.

When a job owes storage

A stored job that owes storage, or is still waiting for its storage approval, carries the red flag This job owes storage – cannot be dispatched out. on Ready for Delivery, the Dispatch tab, the Operations Calendar, the Daily Board and closing sheets. It is a warning only. You can still set a delivery date, assign a carrier or crew, put the job on a route or a closing sheet, and move it to In Transit or Delivered. Staff decide whether to collect first.

Collect before delivery

When a job that owes storage gets a delivery date or a delivery carrier, it lands on the Collect before delivery list at the top of Reports → Storage → Storage queue, soonest delivery first, with the storage owed and the customer's phone. It leaves the list once the storage no longer owes. See Storage Billing.

People who have the Collect storage before delivery alert on also get a notification in their bell, once per job per delivery date or carrier. The switch is in My Profile → Notifications. It is on by default for Dispatchers only; anyone else, admins included, can turn it on there. For someone the Storage report isn't open to, such as a Dispatcher, the alert opens the job's storage details instead. See Your Notifications.

If you cannot change a delivery

Block Agent, Driver & Carrier Assignment stops you choosing a crew, a column, a carrier or a driver. The Dispatch tab then says "Your account cannot change crew, driver, or carrier assignments." and the Assign button on Ready for Delivery is greyed out. Only an administrator can change it. See User Roles and Access.