Exciting new features are included in this release
Pricing: Advanced pricing allows you to setup granular prices by combination of vehicle type, service level, distance slices or zone to zone delivery, add mileage to your zone price list, setup distance pricing, etc.
Notification: Notification templates are available to help you and your customer track the orders. This includes pay-as-you-go SMS notification. Please contact info@dispatchscience.com for more information.
Branding on the Order Tracking site by company, by account.
Attributes: Attributes on order will allow you to easily spot orders that require special attention on your dispatch board as well as identify special orders to your drivers.
Definition
The release notes refer to different sections of the application:
Back Office: Where Customer Service Representatives (CSR) create and edit orders, create accounts, review drivers, etc.
Dispatch Board: Where Dispatchers assign orders to drivers, get notifications for invalid orders, etc.
Administration: This section is in the Back Office but refers to sections only an administrator will use like Settings and Pricing.
Customer Portal: Where account users log in to create orders, view their order history, enter a credit card, etc.
Tracking site: Where customers enter a tracking number like the order ID or a reference number to view the status of their order.
Driver App version
Version 1.11.385 contains the new features for this release.
Back Office and Dispatch Board
Order attributes
Attributes can be created in settings and they will become available on the orders.
Setting up attributes
As an administrator, open Settings in the Back Office.
Open Attributes section and click on NEW ATTRIBUTE button.
Enter a unique ID, the attribute name in English and optionally a French attribute name.
Enter a longer English Description and optionally a French Description.
Select an attribute color. The attribute will show as a flag in the Dispatch board and the driver app. Click Save to create the new attribute.
Add one or more attribute when creating an order in the Back Office
When a CSR creates an order, one or more attributes can be associated to the order by checking the checkbox of each desired attribute.
Please note the attributes are not available in the Customer Portal.
View an order
Back Office
The attributes are available when opening an order in the Attributes section located below the Delivery Charge.
Dispatch Board
If 1 or 2 attributes are assigned to an order, they are displayed as coloured flags in the Order List, detailed and compact views, as well as in the Driver Order List.
If more than 2 attributes are assigned to an order, a generic black flag with the number of attributes on the order is displayed.
By hovering over the order, the order summary shows the list of attributes, with name and description, assigned to the order.
Dispatch Board Order Details
Clicking on a flag will display the list of attributes, with name and description. Clicking again will close the list.
Note: the timing chip on the orders in the Dispatch Board was minimized to accommodate the addition of the attributes.
The timing word was changed to one letter:
Seconds = s, Minutes = m, Hour = h, Day = D, Month = M, Year = Y.
The In prefix and the Ago suffix were removed, instead, the late orders will show with a clock and remain red to indicate that the order is late, future deliveries will show in blue.
Edit an order
Back Office
When editing an order, CSR can add attributes, by checking the attribute checkbox, or remove attributes, by unchecking the attribute checkbox.
Dispatch Board Order Details
Dispatcher can add or remove attributes by selecting the Attributes menu item in the Order Details menu.
By typing in the search, attributes can be filtered to easily find the ones that should be checked or unchecked. Attributes can also be checked and unchecked by finding them in the list.
Number of orders assigned to driver
You can, at a glance, see how many orders are assigned to each driver without opening the driver details.
Sort drivers on Dispatch Board driver list
On the Dispatch Board, in the driver list and in order details when dispatching the order to a driver, you can sort the list of drivers two ways:
Availability
This will sort the driver list by driver availability and within each availability, by driver number and if no driver number available, by driver last name.
Availability sort order is : Online, Away then Off Duty.
Order Count
This will sort the driver list by number of orders assigned to the drivers. If more than one driver has the same number of orders assigned, the drivers will then be sorted by driver number and if no driver number available, by driver last name.
Notifications
Notification templates are by company and the template is associated to an account.
The template notification is copied to the order when the order is created. Notifications will be sent according to the template selection when the order status changes.
Notification Language, Email and Phone
A language field is available for internal users, account users and contacts. The language selected in the field will be set to English on upgrade. This can be updated by opening the internal users, the account users and contacts.
The language field determines the notification language for both email and SMS.
The Phone number is used to send SMS notification as setup in the notification template for specified order status change. Please use format +19999999999
The email is used to send email notification as setup in the notification template for specified order status change.
The notification language, phone and email are also available for the pickup and delivery contact when creating and editing an order in the Back Office.
Notification Templates
Notification templates are available in the Accounts section under Notifications. This will allow you to create different templates to meet yours and your accounts' notification needs.
Upon upgrade, default notification templates are already created in Dispatch Science. The default templates are created by Company and are already associated to the the accounts. The default templates will have no email nor SMS notifications setup. The default templates can either be edited or new templates created to meet your different accounts' needs.
Edit or create a notification template
Open Account section and navigate to Notifications. There will be one notification template per company and these will be setup as default for each company.
To edit a notification template, simply click on its name. to create a new template, click on New template.
The company will be read-only when editing an existing template. You must select a company when creating a new template.
The name is editable for existing templates and must be filled in for new template.
There are 5 sections available and when editing/creating a template, the first section will be expanded. For each section, you will be able to setup how and when a user will receive the order status change notification:
When order is created, when driver arrived at location, once driver picked up the package, once driver arrived at delivery location, once driver delivered the package, if an order is cancelled, put on hold or released from hold.
A combination of emails and SMS can be used to send the notifications to the contacts on the order by checking the checkboxes for each status under By SMS or By Email in each contact section.
The users who can receive the notifications are:
Account contact: User setup on the account
Order creator: either the contact user who created the order in the customer portal or the user selected by CSR when order is created
Pickup contact: contact selected or entered for pickup
Delivery contact: contact selected or entered for delivery
Add Recipient: Other people can be added to the notification by clicking on Add Recipient. This will open a section where you can enter the recipient name, email, phone number, language notification and notification selections. To add additional recipients, simply click on the Add Recipient.
Once the template is setup, click on Save.
Associate a notification template to an account
Open an account and edit the Order Options.
Select the desired Notification Template and save.
Create an order
When an order is created, the notification template associated to the account is also associated to the order. The order specific contacts' email addresses and phone numbers are used to send the notifications and the added recipients are sent the notifications that were setup in the template.
Dispatcher Notification List
The last 100 unread notifications will be displayed in the dispatcher notification list and as the dispatcher clears the newer notifications, the other notifications will be displayed.
Administration
Changes to Price Lists
The vehicle schedules was moved inside the price list. This will allow increased granularity in your pricing.
Pricing can remain as it is now where a minimum charge and vehicle surcharge can be entered by vehicle and regardless of the vehicle, the service level pricing for distance or zone to zone will remain the same.
If there is a need for different minimums and vehicle surcharges by service levels and/or by distance or zone to zone pricing, the advanced pricing by vehicle can be setup.
Since the vehicle schedule is now part of the pricing, it has been removed from the account setup. On upgrade, there may be additional price lists created if the same price list was used on more than one account with different vehicle surcharge schedule. This is done automatically to ensure your pricing and vehicle selections for each account does not change after upgrade keeping your pricing the same as it was.
Note: The price lists will continue to work as they did before the change. You can take advantage of this new pricing feature by editing your current price lists or by creating new ones.
For more information about Pricing, please review the Dispatch Science Pricing and Rate Tables Documentation.
Mileage rate on zone pricing
To add flexibility to the zone pricing, a mileage rate has been added by service level, in the Excel price list.
On upgrade, the mileage will remain null, keeping the existing zone service level price as is.
This will allow the zone fixed fee to be used along with an additional mileage rate calculated on the distance between the pickup and drop-off location. When left blank, only the zone service level price is calculated, leaving the pricing as it was before the upgrade.
Add mileage rate to existing zone price or create a new zone price list with mileage
Open an existing zone price list or create a new price list. Download the price list.
There are now columns beside each service level fixed fee called SL_perMile or SL_perKm where SL is the service level Id.
Fill in the mileage rate in each column/row where a mileage rate is needed and save.
Upload the price list.
Zone base price calculation
When using the Price list Vehicle type surcharge:
Maximum (Minimum Vehicle Charge or [Service level fixed fee + (Distance * Mileage rate)])
The vehicle surcharge is added to the maximum amount found above.
The Fuel surcharge is added to the above total.
When using Separate price sheet by vehicle
Service level fixed fee + (Distance * Mileage rate)
The fuel surcharge is added to the above total.
Note: The price lists will continue to work as they did before the change. You can take advantage of this new pricing feature by editing your current price lists or by creating new ones.
Failover price list
A failover price list is available to be selected in the zone price list to ensure orders can be priced if the pickup and/or drop off locations are outside the zone areas defined pricing section. If no failover price list is selected or if the pickup/drop off addresses are within the zone area but not in a zone, the order will show as 0 and show up as invalid in the Dispatch Board.
To setup a failover price list, open the Zone price list in Pricing section>Price List and select a Distance price list from the Failover by Distance Price List.
Only price lists of type radius/distance associated with the same Service Level Schedule as the zone price list will display in the drop-down field.
If one or more vehicle from the current zone price list is not in the Failover price list, a warning will be displayed in the current price list however, the selection can still be saved. If the missing vehicle is used on an order that will require the failover price list to determine the price, the order will show as 0 and show up as invalid in the Dispatch Board.
Note: The price lists will continue to work as they did before the change. You can take advantage of this new pricing feature by editing your current price lists or by creating new ones.
Mileage rate on radius pricing
The radius pricing has been renamed distance pricing as it now includes both the ability to enter a flat fee by radius and a mileage rate by distance slices.
In a by radius price list, a fixed fee was setup by distance slices. In order to support by distance price list as well as by radius, a new mileage rate column was added to the price list for each service level.
On upgrade, the mileage rate column will be blank, leaving your existing price list the same as it was prior to the upgrade.
Add mileage to existing distance price or create a new distance price list with mileage
Open an existing distance (previously radius) price list or create a new price list. Download the price list.
There are now columns beside each service level fixed fee called SL_perMile or SL_perKm where SL is the service level Id.
Fill in the mileage rate in each column/row where a mileage rate is needed and save.
Upload the price list.
Distance base price calculation
When using the Price list Vehicle type surcharge:
Maximum (Minimum Vehicle Charge or [Service level fixed fee + (Distance * Mileage rate)])
The vehicle surcharge is added to the maximum amount found above.
The Fuel surcharge is added to the above total.
When using Separate price sheet by vehicle
Service level fixed fee + (Distance * Mileage rate)
The fuel surcharge is added to the above total.
Note: The price lists will continue to work as they did before the change. You can take advantage of this new pricing feature by editing your current price lists or by creating new ones.
Advanced pricing by vehicles and service levels
Price list by vehicle type and service level enables different flat fees and mileage rates to be used depending on the combination of vehicle, service level, distance or zone to zone selected on the order.
This allows a greater granularity in your rate sheets. The advanced pricing should only be used when a vehicle minimum and vehicle surcharge does not provide the granularity required for your pricing.
Existing price list can be modified to advanced price list or new price list for advanced pricing can be created simply by changing the Pricing method in the price list.
Create a price list by vehicle or convert a regular price list to a price list by vehicel
Create a new price list or open an existing price list.
If this is a new price list, select the company, the service level, by distance and enter the price list name then click on Create Price List.
For new and existing price lists, select Separate price sheet per vehicle type and you will notice the minimum charge and surcharge columns in the vehicle grid will be hidden.
Select the vehicles for the price list. Only add the vehicles that should be available. Remember that this list will determine which vehicles an account will be able to select in their orders.
Save your price list for the changes to take effect.
Open the price list to download the pricing spreadsheet.
For distance price list:
In the price list Excel template, you will notice that you now have one tab per vehicle.
In the price list Excel template, you will notice that you now have one tab per zone area_vehicle.
Change Upper Limit column for the desired distance slices then enter fixed fee in the SL name column and additional mileage rate in the SL_perMile/perKm column.
Save the file and upload it to the price list.
For zone price list:
In the price list Excel template, you will notice that you now have one tab per zone area_vehicle
Keep the original file as is and do a Save As.
Remove tabs to only keep tabs for one Zone Area and save.
Enter fixed fee in the SL name column and additional mileage rate in the SL_perMile/perKm column.
Save and upload the price list.
Repeat for every Zone Area.
New Distance Extra Fee
A system defined distance extra fee called Mileage is available in Dispatch Science. The mileage extra fee allows the addition of a mileage fee as an extra if a predefined number of km/miles is included in the pricing.
Add mileage extra fee to an extra fee schedule
Open the extra fee schedule and select the mileage extra fee.
Enter the mileage rate Rate ($) per number of miles/km. Enter the Max($) and the number of miles/km included.
The included miles/km will be subtracted from the total distance between pickup and dropoff address. If the result is greater than 0, the difference will be multiplied by the mileage rate up to the maximum entered.
Enter the Commission % that will be earned by the driver and optional accounting code.
The mileage will be displayed when editing an existing order on an account using the extra fee schedule with the mileage extra fee selected.
If the pickup and/or delivery address is changed, user will receive a message to confirm the update of the mileage extra fee.
Branding for Order Tracking site
A branding can be added on the Order tracking site for all companies, for a specific company and all accounts, for a specific account.
If a branding was setup on an account, the tracking page will use the account branding.
If no account branding was setup, the tracking page will use the account's company branding.
If no company branding was setup, the tracking page will use the All companies/All accounts branding.
If no All companies/All accounts branding was setup, the Dispatch Science branding will be used.
Add branding to the order tracking page
In Settings section, select Brandings then click on New Branding.
To set a default branding on the tracking page for all companies, all accounts, select in Company, All Companies, select in Account, All Accounts.
The color will be used on the tracking page on the En/Fr language selection, the Track button and the status tracking.
To select a color,
open the color picker,
slide the color selection to select the color family,
select the color and click on Apply.
Hover over on the generic image and click on Edit Logo.
Navigate to the logo, select and open.
Your logo will replace the generic image.
Supported image types are PNG, GIF, JPG, BMP.
Keep your images small to ensure a fast tracking page loading.
If you see a broken image,
Click on Save.
To set a specific branding for a company, select the company and follow the above instructions to change the branding color and logo.
To set a specific branding for an account, select the company, the account and follow the above instructions to change the branding color and logo.
If you attempt to create a new branding for a company and account that were already setup, an error message will be displayed.
Edit an existing branding
In Settings section, select Brandings to view the list of brandings already setup. Click on the pencil icon, 
Edit the company, account, color and/or logo then click Save.
Delete an existing branding for a company and or account
In Setting section, select Brandings to view the list of brandings already setup. Click on the X icon, 
Click on Delete to delete the branding or on Back to return to the list without deleting it.
Customer Portal
The notification language, phone and email are available when creating an new order.
Driver App
Order attributes
Before accepting/dismissing an order, driver can see in the order list the list of attributes associated to each order. If they want more information about each attribute, this can be viewed in the the order details.
Order attributes will show on the order in My Run. If there are multiple pickups from the same address, a generic black flag will display to indicate that one or more of the order have attributes.
Opening the warehouse icon will display the list of orders with their attributes:
To see the attributes details, driver opens the order. A section called Attributes is displayed between Order and Customer Notes when attributes are associated to an order.
Integration API
Changes were done to the Integration API for the new order features.
You can find the API documentation under Releases/Integration API in the Integration API Document for Dispatch Science 1.1
Create Order
Attributes and extra fees can be added to an order created with the API.
Get an Order
Attributes and extra fees can be retrieved along with the order information.
Edit an Order
Attributes can be replaced on an order. All attributes associated to the orders are deleted on the order and the new attributes are associated.
Add Extra Fees
Extra fees can be added to an order using the Add Charges API call.
Get Invoices
The orders' Reference 1, 2 and 3, created date, reveiced by, user reference # are added in the invoice section.
A new section was added at the bottom of each order in the invoice containing the order driver payout information and order accepted/picked up date-time:
"driverPayouts": [
{
"driverId": "36ec0f1e-178a-4dbf-ba7e-4ed6bc537548",
"driverName": "John Doe",
"driverNumber": "345",
"payoutValue": 9.99,
"addedDate": "2018-10-05T09:00:00.000000-04:00"
}
]