New features included in this release

A new filter has been added to accelerate address completion.

Item tracking now has an option to allow pick-up even if not all items have been scanned.

An alert message has been added to prevent accidental reset of the Dispatch grid.

The Optimizer has new Auto-dispatch assignment options.

The API has a new optimization setting for auto-dispatch.

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.

Auto-Dispatch: This section refers to the automated order assignment setup and its process.

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 login 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.

Account API: API provided to your accounts to create, update, and get orders. For documentation, please follow this link: https://api.dispatchscience.com/
Tenant API: API provided to you to create orders for your accounts, retrieve invoices, and change invoice status. For documentation, please follow this link: https://api.dispatchscience.com/

Driver App version

To function correctly, some new features require that drivers update their Driver App to the most recent release (v. 1.23.671)

Back Office

Order Creation

New Order creation

The order creation process has been improved and accelerated by allowing a separate caller to be specified after selecting an account.

To start a new order:

1) In Create Order > Orders > New order

Click on Search by account name or number and start typing an account name:

A dropdown will appear. Account names, along with the delivery company associated with them will appear as you type.

2) Select the account name you were looking for. A dropdown of the contacts associated with this account will appear:

3) Type or select the desired contact name from the dropdown. This will create a new order and launch the Create Order details window:

To simplify the user interface, clients that only have one delivery company registered on the Dispatch Science platform will not see the company name associated with each customer:

Accounts

Order Creation and Edit

This new capability is particularly useful for clients that have warehousing capabilities and need to perform multiple pick-ups of different items on a single order from the warehouse. 

It is now possible to Enable or Disable the capability of skipping grouped orders with no items scanned. This capability can be found in Accounts > Account_Name > Order Options:

Conditions: For this feature to function, items on orders must contain a barcode to scan, the orders must contain multiple items, and the Picking Up Or Delivering Partial Orders feature must be enabled.

If the condition is Enabled and no items are scanned for an order containing multiple items, the Order pick-up will not be reported and the driver will be able to continue picking-up his other orders from the same location, and later perform his deliveries.

If the condition is Enabled and only some items are scanned for an order containing multiple items, the Order pick-up will be reported as Partial, and the driver will be able to continue picking-up his other orders from the same location, and later perform his deliveries.

If the condition is Disabled, the driver will not be allowed to continue picking-up items at the pick-up location.

To enable or disable the feature:

1) Check or uncheck SKIP GROUPED ORDERS WITH NO ITEMS SCANNED in Accounts > Account_Name > Order Options

Notification Template 

A new feature was added in the Notification template to send, when email is used, the pickup and delivery information. This can be setup for any of the different recipients:

Account contact, Account User/Caller, Pickup contact, Delivery contact or any of the additional recipients. 

The link to the Self-Serve site for the order is also provided if needed and can be included in the notification. The user will need to login before they can view the order. 

Note: This feature is also available in the Order Template and on any new or existing orders on the Notification tab. 

Dispatch Board

Dispatch Grid

Filter Reset

The button to reset filters on the Dispatch Grid has been modified and an alert message has been added to prevent accidental removal of custom configurations.

New behavior:

1) Click on the Reset Grid button at the top right of the Orders or Drivers grids.

2) Click either Delete to return the grid to its original configuration or Cancel to keep current configuration:

Auto Dispatch

Optimizer

Auto-Dispatch

New option to Check or Uncheck Match Vehicle Type and Match Company have been added to the Optimizer:

By default, Match Vehicle Type is checked as On since this has been the default behavior of the Optimizer in the past.

1) To enable or disable Optimization that includes matching the order with a vehicle type, check or uncheck Match Vehicle Type. When checked, the optimizer will take into account the type of delivery vehicle to assign when optimizing orders to auto-dispatch. When unchecked, the optimizer will ignore vehicle type when optimizing orders. In either case, the optimizer will always verify that items to auto-dispatch fit in the vehicle. For instance, it will never allow a pallet to be delivered by car but, if unchecked, could allow an envelope to be delivered by truck. 

2) To enable or disable Optimization that includes matching the order with a company, check or uncheck Match Company. This function only affects clients using Dispatch Science to operate more than one delivery company. When checked, the optimizer will limit auto-dispatch vehicle selection to the vehicles belonging to each company. When unchecked, the optimizer will effectively allow vehicles assigned to company A to deliver orders assigned to Company B.

3) Click Save to confirm optimization preferences.

API

Tenant API

Coming soon.