How to Schedule a Shipment

Owned by Gord More (Unlicensed)
Last updated: Jun 16, 2018 by Devyn Caterer (Unlicensed)

The following article will walk you through the steps of Scheduling a Shipment in IDS.

PLEASE NOTE! There is no standardization in the Delivery of Goods Industry. Therefore, your Trip Entry Screen for your company will be different. For example you will have different Service Levels and Package Types. Please use this article as a guide.

Call Date

Never try to use the Call Date located on the top right hand side of the Trip Entry Screen to schedule a shipment into the future. It will not work. Likewise, never use the functionality described in this article to back date a shipment. It will not work.

Step-by-step guide

In IDS, on your PC:

  1. First create the shipment in the Trip Entry Screen, don't press "Update Trip." 
  2. Now you have to decide on how you need this Shipment to be scheduled, your 2 options are:
    1. Is this is a one off scheduled shipment? Meaning, is this shipment going to fire 1 time on a future date. If so, then jump to Quick Schedule
    2. Is this is a reoccurring shipment. Meaning, is this shipment going to keep firing on a reoccurring day of the week or month, if so, then jump to Reoccuring Schedule

Quick Schedule

  1. Once you have created the shipment BUT before you saved the shipment.
  2. Locate the "Quick Schedule" drop-down in the Package Section of the Trip Entry Screen:
     
  3. Tick the box beside "Quick Schedule" to active the calendar.
  4. Now select a future date.
  5. Finish entering any other information for this shipment.
  6. When you are done click the "Update Trip" button.
     
  7. DONT press the "Schedule Trip" button.
  8. The Scheduling Screen will now open and will display your quick scheduled shipment in the list of scheduled shipments on the bottom of the screen. 

Reoccurring Schedule 

  1. Once you have created the shipment BUT before you saved the shipment.
  2. Make sure you have all the shipment details entered in correctly.
  3. When you are done, click the "Schedule Trip" button.
  4.  DONT press the "Update Trip" button. 
  5. This will open up the Scheduling Screen, in the middle of the Scheduling Screen you will see the fields have been populated:
  6. If the "Trip ID" field is empty, then you didn't follow the above steps exactly. You will need to restart the process. Yes, your Trip ID will be a different and unique number.
  7. If this Shipment is reoccurring on certain days of the week, tick the correct days of the week across the top of the Scheduling Screen.
  8.  If this shipment is reoccurring certain days of the month, click on the "Monthly" tab located at the top left hand side of the screen.
  9.  Then select the day of the month and then tick the box beside "Recurrence: Monthly."
  10. Now that you have set your reoccurring day of the week or month, we need to go back and focus on the middle of the main Scheduling Screen, to be clear this section:
  11. The Time Zone should be your Time Zone, if it is not, please contact support. The time zone can be different than the image above.
  12. You can ignore "Remove template trip after creation."
  13. Trigger time is the time the scheduled shipment will fire in IDS to either the Dispatch Board or to a preassigned route. To be clear:
    1. This is the time when the shipment will become active.
    2. This time needs to be well in advance of any "Ready by" time (aka Pick Up) to allow your dispatcher to dispatch the shipment and for your driver to drive to the pick up location.
  14. Enter in the trigger time as needed. These fields use the 24 hour Clock (aka Military Time). The first field is for hours, the second field is for minutes.
    1. The tick box beside the Trigger Time sets the default for this field for whatever time you have entered in. Only tick this box if you understand that you are setting a default time for all future reoccurring scheduled shipments. 
  15. If you wish for the schedule shipment to fire directly to a route, then tick the box beside "Auto assign to route?", then select the route from the dropdown.
  16. Do a double check of all your work.
  17. The press the "Add" button.

If you find you have made a mistake and need to edit your work, please read this article: How to Edit a Schedule Shipment