Auto Combine Lanes

This page is accessed via Sourcing > Lane Aggregation > Lane Summary Criteria > Actions > Auto Combine Lanes.

Note: This action only works with shipment type TL.

If you find that a given lane does not have enough historical loads on it to warrant having your carriers bid on it, you may want to combine the lane with another lane. In addition to the Combine Lanes action which allows you to manually combine two lanes, there is also the Auto Combine Lanes action to automate the process. It searches for lanes whose sources are "close" and whose destinations are identical. The determination of "closeness" of two lane sources is controlled by a distance parameter.

Auto Combining Lanes

1. Query to identify a specific lane summary.
2. Click Actions and select Auto Combine Lanes from the drop-down list to open the Auto Combine Lanes window.
3. Enter a value in the Maximum Size of Lane to Combine field to specify which lanes will be candidates for combining with other lanes.
4. Enter a value in the Maximum Size of Combined Lane field to define how large a lane can get in terms of total shipment count.
5. Enter a value in the Origin Distance Proximity field to define the limits on closeness of two lanes. The origins of the two lanes must be less than the defined Origin Distance Proximity to be considered a close distance.

   Note: Distances are calculated "as the crow flies".

6. The Destination Distance Proximity field determines the closeness of two lanes. Assuming the origins are sufficiently close (as determined by the field in the previous step), the lanes are considered to be close only if the destinations are the two lanes that are also less than the value defined in the Destination Distance Proximity field.

   Note: If the value in the Destination Distance Proximity field is set to 0, then the lane end points must be locations, and the locations must be identical. Retail users focused on inbound typically set the Destination Distance Proximity value to 0. Such users typically set the lane destination to be a distribution center location.

7. The Maximum Iterations field controls how many times the action attempts to combine two lanes together. It takes the action about 2 or 3 minutes to find and complete one combination. For example, if you set the value to 100, expect it to run for 300 minutes (i.e., 5 hours).
8. Select Y (yes) or N (no) to indicate whether or not you want Sourcing to create new lanes as part of the combine process.
9. If there is one or more specific lane you want to exclude from being automatically combined with this action, list the identifiers in the Excluded Lane IDs field.
10. If you want to run the action in the background, accept the default of Yes for the Run Job in Background field. The server can time out while waiting for a result if the action is run in the foreground for a large data set. Hence, for large data sets, you need to run the action in the background.
11. Designate a contact in the Contact ID field if you selected Yes to Run Job in Background. When the action finishes, an email will be sent to the contact. Email notification is the only communication method even if fields are populated for other communication methods. There is no results page so the email notification is the only notification.
12. Click Auto Combine Lanes to run the action.

Each time the action combines two lanes, it writes a log entry to the Integration Log. Use the integration log viewer to monitor the progress of the action.