Manage Appointments with the Dock Manager

This page is accessed via Operational Planning > Appointment Management > Dock and Yard Managers > Actions > Manage Appointments.

Note: The Dock manager is not currently supported for Safari.

The Manage Appointments action opens a screen that displays all the appointments that have been scheduled for all resource types on the location. You can manually adjust appointments, schedule appointments, remove existing appointments and block appointment slots.

Note: The use of advanced layouts has been deprecated as of the 6.4.3 release and will be removed in a later release. You should use workbench layouts instead.

Searching for Appointments

You can search for appointments based on the shipment, shipment group, the date, and the confirmation number. You can search by shipment group only for locations that are set to handle appointments for shipment groups. After entering the search criteria, click the Search button to refresh using the specified shipment or shipment group ID. Additionally there are links above the search fields. Clicking on the Previous/Next links allows you to search for appointments on next/previous days, weeks, and for shipments without appointments. The Previous/Next Unscheduled links navigate to the previous/next date that has shipments waiting for appointments. The number of days in the past that the Previous Unscheduled button searches is controlled by the glog.appointment.prevUnscheduled.queryInDays property.

Note: All appointments are scheduled in the domain of the location. You cannot schedule appointments for public locations.

Viewing Appointments

To view appointment data, right-click on the appointment and then click the View Appointment Information option.

On the resulting window you can see if an appointment is feasible (set to true). You can also see if an appointment is fixed. A fixed appointment cannot be manipulated.

Once an appointment has been moved to the yard, you can see it there by clicking the Manage Yard link in the upper-right corner.

Moving Appointments

To manually move or adjust an appointment, click on the appointment and then drag it to the desired resource or time slot. You can click and drag appointments to multiple resource types. Clicking and dragging an appointment to another slot on the same resource type is the same as moving the appointment. If you click and drag to a different resource type creates an appointment for the same shipment on the location resource.

When logged in as a service provider, you can only see your appointments. Appointments which belong to other service providers appear as unavailable slots.

Using Appointment Numbers

Appointment numbers are automatically generated for every new appointment. If appointments are scheduled across different resource types, all created appointments will have the same confirmation number. When you reschedule an appointment the system keeps the same appointment number unless you have configured the appointment properties to do otherwise. For example, if you want to assign a new appointment number, adjust the glog.appointment.confirmationnumber.regenerate property.

Note: Right-clicking on a slot displays a list of options depending on section in which you are clicking. These actions can be limited and controlled by configuring the power actions for the user.

Shipments Without Appointments

A list of shipments that have not scheduled an appointment are displayed at the top of the page.

To schedule an appointment that has not been scheduled select the shipment, and then right-click the mouse. Click Schedule Appointment. Alternatively, you can click and drag the shipment, as described above, to one of the available slots.

• Click Save to record changes to the appointments.
• Click the Refresh button at the bottom of the page to refresh the page to display the currently saved version of the dock manager.
• Click the Create Appointment button to create a new shipment and schedule an appointment for it.

Right-Clicking on a Shipment ID without Appointments

• Move to Yard: This action is available for unscheduled shipments. When you select this option, the shipment will appear in a slot in the Yard table. Once a shipment is occupied on a yard, that yard will not be available for other shipments.
• Schedule Appointment: Schedules the appointment, similar to the buy shipment agent action and the shipment group agent action.
• Schedule Appointment - Show Options
• View Shipment Information: Displays the details of the shipment that you right-clicked.

Resource Grouping

OTM enables you to view resource groups across various resource types.

To view a specific resource group, select the resource group from the Location Resource Group drop-down list which displays corresponding resources.   

Availability here is defined as a ratio of available number of slots to total number of slots at a particular time. For example, if there are ten doors within a Location Resource Group, out of which three doors are available for booking an appointment at 1:00 to 2:00 time slot, then Availability is displayed as 3/10 at 1:00 to 2:00 time slot.

Appointments

This section of the Dock Manager may contain different grids depending upon the resource types you have on the location. For example, it may contain a grid titled Dock Door and a grid called Dock Worker.

Right-Clicking an Empty Block:

You can block a slot so an appointment cannot be scheduled for it. To do so, right-click an empty block, then click the Block Resource option. A slot that has been blocked can be unblocked the same way.

Additionally, if the Ctrl key is pressed and then a slot is clicked on it is either blocked or unblocked based on its previous state.

If you have right-clicked on a cell with a shipment and selected Cut Appointment, you can then choose Paste Appointment in an empty cell. Pasting is not available across different dates. You may only paste on the same day from which you cut the appointment. Additionally you must paste before navigating to another page.

Right-Clicking a Red Cell:

When you right-click a red cell, the option you are given is to Adjust Appointment Time.

Right-Clicking a Cell with a Shipment:

If you right-click a cell that is gray and has a shipment in it, you are given a list of available options. Access to these actions is controlled on the Power Actions page.

• Add Remarks: This action opens the Appointment Information Manager page. You can there select a remark qualifier and add remark text.
• Adjust Appointment Time
• Change Appointment Activity Type: This action specifies if the trailer scheduled for the appointment is attached to the truck (Live) or being dropped (Drop).
• Cut Appointment: Cuts the appointment of the designated slots. Allows you to paste the appointment elsewhere using the Paste Appointment action.
• Find Next Available Appointment: This action finds the next available appointment for the shipment. OTM finds the latest time between current time at the location and current appointment time and searches for the next best appointment from that time onwards. For example, let’s look at two scenarios, an appointment which is scheduled in the past and also in future.
  • Appointment before the current time at the location: Scenario 1 - If the current appointment time is at 10:00 AM on 15th June, 2017 and the current time at location is at 3:00 PM on 19th June, 2017. When you click Find Next Available Appointment, OTM searches for appointments from 19th June, 2017, 3:00 PM onwards and finds the latest appointment.
  • Appointment after the current time at the location: Scenario 2 - If the current appointment time is at 10:00 A.M. on 25th June, 2017 and the current time at location is at 3:00 P.M. on 19th June, 2017. When you click Find Next Available Appointment, OTM searches for appointments after 25th June, 2017, 10:00 A.M. onwards and finds the latest appointment.
• Find Previously Available Appointment: You cannot perform this action for an appointment in the past i.e., any appointment before the current time at the Location. OTM displays an error message. For any future appointments (appointments after the current time at the Location), this action finds the best appointment which falls within the range from current time at the location to the current appointment time. For example: If the current appointment time is at 10:00 A.M. on 25th June, 2017 and the current time at location is at 3:00 P.M. on 19th June, 2017, and the best appointment after 3:00 P.M. on 19th June, 2017 is 4:00-5:00 P.M., so OTM selects this time for the best available appointment.
• Quick Event: This action opens the Add New Event page for the shipment or shipment group. You can mark the shipment Arrived and Departed by entering the event code.
• Re-compute Appointment: This action will find the best overall appointment for the shipment, similar to finding an appointment for an unscheduled shipment. The re-computed appointment may be the same as the current appointment.
• Remove Appointment: Selecting this option removes the entire appointment. The appointment time is cleared from the stop while the slots are available for other shipments.
• Schedule Appointment - Show Options: Same as above.
• View Appointment Information: Opens the appointment information manager window that allows you to view the details of the appointment, and then edit them.
• View Dock Related Shipments: Displays shipments related to the dock. This option is only available for shipments and not for shipment groups.
• View Shipment Information: Same as above.