New Feature : Requested Delivery Window [2021-11]

Owned by Dennis Navarro
Mar 15, 2022
4 min read

 

What is changing?

There will be a update to OneFlo’s Consigning process specific to customers that are sending freight to distribution centres, major retailers, or mining sites.

What is Requested Delivery Window?

Requested Delivery Window is the Delivery Date and/or Timeslot that the Sender has agreed with the Receiver on when the freight is delivered. Timeslot is when the Sender has actually booked a specific time (or time window) with the Receiver for the carrier to deliver the consignment.

Why are we doing this?

Carriers have been asking for this feature since it’s difficult for them to plan their fleet / linehaul without it. Whilst our senders are providing it in the Instructions fields, these are not easily importable into the carrier’s systems, and while a human can read it, the robots can’t. It is important that we’re able to separate this information so that ours and the carrier’s system can process and understand.

·         Supports Carriers to plan fleet and linehaul

·         Provides efm and the senders the visibility of the Delivery Window / Timeslot information

o   Accurate DIFOT calculation

o   Improved Receiver/End User Customer Service

·         Enables accurate consigning for Delivery Window

 

When are we deploying these changes?

We will be enabling OneFlo Requested Delivery Window on the 5th November.

 

It is a gated feature which is controlled on an account level. To enable, from the 5th onwards, please raise a Business Setup case to activate “Allow Delivery Window” feature. This will ONLY be enabled if your customer despatch B2B freight to DCs, major retailers, and/or mining sites.

 

What systems are in scope?

The changes will affect the following systems and components:

 

  • OneFlo

    • Consigning Screen

      Tracking Page

    • Consignment Documentation and Labels

      • Support for both Generic OneFlo Label and BagTrans Label

        Support for Generic OneFlo (A4) Connote

  • CS Reporting Tool

    • Scanning View

      Reports

  • efm (external) Tracking Website

  • Carrier Integrations (phase 1) on Manifests

    • BagTrans

      Niche

 

What should senders expect?

If this feature is enabled for your sender’s accounts, who deliver to distribution centres and major retailers, they will see a question under the Receiver/Delivery Address section of the Consigning Screen.

  • Is your receiver a major retailer or distribution centre with an expected book-in window?

    • If the sender says YES, then they need to provide a date or a date range on when the receiver expects the freight.

  • Did you book a timeslot with the receiver?

    • If the sender says YES, they can provide a time which is the pre-booked timeslot with the receiver.

      They also have to provide a reference associated to that Timeslot booking in the consignment.

 

Are there any smarts to this?

YES! OneFlo will validate the delivery window requested by the sender against the carrier services’ transit time (ETA). If the Service they have selected won’t be able to deliver the consignment on or before the agreed ETA, then OneFlo will advise the user that it is not possible to consign.

 

The despatcher will either have to select a different service or push the Requested Delivery Window to a later date.

 

How about the other carriers? My customers are delivering to other major retailers, DCs, and mining sites and want to continue to populate delivery window on the Instructions when needed. Will OneFlo still honour the Delivery Window provided in the new fields regardless of the carrier/service selected?

YES! OneFlo now also supports backwards compatibility to other carriers not in scope (apart from BagTrans and Niche). If the sender has provided detail on the new fields, OneFlo will continue to populate the Delivery Window Requirements in the Instructions field of the label, even if the despatcher did not explicitly enter it in the Delivery Instructions field.

 

We will continue to work on the integration with the rest of the carriers that can support Delivery Window requirements. Moving forward, we will also identify carriers that won’t be able to support Delivery Windows (services that are exclusively B2C), which will force OneFlo to reject consignments created against those services if the consignment requires Delivery Window/Timeslot.

 

Will OneFlo ‘remember’ which receivers require Delivery Window / Timeslot for their deliveries?

Unfortunately not at this stage. However, please encourage the senders to continue using their expertise in ensuring that receivers that require Delivery Windows are still provided at the time of consigning.

 

My customer is integrated, will we automatically get their Delivery Window information from their ERP/WMS Systems?

No. For integrated customers, we need to find out from the customers if they have that information stored in their ERP/WMS systems. If we have confirmation that they have it and can pass it, please reach out to the IT Solutions team so an assessment can be done on how we can enable this integration.

 

Is SendIT included in this rollout?

No. SendIT will be scoped in the future if necessary.

 

I have other questions with regard to this new feature and they’re not answered above, who can I ask?

If you have other questions, don’t hesitate to reach out to Dennis from IT Solutions.