Shipment Alerts

What are Shipment Alerts?

Shipment alerts are applied when something of operational importance applies to a shipment. These alerts are visible on the dashboards, the shipment search pages, the shipment detail pages, and the status modal. Many of these alerts are applied to shipments automatically and others can be added manually. The alerts that you'll see on a shipment will fall into three primary categories.

  • Exceptions
  • Secondary Shipment Statuses 
  • Important Shipment Attributes

Some alerts are meant to exist on a shipment for its entire lifecycle and others to be applied and then later resolved. Alerts are a great way to improve operational efficiency and add an additional layer of reporting. Let's take a look at some examples.

Exceptions

Some common exception type alerts you'll see are:

  • Missed Pickup
  • Oversized Shipment ( length > 60in, width > 60in, height > 100in or package type Pallet and has more than 6 handling units )
  • Delivery Date Passed

These are examples of alerts that are automatically added when the exception applies. They are represented with a red exclamation mark and indicate that action should be taken to resolve a current issue with the shipment. If the "Delivery Date Passed" alert shows up you should contact the carrier immediately to find out what caused the delay. Once the shipment is delivered the alert gets resolved but can be reported on later so you know how often your shipments were delivered late. This a great metric to have when analyzing the on-time performance of your carriers later.

Secondary Shipment Statuses

Our old Status list was long and complex. Many statuses were rarely used. While some of these statuses were informative they didn't apply to every shipment and are better served as an alert. Some examples of these include:

  • On hand at Origin
  • Shipment Delayed
  • Delivery Appointment Requested
  • Delivered OSD

These are all valuable pieces of information but in all cases, the shipment is still "In Transit" or "Delivered". By moving these "secondary" type statuses into alerts we can keep them relevant to broker operations while stream-lining shipment statuses for Customers.

Shipment Attributes

Other shipment attributes that fit nicely into alerts are things like "Hazmat", "White Glove", "Hot", "Lost Quote", "Customer Approved", or "Guaranteed". Like our other alerts, these are important things to know when tracking and tracing your shipments so that you know which shipments deserve extra attention or have extra complexity during the transit process. Some Alerts are controlled via a Manual Process like "Hot" or "Lost Quote". Some statuses like "White Glove", "Marketplace", or "Insured" are usually controlled at the shipment level by changing the service level, commodities, or adding appointment dates. Of which these are not Resolved after Delivery.

Where can I see these alerts?

There are a few places you can expect to see and manage alerts.

1. Shipments Dashboards

The shipment dashboard you're used to has gotten a small facelift. Shipment Statuses have been bolded to make them easier to find and all alerts have remained indented. A few names were cleaned up or simplified to make them easier to read and we've also re-ordered a few things in a more linear approach to the shipment life-cycle. Don't worry, no functionality was changed or data removed.

2. Shipment Search Pages

The shipment search pages have an updated alerts column and some updated filtering capabilities. The new alerts column will display all active alerts with the icons you're used to and a few changes. All exception-based alerts will share the exclamation mark but the tooltip you see when hovering over the icon will list all of the applied exceptions. Any 'old status' based alerts you see will share the moving truck icon. Also, clicking the alerts will open the new "Alerts Modal" but we'll get to that in a different section. Finally, the old exceptions dropdown filter is now labeled for all "Alerts" and is a type-ahead, multi-select input so you can add as many alerts as you'd like to filter on."

3. Shipment Detail Pages

The shipment search pages have been updated so that the header is less "busy" but the information provided is just as impactful. All alerts have been placed in a new "Alerts Card" next to the shipment reference numbers and an Alerts button has been added to the toolbar to open the new "Alerts Modal". You also might notice that the shipment status bar has been given a makeover so that it's easily distinguishable from the other buttons.

How can I report on Alerts?

We want to make it easier to report on things like Missed Pickups, Late Delivers, Delayed Shipments, and more. You'll find new columns in the custom report builder for Alerts. Shipment Alerts Active List and Shipment Alerts Resolved List. With these new columns, you can now determine if the alert was resolved or is still active. You can add this to any shipment report, and if you'd like to report on specific alerts, you can add a filter. If you are trying to report on a particular alert, add a "Contains" filter with the alert you'd like to track, and we'll return all shipments that have had that alert applied.

Available Shipment Alerts

Accounting Sync Exception
Advance Payment
Appointment Date
Available for Delivery
Carrier Compliance Issue
Carrier Confirmation Response
Carrier Weight Difference
Customer Approved
Customs Holds
Customs Release
Delievery Refused by Consignee
Delivered Over, Short, Damage
Delivery Appointment Requested
Delivery Date Passed
Dispatched: Pickup Date Passed
Guaranteed
Hazardous Material
Heavy Shipment
Hot
Insured
Lost Quote
Marketplace
Missed Delivery
Missed Pickup
No Carrier Response
No Pro Number
On Hand Destination
On Hand Origin
Oversized Shipment
Pickup Appointment Requested
Ready: Pickup Date Passed
Rejected by Carrier
Rescheduled Pickup Second Attempt
Rescheduled Pickup Third Attempt
Returned to Shipper
Shipment Delayed
Shipment Split
Volume
White Glove