User Roles and Portal Access

This article explains how access works in the Tai TMS: that access is permission-based, that a broker's staff and a broker's customers see different parts of the system, that a person's own settings can narrow which shipments they see, and that customers get their own portal with a view scoped to their own business.

Overview

The Tai TMS is used by two broad kinds of people: the freight broker's own staff, who run the business day to day, and the broker's customers (shippers), who work with the broker. The system is permission-based, which means what each person can see and do is determined by the permissions and settings assigned to their login rather than being the same for everyone. Staff work in the broker's operational workspace (often called the "back office"), while customers sign in to a separate customer portal (the "front office") that shows only their own shipments and account information. This separation keeps each customer's data private to them while giving broker staff the full operational picture.

How it works

When someone signs in, the Tai TMS identifies who they are and what organization they belong to, then grants access based on the permissions and settings on their login. There are two main experiences:

Broker staff sign in to the back-office workspace. This is where staff quote, book, dispatch, and track shipments, manage carriers and customers, handle billing and accounting, run reports, and configure the system. Each staff member is given a set of permissions, and the menus and actions they see follow those permissions. The main permission groups are:
- Accounting. Separate permissions cover payables (approve bills, make bill payments, change pricing or create revisions after approval, and search and view bills) and receivables (create and search invoices, work collections, apply customer payments, and add or edit invoices and payments). Further permissions cover the accounting sync tools and registering advanced payments.
- Commissions. One permission approves commissions; another adds and edits them.
- Customers, organizations, and shipments. Permissions cover adding and editing customers, adding and editing the broker's own organizations, and changing the customer on a shipment after it has been booked.
- Carriers. Separate permissions cover adding and editing the broker's carriers, adding and editing master carriers, and viewing carrier details.
- Rates. One permission covers tariffs and accessorials; another covers margins and tariff linking.
- Reports. Basic reports, sales reports and sales tools, and business-level reports (the profitability report, the baseline reports, and the custom report builder) are each controlled separately.
- Operations tools. Permissions cover the truckload quoting tools, batch processing (such as bulk rating and shipment importing), and site administration (such as the shipment importer, content templates, and granting access to others).
- Organization-wide shipment access. The "User Allowed Org Access" permission lets a staff member see all of the shipments their organization is part of (see the rules below). Many of the reports menu entries also depend on it.
- Hide Export to Excel. A permission that removes the Export to Excel button from the pages that offer it.
Customers (shippers) sign in to the customer portal. The portal is a self-service experience scoped to that customer's own account. From it a customer can view a dashboard, create, resume, duplicate, and track their own shipments and quotes, keep an address book and product catalog, pay invoices, run reports, and manage their account settings. A customer only ever sees data that belongs to their organization.

Some capabilities inside the customer portal are controlled per portal user, and others for the customer's organization as a whole:

Per portal user. The broker can set, for each customer user, which shipment types they can book (for example LTL, truckload, domestic air, or international air), whether rates are shown at all, how rates are presented (showing the tariff name, showing only the lowest-cost valid rate, showing guaranteed rates, or showing more than one rate per carrier), whether a customer PO number or a shipper reference number is required when creating a shipment, and whether the user can pay invoices online. Online invoice payment also needs a payment integration to have been set up.
Per customer organization. The broker can hide carrier identity from the customer's portal. When the setting that hides carriers across the portal is on, carrier names, carrier identifiers, carrier logos, and PRO numbers are suppressed across the portal and its exports. A separate older setting hides carrier identity on the older portal pages and also removes the carrier-performance report and its menu link.

Customers can also reach a few anonymous pages without signing in, such as a public shipment-tracking page on the broker's own site (which looks a shipment up by its shipment number and shows limited status information), a one-time invoice payment link, and a shared-report link.

Business rules & limits

Access is permission-based, not one-size-fits-all. What a person can see and do depends on the permissions and settings tied to their login and the organization they belong to. Two people signing into the same system can have very different experiences.
Staff and customers use different areas. Broker staff work in the back-office workspace; customers use the customer portal. They are distinct surfaces of the same platform, not the same screens with different data.
Customers see only their own data. The customer portal is scoped to the signed-in customer's organization. A customer cannot see other customers' shipments, invoices, or account details.
A user's own settings can narrow what they see further. In the customer portal, a user who has the "User Allowed Customer Access" permission sees all of the shipments their organization is part of. A user without it sees only the shipments they created themselves. This applies to the dashboard, the shipment and quote searches, the navigation search, and the charts. For broker staff, the "User Allowed Org Access" permission works the same way: with it a person sees every shipment their organization is part of, and without it they see only the shipments they are tied to as a commissioned sales representative.
A shipment you are not entitled to is reported as not found. If a customer portal user opens a shipment that falls outside what they are allowed to see, the portal shows "Shipment not found" rather than a partial view, so it does not reveal whether that shipment exists.
Customers can fill in, but not overwrite, reference values. On a shipment detail page, a customer can add a value to a reference field that the broker has made visible and that is still blank, but cannot change one that already holds a value (see Custom reference numbers and shipment field customization).
Portal features can be enabled or hidden. Capabilities such as paying invoices online, seeing rates, or seeing carrier information are configurable, so not every customer or user sees the same set of options. When a feature is turned off, its page or action simply is not available.
Some pages require the customer to accept terms first. Depending on setup, a customer may be asked to accept terms and conditions before continuing into the portal.
Only portal users with the customer role can start a new shipment in the portal. Staff users who open the portal's new-shipment page are sent to the back office instead.
Signing in is required for account-specific work. Certain public links (for example, a one-time invoice payment, a shared report, or the public tracking page) can be opened without a full login, but seeing or managing account data requires signing in with an appropriate login.
Export buttons follow permissions. A user who has been given the "Hide Export to Excel" permission does not see Export to Excel buttons, even though they can still view and filter the data on screen.

Frequently asked questions

Who can log in to the Tai TMS, and do they all see the same thing?

The Tai TMS is used both by a freight broker's own staff and by the broker's customers, and they do not see the same thing. Access is permission-based: the broker's staff work in an operational back-office workspace, while customers sign in to a separate customer portal scoped to their own account. What each person can view and do is determined by the permissions and settings assigned to their login.

What is the customer portal in the Tai TMS?

The customer portal in the Tai TMS is the self-service, customer-facing side of the platform (sometimes called the "front office"). It lets a broker's customers sign in to view a dashboard, create, resume, duplicate, and track their own shipments and quotes, manage an address book and product catalog, pay invoices, run reports, and manage account settings, all limited to that customer's own organization's data.

Can a customer see other customers' shipments or invoices in the Tai TMS?

No. In the Tai TMS the customer portal is scoped to the signed-in customer's own organization, so a customer sees only their own shipments, invoices, and account information. They cannot view data belonging to other customers of the broker.

Why can a colleague at my company see shipments that I cannot see in the customer portal?

In the Tai TMS, a customer portal user who has the "User Allowed Customer Access" permission sees every shipment their organization is part of, while a user without it sees only the shipments they created themselves. If you can see fewer shipments than a colleague, ask the broker to review whether that permission is set on your login. If you open a shipment you are not entitled to, the portal tells you it was not found.

Why can one customer pay invoices online in the portal while another cannot?

In the Tai TMS, the ability to pay invoices online is a setting on each portal user, and it also needs a payment integration to be set up by the broker. If a user does not see the option to pay invoices, it means that setting has not been enabled for their login; when a feature is turned off, its page or action simply is not shown.

Why can my customers not see carrier names in the portal?

The Tai TMS lets a broker hide carrier identity from a customer. When that setting is on for the customer's organization, carrier names, carrier identifiers, carrier logos, and PRO numbers are suppressed throughout the portal and its exports. A separate setting for the older portal pages also removes the carrier-performance report and its menu link. These are broker settings, not faults.

What is the difference between the back office and the customer portal?

In the Tai TMS the back office is the broker staff's operational workspace, used to quote, book, dispatch, track, bill, and report across all of the broker's business. The customer portal is the customer-facing self-service experience, limited to a single customer's own account. Staff use the back office; customers use the portal.

Do all broker staff have the same access in the Tai TMS?

No. In the Tai TMS, staff access is permission-based, so a broker can tailor which parts of the system each team member can reach, for instance whether someone can approve bills, apply customer payments, run business-level reports, or see every shipment their organization is part of. This lets brokers align each person's access with their responsibilities rather than giving everyone identical access.

Why is the Export to Excel button missing for some people in the Tai TMS?

The Export to Excel button is controlled by a permission. A staff member who has been given the "Hide Export to Excel" permission does not see the button on any page, even though they can still view and filter the data on screen.