The Carrier and Customer Booking portal
You can gain access to the DataDocks customer booking portal in several ways.
- If you have been invited to the platform by the DataDocks customer, you already have access, fill in the required fields, accept the License agreement and you now have access to that customer portal.
- If you know the URL of the DataDocks customer but you don't have an account. You can click on 'Request Access' and you will be prompted to fill out a form which sends a notification to that DataDocks customer, informing them of your request, and they can grant you access.
You will receive an invitiation email from the DataDocks customer granting you access to their DataDocks portal. Check your email for this invitation (you may need to check your spam folder, depending on your email settings and IT permissions).
Click on the URL provided and you will be prompted to create a user name and password.
You will then be prompted to accept the End User License Agreement. Scroll to the bottom of the agreement and type in 'I agree'.
Understanding the Booking Portal (Introduction)
The Booking Portal is designed to be the interface for DataDocks Customers - carriers and customers. It allows carriers and customers to book and receive bookings on DataDocks customers docks. It allows carriers and customers to book Purchase orders, re-schedule or edit appointments and attach documents or notes to appointments. Watch the video to gain an understanding on how this works for carriers and customers.
Navigating in the Booking Portal - Locations
LOCATIONS: The list of locations you have access to in DataDocks
Navigating in the Booking Portal - Calendar
CALENDAR: A calendar view of your appointments, you can click on the appointments to view more information.
Navigating in the Booking Portal - Appointments
APPT #: The Appointment number.
PO NUMBERS: The purchase orders associated to the appointment.
SCHEDULED FOR: The time that the appointment is scheduled for.
LOCATION NAME: The location of where the appointment is scheduled at.
STATUS: The Status of the appointment - can be booked, pending, cancelled, arrived, start, complete or left. From this screen you will be able to gain insight to what point of the process your appointment currently is.
DOCK/YARD: The Dock or Yard location that the appointment is assigned to.
Please note, these columns are customizable under "preferences"
Navigating in the Booking Portal - Purchase Orders
Your company may be assigned to Purchase Orders that are created by the Datadocks customer. You can navigate to Purchase Orders to see them in a list view.
PURCHASE ORDER NUMBER: The Purchase Order number assigned.
LOCATION: The location that the Purchase Order is assigned to.
CUSTOMER: The customer this Purchaes Order is assigned to.
APPOINTMENTS: The appointments this Purchase order has already been booked on, if any.
EXPECTED START: If populated, the appointment must be scheduled for after this date.
EXPECTED END: If populated, the appointment must be schedueld for before this date.
CREATED: When was this Purchase Order created in DataDocks.
You can choose to book the purchase order by clicking on the 'book' button. If the "book" button does not appear, this would indicate that this Purchase Order has already been booked and cannot be booked again.
Navigating in the Booking Portal - My Companies
My Companies let you manage your company details and you can also manage your users from here. You may also have the ability to create and provide access to a carrier, using the "new carrier" button.
This will create a link between you, the parent company, and this new carrier, to book appointments on behalf of each other. Entering their email address will trigger an invite to sign up to the software.
If you click the edit link next to your company name, the edit companies dialog screen appears. Here you can edit your company information.
If you click on the users link, from here you can add users to DataDocks or send password reset notifications to existing users.
Navigating in the Booking Portal - Preferences
If you click on the preferences link, it will bring you to the preferences page. Here you can manage your notifications, the emails you receive about appointments and changes, these can differ per location. You will also have the option to pick which column headers appear on your main page.
Additionally, you can also update your password and email address.
Managing Appointments and Purchase Orders in the Booking Portal
Managing Appointments
Your default view in the Booking Portal is the Appointments screen. This is where your appointment bookings are listed. You may search for an appointment or you can click into each appointment for the appointment details.
APPT #: The Appointment number.
PO NUMBERS: The purchase orders associated to the appointment.
SCHEDULED FOR: The time that the appointment is scheduled for.
LOCATION NAME: The location of where the appointment is scheduled at.
STATUS: The Status of the appointment - can be booked, pending, cancelled, arrived, start, complete or left. From this screen you will be able to gain insight to what point of the process your appointment currently is.
DOCK/YARD: The Dock or Yard location that the appointment is assigned to.
Please note, these columns are customizable under "preferences"
Viewing and Editing Appointments
There are two view options for Appointments, one for those that occur in the future, and one for those that occur in the past. We call these upcoming appointments and completed appointments and there are view options for each.
Upcoming Appointments
Upcoming scheduled appointments have view options that include view, re-schedule, edit and cancel. You also have the ability to notify the customer you are running late for appointments within 24 hours.
View - Clicking on the View link opens the appointment details screen.
Re-schedule - Clicking on the Re-schedule link opens the DataDocks customers calendar, where you can re-schedule the appointment.
Edit - Allows you to edit the upcoming appointment and brings up the edit appointment screen.
Cancel - Prompts you to cancel the appointment.
Running late - This button will appear in the top right when the appointment is within 24 hours. It allows you to notify the customer you are running behind the scheduled time. Once you hit the button, it will prompt you to select a time amount you are running behind by, sending a notification to your customer.
Completed Appointments
For completed appointments, those that have occurred in the past, the only option is to view the appointment and add notes and documents. You cannot cancel or re-schedule an appointment that has already occurred.
Click on the View link to see the Appointment details.
This will bring up the Appointment details page. Here you will see all of the details of the appointment. You may add notes or documents to the completed appointment.
Managing Purchase Orders
Purchase orders are assigned to your company by the DataDocks customer. These appear in your Purchase order list, click the link to view.
Here you can see any purchase orders that have been assigned to your company, if they have already been booked and if so to which appointment, as well as when that purchase order was created.
The Book button will take you to the Appointment booking screen where the information from that Purchase Order will populate for you. You can then fill out any remaining information and select a time to book.
DataDocks will then provide all available time slots for you to book your appointment.
You will see a visual indication that the appointment has been scheduled. You will receive a notification from the DataDocks customer that the booking was approved.
Advanced Customer and Carrier Permissions
When the DataDocks customer selects an organization as a Customer of theirs, that organization can invite Carrier organizations to Datadocks.
As an example. If a DataDocks customer only wanted to use the platform for outbound loads to their customers, but they were required to use the customers specific carriers for shipments. In this scenario, the DataDocks customer ship to customer can allow a third party carrier to make and receive bookings. Many organizations have third party or related carrier partners that they allow to book on their behalf. This feature is based on that principal. The default for this is left to unchecked, only check this feature box if you have an understanding of the relationships between the companies connecting on the DataDocks platform.
The DataDocks customer must enable this feature in order for customers to create carriers. This setting can be found in the My Companies link.
