Friday, November 14, 2003
New PACOS Required Custom Fields
All of these fields are logical fields to identify if PACOS should send a notification message when the event occurs.
Shipment
LARPUMSG
LATPUMSG
LDEPUMSG
LARDLMSG
LATDLMSG
LDEDLMSG
Stops
LARMSG
LATMSG
LDEMSG
Customers
LARMSG
LATMSG
LDEMSG
What's New In Mapping For November 14th, 2003
Whoops - almost forgot....
I've also updated the PeopleNet position tracking so it stores the history of the various positions received. What does this mean? We can now do a real "breadcrumb" trail using GPS positions and MapPoint...look for a presentation on this early next week...
With this, mapping can now do the following:
1. Pinpoint all current vehicles, drivers and trailers.
2. Pinpoint pickup or delivery for all points on a manifest or trip.
3. Show history of vehicle positions on a map.
4. Show optimized routing for points on a manifest or trip. (this can be cut and paste and sent)
What's New For November 14th, 2003
News from the Technology Marketing Side.
This week was a PeopleNet week. I wasn't responding to a lot of calls or to other issues, except as they related to PeopleNet and dire emergencies (funny how those came up).
On the Mobile Communication Side
The PeopleNet unit is up and running in Ottawa. The vehicle is 101 so if you want to log in to www.peoplenetonline.com and see what's going on, you can do so.
The focus of the week has been on getting PACOS up and running within Horizon. PeopleNet made an erroneous news release saying that TMW would be the first vendor to support PACOS but then retracted it. We want to beat everyone to the punch and we're going to do it with Tidewater being our premier showcase, hopefully.
This week, the PNETPACS service was created to do a number of things:
1. It geo-codes all customer addresses with latitude and longitude.
2. It creates a Dispatch Events table that is populated with every load and stop with information such as scheduled Arriving, Arrived and Departed information. This is supplemented with Actual events when they occur.
3. The PNETPACS service makes HEAVY use of the new custom data center, allowing users to define their own arriving radii for Customers, Shipments and even stops.
4. We've run into a few snags: not all of Tidewater's units are PACOS enabled, and some bugs came up on the PeopleNet side but we are working to resolve those.
Once I've got a listing of Tidewater's PACOS enabled units, I will be running tests there.
As of this morning, the unit correctly processed my dropping off the dogs at the groomer. (good) It did NOT however, register me as arriving back home. (bad)
The other big potential problem I see with the PeopleNet PACOS is that the driver must tell the unit when they have actually ARRIVED at the location. This is done by hitting a single button on the device but it still removes the ability for doing truly "unattended" circle of service. We'll get more on this later on.
Note: The Dispatch Events table (which was discussed in an earlier post in October) is GENERIC - that is, it can be used by ANY Mobile Communication system. This will allow us to offer, for lack of a better term, "Universal Circle of Service", a dispatch events system that can be managed with multiple and ANY mobile communication system. I will be working to get Aether and Qualcomm into this system after PeopleNet has been completed.
As a side note: I found a great tool called iCreate which we have purchased that allows us to build amazingly portable web-based presentations from PowerPoint presentations. The first one can be seen here: http://www.mtihorizon.com/samples/pacos. This will be updated with more details as the service is fleshed out. In addition, this will be the tool being used for sales pages, etc on the website, as the Windows Media Player approach is not entirely a sure thing for prospects. I'll tell you about new ones as they come online.
Implementations
More work was done for Accurate Systems. Although their scenario may sound complicated or heavily customized when you hear it from them, it is a very BASIC Horizon installation (no real customization except for reports). Reports are customized because this company reports revenue on invoices that haven't even been processed yet (don't ask me). They also do everything based on Load Date.
Aurora Integration at 4 Truckers is moving along slowly. Eric was out most of the week but he and I had a meeting yesterday and are moving forward. Should be completed by next week. The bulk of this work is done using the File Converter tool that I will be discussing next week.
Reporting at Mabe. Stephanie Penley is the new person at Mabe who appears to be getting it from Roger on reporting and stuff. I am working with her to make sure the reports will meet her needs.
New Ideas
Yesterday I sat in on a UPS RoadNet 5000 WebEx presentation. (http://www.roadnet.com/index.aspx) I saved as many of the screen shots and made some notes. (email me if you want to see it) This is a very interesting tool from UPS designed for carriers who want to optimize routes. I want to try and offer integration into our Dispatch system from their "Territory mapping tool", which does very detailed route optimizations. We also want to see how we can use some of the same concepts for our carriers. I will be drafting up a more formal discussion piece tomorrow.
War Room - If you haven't seen the War room Service, check it out. Todd is getting a "production" build of it ready. Look for a sales demo on it very soon. Find out more here: http://www.mtihorizon.com/documentation/doc459.asp.
I'm not sure if we should be charging for this or not - thoughts? It's certainly high VALUE. Maybe we give it away but charge for "implementation" time. Thoughts?
Great Work
Looks like the File Transfer service is gearing up for release. Congrats to all involved! This is awesome news. I will be drafting a formal release on this and passing it around next week. Development - please let me know an approximate release date? We're getting close to Dec 1 and as in the past, we don't want to be releasing things during the month of December (if my recollection of support conversations is right). I think we want to get this out ASAP, though.!
What About
Some things were brought up earlier on and I haven't heard much about them since. Please fill me and everyone else in on:
1. Advisory Boards. Melody- what's the status?
2. Custom Data Center - Released yet?
3. Q&A via WebEx. Is this a feasible idea or do you not think there is any interest?
4. Company Meeting? When's the next one?
5. EDI - is this thing ready to go? How is implementation going at customer sites? I'm seeing a lot of email activity.
Monday, November 10, 2003
Even More Custom PACOS Options
There are also 2 other default settings that must be set to Yes in order for the events to fire.
PeopleNet\Send on Event - that sets up each Pnet_Dispatch to send the event automatically when the action occurs (this increases message costs).
PeopleNet\Send Late Notification - this sends an email to the dispatcher email if the event does not occur by the correct time (this may also increase message costs)
These activities may also be controlled by the following Custom fields. All fields are logical.
Customer Fields
lArEvnt
lAtEvnt
lDeEvnt
lArLate
lAtLate
lDeLate
Shipment Fields
lArPUEvnt
lAtPUEvnt
lDePUEvnt
lArPULate
lAtPULate
lDePULate
lArDLEvnt
lAtDLEvnt
lDeDLEvnt
lArDLLate
lAtDLLate
lDeDLLate
Stop Fields
lArEvnt
lAtEvnt
lDeEvnt
lArLate
lAtLate
lDeLate
Custom Data Fields used for Automated Dispatch Events
When PACOS is enabled for Dispatch, Horizon makes use of several custom fields that need to be set up in the Custom Data Center. It also introduces a new table into Horizon named DISPAUTO.DBF (Dispatch Automation Events). The DispAuto table essentially lists every stop for a shipment with its scheduled and actual events for Arriving, Arrived and Departing.
The Custom Data Center fields are:
Customer
LAT - Latitude
LONG - Longitude
NARRAD - Arriving Radius
NATRAD - Arrived Radius
NDEPRAD - Departing Radius
Shipments
NOARRAD - Arriving Radius for Origin
NOATRAD - Arrived Radius for Origin
NODEPRAD - Departing Radius for Origin
NDARRAD - Arriving Radius for Consignee
NDATRAD - Arrived Radius for Consignee
NDDEPRAD - Departing Radius for Consignee
Stops
NARRAD - Arriving Radius
NATRAD - Arrived Radius
NDEPRAD - Departing Radius
When defining the PACOS PNET_DISPATCH, the system looks for Shipment specific details. If this information is not present, then it uses the information available for the Customer.
If this is not present, Arriving, Arrived and Departing radii default to the System default (stored in Settings).
This is really useful because it can allow users to define their own Profile information for individual customers, shipments and stop related information.
Plans for This Week
1. Managing Geo-Coding of addresses via PeopleNet.
This will be a two step process. When a customer entry is entered, it will automatically geo-code it. When a load is booked, it will geo-code it as well.
2. PACOS Functionality Phase 1.
Phase 1 PACOS includes: creating default pnet_dispatch when load is booked, ensuring addresses are geo-coded and using default built-in profile.
The Generic Dispatch Events table will be updated when the load is booked.
This will be a two step process. When a customer entry is entered, it will automatically geo-code it. When a load is booked, it will geo-code it as well.
2. PACOS Functionality Phase 1.
Phase 1 PACOS includes: creating default pnet_dispatch when load is booked, ensuring addresses are geo-coded and using default built-in profile.
The Generic Dispatch Events table will be updated when the load is booked.
3. Aether Outbound /Inbound Message Updates.
4. PACOS Function Phase 1.5
More profile features including the ability to specify profiles for customers, tractors and loads. All from within the Custom Data Center.
More profile features including the ability to specify profiles for customers, tractors and loads. All from within the Custom Data Center.
5. More MapPoint Functionality in the built-in mapping service. MapPoint is $249.
6. Get War-Room public announcements released!
6. Get War-Room public announcements released!
