Highway Connect in AscendTMS takes carrier onboarding and monitoring to the next level!

This Help Guide walks you through connecting your Highway account, inviting carriers to your Highway network, and importing carrier vetting data and documents directly into AscendTMS. Highway automatically creates profiles for new carriers, keeps documents current, and helps you monitor compliance and safety — all in one place.

Simplify your onboarding. Strengthen your network. Protect every load — with Highway Connect inside AscendTMS.

Begin by selecting the Settings tab found on the left side of your AscendTMS screen

Locate the AscendTMS Plans, Features and Billing Details section, then select Add or Edit Your Carrier Onboarding/Monitoring Settings

There you will see the Highway Connect section.

Select the check box option titled, I already have a Highway Connect account, either by subscribing direct on the Highway website or through their sale channels, then click Next.

Next, choose how you would like Highway to monitor your carriers by choosing from the below options.

This option allows you to import and sync the carriers already setup within Highway Connect.

This option allows you to send ALL of your carrier profiles currently in AscendTMS to Highway for monitoring.

This option lets you select specific carriers in AscendTMS to send to Highway for monitoring.

When chosen, you’ll be redirected to the Search My Carriers screen, where you can select the carriers you want Highway to monitor.

After you’ve made your selection, your request will show as Pending.

At this point, your integration request has been sent to Highway for review. Once Highway confirms your account, they’ll send an API key to AscendTMS Support.

AscendTMS Support will then apply the API key to your account, activating your Highway integration.

Once you've received notification that your Highway <> AscendTMS integration has been activated, please return to the Highway Connect page in your AscendTMS account to complete your Highway in AscendTMS setup.

For guidance on completing the setup, please reference the following steps outlined below.

This step is required to unlock the full power of Highway in AscendTMS.

To enable this amazing feature, contact your Highway Customer Success Manager or by calling Highway at 906-HIGHWAY.

Once you've completed this step, you can select the I've completed this step or do not need to do it option to move to the next step.

This step is optional, but we recommend completing your Truck Type and Commodity Type mapping during setup. Doing this now will save time later — otherwise, you’ll need to select these details manually each time you send a load through Highway Load Lock.

Taking a few extra moments here ensures a faster, smoother workflow down the road.

To begin, click on the Map My Truck & Commodity Types to Highway button highlighted below.

You will then be redirected you to your Truck Type List

The column titled Value (highlighted on the left) are your current Truck Types

The column titled Highway Load Lock Mapping is the available Highway Truck Types you will map your AscendTMS Truck Types to.

Once your Highway Truck Type Mapping has been completed, simply repeat this mapping action for your Commodities.

To do so, click on the dropdown option highlighted below, and select Commodity.

Again, simply repeat the same process as above with your Truck Types here, by mapping your Commodities (the column titled Value) to Highway's Commodity List (the column titled Highway Load Lock Mapping).

Once complete, click on the Save & Return to Highway Connect Integration Setup to continue to the next step - Configure Your Notifications/Alerts.

This step is optional, but is highly recommended to unlock the full power of Highway in AscendTMS.

Use the Configure Your Notifications/Alerts option to set up notifications and alerts that keep you and your team informed of important Highway updates, including onboarding status changes, carrier monitoring alerts, and Load Lock notifications — all from within your AscendTMS.

To get started, click on the Configure My Notifications/Alerts button highlighted below.

You will then be redirected to your Automated Alerting System settings.

Click on +Add Alert

From this screen, you can add a Description, write a Message to your team (Ex. how they should handle the alert when notified), and choose who should receive the alert.

Alerts can be sent to team members within your AscendTMS account, other colleagues in your organization who don’t use AscendTMS, or even external contacts via email. Pretty cool, right?

Below is an example of a Highway Alert that can be added. In the example below, we're setting up an Alert that will notify the Dispatch Team when a carrier packet status changes.

Available Highway Alerts that can be configured include:

Once you've completed configuring your Notifications/Alerts, click the Save & Return to Highway Connect Integration Setup button to continue on to the next step — Configure Automated Workflow Engine Rules

Next up is AWE rules, Automated Workflow Engine. AWE rules will help you automate updates from Highway. Just click the button "Configure my AWE Rules" and you will be taken to the Highway section in AWE Rules. You have a few options of AWE rules so we suggest you take your time to set these up.

This is it! You've made it to the last step! 🎉

As Highway requires that any AscendTMS users who will access this integration are also registered users in your Highway account, you will need to invite your users to join your Highway account — using the same email address in both systems

Simply click Add My Users to Highway below, and AscendTMS will guide you through the process of inviting your users to join your Highway account.

You’re now ready to start using the full power of Highway inside AscendTMS to pre-assess, onboard, and monitor carriers with total confidence.

Next up, let’s explore how to put your integration to work and see how easy it is to manage carrier verification and monitoring directly within AscendTMS.