The automated smart dispatcher is driven through three modules, namely the planning, posting and load board. These three modules are interrelated and will play together to aid the smart dispatcher to work efficiently. Your first step would be to create a plan to show the availability of your fleet in each market and then search for the leads based on the parameters that you set. When you create a plan, you basically set the criteria under which you would like to see the leads on the load board. You provide the information about how your fleet would be operable. The first step would be to create a plan and then create a posting for that plan.

This article should give you full understanding on how to create a plan. However for more information on posting and loadboard visit our Help Center.

In order to create a plan, navigate to the planning module which is under the main menu. Click on the hamburger icon on the top left corner of the screen and click on the "planning" option that comes second in the list.

To create a new plan, click on “Create new carrier plan” option in blue, on the top right hand side.

Add all the relevant information, any field with the asterisk* needs to be added in order to successfully create your plan. This includes the name of the plan which could be based on the routes or regions covered or it could be based on your driver’s name if you want to assign the plan to a certain driver. You can create one plan with multiple regions and markets or you can choose to create multiple plans, whatever seems convenient to you.

Carrier’s name would have to be chosen in case you have multiple carriers from the drop down. Home city is mandatory, it would be either the home location or the location where your terminal is located.

The other details required to create a plan include your minimum haul distance or the minimum distance you would accept for hauling goods. Anything less than the minimum haul distance would be ignored by the smart dispatcher. Your maximum weight can be added but is not required. The maximum stops that you add under the load profile would be the stops other than the pickup and delivery.

Furthermore, deadhead miles including origin and destination is pertinent information for you to fill out. As a company, you would want to avoid deadhead miles as much as possible as it does not bring any revenue to the business. Deadhead origin distance would be the distance the truck would be traveling to pick the load and deadhead miles would be miles the truck would travel from point of delivery to maybe the yard or another location. This feature helps you control the dead head miles as much as possible.

Under trip profile information, you would be required to add the max trip days, including backhaul, it is recommended that you add as many days as possible as this increases the chances of finding more suitable leads.

This information is crucial because it will determine the possible lanes and regions that a driver can cover within a trip, including the backhaul. Rest days would be the number of days the driver will take off after during a trip.

After entering the information, save and thus a plan would be created. Once the plan is created the smart dispatcher will create a posting against this criteria and would look for all the lane possibilities for you.

Once a plan is created, your next step would be to assign markets to it. The market information would be available at the bottom of the same page also. As soon as you save the carrier plan, a pop-up page would appear and your next step here would be to assign markets. The smart dispatcher picks up the markets based on the criteria you add while creating a plan. The markets can either be assigned through state or you can choose individual markets as well if you prefer. However it is recommended to choose state wise as it helps you also select the markets that are on the borderline or nearby.

When you toggle on by state the names of the states would appear. Here you can select the state and then click on "single arrow" pointing to the right hand side and all the cities within the state would be selected automatically. Otherwise you can type in the name of the city or market in the search bar and select that again through the single arrow pointing to the right hand side. However if you want to select the individual market then toggle OFF "show by state".

Try to select as many markets as possible, as that helps you find more and more suitable leads.

Once you hit the save button, the market that you select will turn green. This will indicate that you have successfully assigned the market to your plan. The map icon with blue color indicates your home location and the red indicates the markets you haven’t assigned to your plan. If you click on the map icon it will also provide you with the market information. The market can be assigned through the map icon as well by turning on the “toggle” that appears when you click on the map icon.

Once you've made all changes don't forget to click "save"

Once you've made all changes don't forget to click "save"

The final step in completing the plan is to assign drivers. This assignment will be used by the smart dispatcher posting module to apply the plan to the truck postings. You can choose to assign one or multiple drivers and you can also create the plan without assigning any drivers. This is in case you wouldn’t want the plan to be driver specific.

In order to assign the driver, you would have to select the name of the driver from the list and click on the arrow pointing towards the right hand side. Once selected, hit save at the bottom right hand side to complete the process. The assignment of the driver would provide a basis for the smart dispatcher to look for relevant postings.

Once you have created the plan, you can always go back and make changes to it through the actions button that would appear on the main page of the planning module once the plan is created. You can perform three functions by clicking on the action button, you can edit the plan, delete it or view the logs of the actions performed on it by looking through the log history.