Shipwell’s dock scheduling defaults to have appointments booked by carriers as long as the appointment being scheduled has a matching dock opening at the time seeking to be scheduled. However, some customers seek to review appointment requests prior to having appointments approved and Shipwell supports this workflow.
The process to do this is as follows:
Activate Manual Approval Process for Facility: Under ‘Scheduling’ → ‘My Facilities’ → [Facility Name] → ‘Attributes’ select ‘Manual Appointment Approval’ = ‘True’
When ‘Manual Appointment Approval’ is active it will require when activated that all new appointment requests by a carrier be approved. This will not impact any other dock scheduling facilities and must be turned on or off by a facility. Further, activating this manual approval workflow will not impact appointments that have already been created.
When new appointments are requested by a carrier then they will go into ‘Pending’ status for the carrier.
This ‘Pending’ status requires that an approval be reviewed by a dock scheduling approver prior to the appointment being finalized. Note any dock scheduling contact can be an approver of appointments. Note that if instead of a carrier scheduling the appointment the dock scheduling customers books the appointment, then it will not require an approval process.
Review appointments needing approval on the Dock Scheduling Calendar Side Panel that is accessed via ‘Scheduling’ → ‘Calendar’ → select the ‘Requested Appointments’ icon.
Hover over an appointment and it will display where that appointment would fall on the calendar.
Approve an appointment and then it will be a standard ‘Scheduled' appointment on the calendar.
Modify an appointment if you want to approve the appointment but for a different time, appointment duration, or dock. The appointment will be in 'Scheduled' status with the modified time, duration, and/or dock.
Decline an appointment if you don’t want to approve the appointment. Add appointment notes for context on why being declined. The appointment will go back to being ‘Unscheduled’ for both you and the carrier.
Shipwell’s manual appointment approval workflow for dock scheduling is an option for customers that seek to have more review and control over their appointments.
Dock Scheduling is an add-on product for Shipwell. If interested in learning more about Dock Scheduling and its capabilities, then reach out to your Customer Success Manager.