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Getting started

Everything you need to know to get up and running with TOPS Time Slot Booking

Gert Nuyts avatar
Written by Gert Nuyts
Updated over 10 months ago

We’d like to introduce you to Flo.

Flo is our digital wizard, virtual donkey, and eager little self-taught bot. We’ve designed Flo to make your transportation management process much easier. Flo does the boring work you don’t want to do or have time to do. Below, you’ll see some of the things Flo is capable of handling, which I think you’ll agree is quite impressive.

This article will guide you through a few onboarding steps. And so you can get the most out of this super cool tool. Once you’ve set things up (which only takes a few minutes) Flo takes it from there and presto! Slot booking becomes dead easy.

👀 Find your way around

  • Get an overview of your daily planning in your Schedule view.

  • See a list of all your available and booked slots in your List view. Here, a user-friendly filter and search feature allows you to see what is going to be (un)loaded at a specific time on a specific day.

  • Create Templates that you can use to set your opening hours, lunch breaks and maximum capacity.

  • Get real-time alerts in your Notification centre. Manage your yard setup -- create and edit locations, facilities and sections, invite other colleagues and carriers, define reason codes and material types, etc. in your Settings.

  • Get access to our documentation or chat with us via the Help section. Because everyone needs a bit of reinforcement now and then, even automation superheroes like Flo.

  • Manage your account settings in your Profile. (This is where Flo gets to know you better).

So now that you know how the application works, we can set up your settings. 👍

⚙️ Set up your yard

First things first: before you start you need to create your yard: locations, facilities and sections. This article will guide you through the steps to set up your settings. Don’t worry, Flo will be there to help you. ✔︎

🗓 Create a template

Before you begin booking slots, you need to create and apply a template. In the template you can define the following settings:

  • Opening days

  • Opening hours

  • Slot duration

  • Lunch breaks

  • Max capacity

  • Flo’s holiday schedule

Check the details for creating and applying templates here.

🚛 Bring carriers on board

Put an end to endless and confusing communication with a lot of back-and-forth emailing. Now you can invite your carriers to use the application with our easy self-onboarding flow (Flo is all about the flow). Carriers can look at your timetable, see the available slots and book a slot based on their availability and your customized restrictions.

Click here for details about inviting and creating carrier profiles.

📫 Invite colleagues to help you manage the slots

Time Slot Booking allows you to invite both co-workers and carriers. In this article, we give you an overview of all the different roles and permissions.

📈 Get a real-time overview of your slot capacity and performance

Home Dashboard

  • Get an instant overview of the most important information of the day (you’ll want to know if Flo is stuck in cyber traffic and going to be late for work...just kidding: Flo is never late. She eats, sleeps and breathes transportation process automation) by checking your beautiful (and customizable) dashboard. All your important charts are laid out for you to see in the Home Dashboard.

Schedule View

  • Get an overview of your daily planning in your Schedule view (find out more about our slot management here).

☎️ Contact us - we are here for you!

Please don’t hesitate to chat with us if you are having difficulties with the setup. We’re available during regular CET working hours. (Flo is available 24-7, 365 days a year, unless she’s surfing the wavelengths at Web beach)

🎉 Hooray!

These were the basics to help you set up the applications.

If you have any questions (or feedback to help us improve this tool), please don't hesitate to contact us. We’re always eager to help.

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