We know that punctuality is very important in logistics, but then, sometimes a 15 minutes delay does not really make a difference. As this can all depend on the different customers you work with, or the service levels your company offers, we provide you with the option to create different settings to effectively manage your milestones!

First of all, let's explain how Milestones are laid out. In Control Tower, you will find different Stop types (Collection, Depart, Routing, Airport of Origin etc.) and each of these has a similar Milestone structure. The three milestones are:

Additionally, and after the order is created, at any time, you are able to Add a final destination to an order. To do this, you have two ways:

If the driver assigned to the order has the home address location set, the location by default to be added as a final destination is that driver home address. Otherwise, no default location will appear in the dropdown.

However, you can always change this location in this point, for that you need to search for a location previously saved in the masterdata with the location type "Waiting Point".

The on-time and data-entry margin values can be set up in the Milestone Type Settings, which can be found under Admin tab > Settings > Milestone Type Settings.

Firstly, you can define which orders and milestones will these settings apply to. The next step is to define the margins:

The three types of milestones with an Actual filled in.

On-time margin early refers to how long before the Scheduled From time should the order arrive to still be considered On-time. If it exceeds that value, for example, if it arrives not 10 but 15 minutes before Scheduled From time, the milestone will be marked in blue - status "Early".

Likewise, on-time margin late works the same way but counting from the Scheduled To time of a given milestone. If it exceeds that time, the milestone will be marked in red - status "Late".

Refer to the examples below. In this case, our scheduled delivery window is 9:00 - 10:00 and we use the settings from the screenshot above.

The milestone warning setting changes the milestone status to "Warning" X minutes before the order is considered late. This shows that the order seems to be delayed.

Data entry margin refers to when the Actual is entered by the user relative to the time of the Actual. So if we have a margin of 15 minutes and users would update the milestone more than 15 minutes after the actual time that was entered, they would need to provide a reason code.

Besides giving the milestones different statuses and colors, the purpose of the margins is to ask users to provide a Reason Code if the Actuals exceed them. The margin that we have set up above will make sure the order is considered late, 15 minutes after the scheduled time. In the example below the scheduled time is at 10:00 and the order is late by 8m (indicated by the red text), therefore the user is asked to provide a Reason.

The platform provides a standardised list of 25 reasons for delayed orders, however, more codes can be added in the Masterdata (article on Reason Codes).

Of course, if the Actual update comes straight from the driver via the mobile app, they will also have to provide a reason code with respect to the margins set in the Control Tower. The reason codes are the same as in the Control Tower as long as they are enabled for mobile app (via Reasons masterdata).

In addition to providing a reason code, a user can also be requested to provide additional information such as name, eSignature and/or a picture (for mobile app).

This data will always be asked of the user, regardless of whether the Actual is late, early, or on-time.

Below you can see how the eSignature looks in CT and Mobile app respectively.

Additionally, upon inserting an Actual, a driver can be asked to take an optional photo to provide extra proof for delivery. If that is done, the picture can be found in the 'Documents' under 'User uploaded documents'.

You can select the option to require a user to provide a reason code when updating a scheduled time for the selected milestone. This option is also found in Milestone Type Settings. If the milestone already contains a scheduled time and users want to change it, they will need to provide a reason code from the database. Ensure that you add relevant reason codes for this action!