Live-load and live-unload containers via iCOS GO

We are happy to announce support for container live load and unloads via our iCOS GO mobile application.

With this new feature, if you are doing live loading or unloading of a container, your driver won't need to wait for a dispatcher to re-allocate the second leg after he has waited for the container to be loaded/unloaded.

This will also work great for those of you who 'tip' your containers.

Here's the steps:

1: Dispatcher allocates an empty container to be picked up and taken to a site for loading, or a full container to be taken to a site for unloading

2: The job appears on the drivers mobile device, telling him where to pick up from.

3: Once picked up, the driver sees a new option in addition to the usual 'Offload' button he normally seens:

4: After pressing 'Live Load' or 'Live Unload', the system automatically offloads the container, then allocates a new task back to the driver to take the container from it's pack/unpack location to either dehire or a port for export.

If you are interested in this new functionality, please contact your iCOS LIVE representative and ask that the feature be enabled for your account.

You may elect to have this feature turned on for certain drivers/vehicles only, rather than all of them.

We hope this new feature improves your workflow in iCOS LIVE!

Map view - live vehicle tracking

For some time now, iCOS LIVE has had a map view where you can see where historical events occurred on a map.

This works great after the fact, when a job is delivered; however for in-progress jobs it didn't give you up-to-the-minute information as to the location of a consignment.

This has now changed, with a new feature which enables live-tracking of consignments in the map view for jobs which are currently in-transit.

This feature is available both for operators, and also for your clients if they log in and want to see where a consignment is.

To access the map view as an operator, you can open a job and navigate the the 'moves' tab.
Once in there, clicking on any of the move icons will bring up a map view.

For clients, they may access the map view the same way, or more quickly by clicking the 'Place' icon on their job list.

For those of you who do not want to give your clients this sort of visibility, this is an opt-in feature.
If you do not specifically enable this feature for a client, they will not see the current vehicle location.

To enable this feature, ask someone in your organisation with super-user access to open up the companies screen, navigate to the 'Profile' tab, and tick on 'Client Map View - Display Truck Location' for each respective client.

Optionally, iCOS LIVE support staff can turn this option on across your entire company on request.

Please note: vehicle position information is dependent on an integration with a fleet management package such as EROAD or Navman Wireless. iCOS LIVE cannot control the quality of position data provided by third party services or devices such as phones or tablets.

Quick access to job details - now available to all

Following on from our update on May 26th, Dispatchers: Quick access to job details (click to view), we have now updated our invoicing and utilisation (job and leg view) workbenches with the new feature.

We hope this brings increased productivity to your general workflow when working in these screens.

Both the utilisation and invoicing workbenches already had the '$' column, which gave you quick access to job costs & charges.

The new quick access column also includes this functionality, plus more, so we have removed the '$' column from the system - but we have been careful to ensure that where the '$' column showed for you before, the new quick access column now shows in it's place.

As always, if you have feedback or suggestions, please get in touch with us and let us know!