New Report - Event Update Delay

A new interactive report "Event Update Delay" is now available with the latest release (build 84). This report allows you to select specific corridors and analyse the time delay between the occurrence of an event and the time at which it was updated in TrakIT.

Furthermore, for each event, you can see the users who have updated the event, their average delay and maximum delay. This will help in determining any data update bottlenecks in the shipment workflow.

The delay is measured in days only. If a user updates an event on the same day as the occurrence of the event, it would mean a delay of 0 days. If the event is updated the next day, the delay would be 1 day and so on. The figures below include the number of events updated by each user and the average delay (in days) with one decimal.

Shown below is a screenshot of the report.

"Info Only" events, such as "ETA Vessel" are not  included in the grouped Average Delay for the corridors. Such events are marked with a asterisk (*).

As with all interactive reports, you can click on the hyper-linked figures to drill-down into the source work orders.

The report can be exported to MS-Excel and includes all source data.


For any questions or clarifications, please contact TrakIT Support.

New Dashboard & Other Changes

With Build 83, the following changes have been implemented:

Dashboard

The TrakIT Dashboard has been changed from Flash based charts to Javascript based charts that render faster and on all browsers. This means you can now view the dashboard on your iPad too (Flash doesn't work on Apple devices).

The KPI graphs now include the Target line to compare the KPI with. Note that the target is the average of the targets set for the KPI among all selected corridors.

Non-standard Weekends

For countries with non-standard weekends (e.g. Saudi Arabia), KPIs in business hours will now be calculated correctly.

Now, you can select the weekend days for any country with non-standard weekends in the System > Country Holidays page. You can also set the public holidays in your country to let TrakIT skip those days when calculating Business hours.

Make sure your KPIs in the corridor definitions are also set to the correct country and time zone to enable the correct calculation of business hours.

Advanced Report - Date Filter

By default, the Advanced Reports do not include work orders where the last event is more than 3 months ago. This can now be over-ridden using the new 'WO Created Date' filter in the Advanced Reports filter.

You can choose from a list of options available. The first three options allow you to set specific dates, whereas the other options use the current date as the reference point.

If this filter is not used, the default limit of 3 months is applicable.

Custom Messages for Custom & Advanced Reports

For each report subscription (customer, user or advanced), you can now specify a personalized message to be included in the report emails that are sent.

A maximum of 500 characters are allowed in the message.

Many other changes and fixes are included in this release. For any questions or queries, please contact TrakIT Support.

Demurrage Notifications, Report Field Options & Time Zones

Build 82 has been released yesterday and it brings great new features as mentioned below:

Demurrage Notification Emails

User can now choose to receive daily notification emails when a container is about to reach the allowed Free Days beyond which Demurrage charges become payable, by selecting free days expiry notification in the application.

From the main menu, select System > Email Notifications. Select a corridor for which you wish to receive notifications and then click on the 'Free Days' tab.

Notifications are sent every morning and include all containers with Free Days already expired as well as those that are about to expire as per above setting. The email includes links to the Entry Work Orders and calculated demurrage (if any), provided that the demurrage rates were set.

Administrators can also subscribe users to demurrage email notifications via the Corridor Definition > Demurrage Definitions section.

The subscriptions made by admins are automatically reflected in the user's email notifications and vice-versa.

Custom & Advanced Report Options and Time Zones

TrakIT Reports will now include many options for exporting events and data in Custom and Advanced Reports. When adding an Event field to the list of fields, users can now choose from the following options:

Event Date Only - This is the default setting for all existing events. Only the event data is exported. Example: 10 May 2013
Event Time & Date - Both time and date of the event is exported. Example: 19:55, 10 May 2013

Event Updated Time & Date - This is the time and date that the event was actually last updated by a user and not the event date/time itself.

Event Updated By - This provides the name of the user who last updated the event.

Remarks Only - This option will export only the remarks entered by the user for the event.

To get multiple options for the same event in the same report, simply add the same event many times to the field list, each time with a different required option.

Data fields have similar options for export. 

Important Note: When time is exported in a field, it is set as per the corridor time zone (for Custom Reports) or the time zone set for the subscription (for Advanced Reports). Corridor Time Zones can be set in the Corridor Definitions for a corridor.

Work Order Weight

The Weight field of a work order is now not a mandatory field. If not entered, the weight will simply be set as 0 kgs.

Thus, you can create new work order by simply specifying the B/L details of the shipment and then selecting the number of containers/work orders to create.

For any questions or clarifications, please contact TrakIT Support.

Dashboard Filters & Other Changes

TrakIT Build 81 has been released and contains the following changes:

Custom Filters
The dashboard filters are now similar to the Operations page filters. They can be customized by the user and will persist until cleared. Initially, no filters will be available for any user.

Multi-line Data
Work Order Data can now hold multi-line text. When typing, simple press enter to switch to a new line.

No More Clones
Corridor Cloning functionality has been removed to reduce complexity and related issues. All corridors are now independent and self contained.

Corridor Country
A new field called "Responsible Country" has been added to the Corridor Definition header. The field can be set from a list of countries to indicate which country is responsible for the corridor. The field can also be added as a filter in the Operations page or Dashboard page as well as used in the Custom or Advanced reports (only the country code is exported).

Several other minor changes and fixes are included in this release.

For any questions or concerns, please contact TrakIT Support.

A "new and improved" Finance Module

TrakIT build 80 has been released today with the re-designed finance module among other changes. It is recommended that users try and familiarize themselves with the functionality before using it for any live data. As this is the first release of the new finance module, we expect some changes, adjustments and optimizations over the next few weeks.

Shipment Financials

The Corridor Definitions includes a section called "Shipment Financials" (previously called Corridor Estimates) where users can declare finance transactions expected for a shipment belonging to the corridor.

Shown below is the window where financials are declared - Admin > Corridor Definitions > Corridor > Shipment Financials:

For each transaction, the following parameters apply:

• Basic Transaction - The basic type of transaction (from the master transaction types)
• Specific Information - Free text that is appended to the Basic Transaction
• Transaction Type - Income, Expense or Pass-Thru
• Applies To - Whether the transaction applies to each work order or to the shipment as a whole.
• Default Estimate - A default value to be applied when transaction is created in a work order or shipment.
• VAT - The VAT rate (in percent) applicable on the transaction.

When creating a transaction, you can choose to apply the transaction to all active work orders where the transaction is missing. This, however, does not update work orders where this transaction already exists.

A corridor transaction definition cannot be modified (except for Default USD or VAT rate).This is to prevent accidental or inadvertent change of transaction types.

Once transactions are declared, they are automatically added to new work orders. The new work order finance page displays the header information of the shipment, a summary of the estimates and actual transactions, as well as detailed tables where users can update the transactions. Users with 'Finance' profile will be taken straight to this page when opening a work order or shipment. Other users can click on the 'Fin' button at the top right of the work order. A sample is displayed below:

Transactions can be updated by users of Financial profile or above. Once estimates are final, they can be approved by a user after which they are locked. Estimates can be "un-approved" again if they need to be changed.

Estimates and Actuals can be included in Custom reports as well.

At this stage, we're looking for feedback and suggestions to improve the finance module in TrakIT. There will be several more finance related features coming up in TrakIT.

Other Changes in this Release

1) The "Total Free Days" field has been removed from the Work Order Header as it is now redundant. When a container is added to the Container Tracking section, it obtains the Free days from the Demurrage Definitions defined for the corridor.

2) Subscription Title and Email fields have been added to the Advanced Report filters to help you locate subscriptions and recipients easily for Advanced Reports.

3) Excel Export of Interactive Reports - KPI Report, DQ Report & Active WO Report are now "un-grouped" and flat to enable better analysis in Excel.

4) The Work Order Status filter has been added to the Data Quality report.

Several other changes and fixes have been included in this release.

For any questions or concerns, please contact TrakIT Support.