Kewill Import for Damco

Note: This article is valid only for Damco TrakIT users

TrakIT can now import shipments from Damco's Kewill Freight Forwarding system (KFF) using a specially designed Excel template. This enables users to create and update shipments in one go.

Shown below is what the Kewill TrakIT Template looks like:

Users simply need to fill up the excel file with their shipments. TrakIT will automatically create new shipments (work orders) or update existing shipments. Each line in the excel sheet refers to a shipment and not a work order. Thus, each line in the excel sheet can create or update one or more work orders with the relevant data.

The Excel template has the following fields. An explanation of the fields is also provided on the second sheet, titled "Guidance", in the work book.

Corridor Code: Specify the Corridor Code here as it exists in TrakIT. New work orders that are created, will belong to this corridor.

Customer Code: The code specified here must match the customer code as defined in TrakIT. The Shipper/Receiver field of new work orders will be assigned to this customer.

Kewill Booking Number: The booking number specified here will be assigned to the new work orders.

Container Count: Specify the number of containers/work orders to be created (or updated) here.

Transport Document: It must be provided if present in KFF. If left blank, an auto generated number prefixed with 'TBA' will be assigned.

Carrier Code: Provide a code that exists in TrakIT.

Container Numbers: Enter comma separated container numbers here, otherwise auto-generated numbers prefixed with 'TBAU' will be assigned to the work orders. The number of containers here must match the Container Count column.

Container Types: Provide comma separated values for container type codes here. The number of codes here must match the Container Count column.

Shipment Type: The specified shipment type will apply to all new work orders being created.

Commodity: Specify the commodity that will be assigned to all work orders.

Shipper Code: This field (if available in the Work Order Data) will be filled with the value provided here.

Consignee Code: This field (if available in the Work Order Data) will be filled with the value provided here.

Kewill Export Job Number: This field (if available in the Work Order Data) will be filled with the value provided here.

Kewill Import Job Number: This field (if available in the Work Order Data) will be filled with the value provided here.

All the fields are not mandatory. Specifying only mandatory fields will also suffice.

Once the Excel template has been completed, just email it as an attachment to trakit@damco.com with subject as TrakIT Kewill Import. After a few minutes, you will receive a response email from TrakIT with the result of the import for each line in the Excel sheet.

For further queries or assistance, please contact TrakIT Support.

Workflow Instructions for Event and Data fields

Among a number of minor changes and fixes, a new feature has been added in the latest update that was released yesterday. Workflow Instructions enables users to receive instructions for events/data by email shortly after they have been populated or updated.

Administrators can set up these instructions for each event or data item in their corridors and also select the recipients for the instructions.

In Admin > Corridor Definitions and select the corridor for which you wish to set up event workflow instructions. Under the Work Order Events/Data tab, click on the menu icon for the desired event/data and select "Workflow" option, as shown below:



The following popup appears once you select the "Workflow" option:

In the 'Select Users to Notify' box, enter the names of the users whom you wish to notify about the workflow instructions and under the 'Specify Workflow Instructions' box, write the workflow instructions for the users (which can be up to 500 characters). The selected users will be informed about the workflow instructions and the work orders in which this event has been updated/modified.

For further queries please contact TrakIT Support.

Major Change for Container Types

With the upcoming update of TrakIT (build 100), to be released on the 29th of June (Sunday), a major change will be implemented with respect to the way TrakIT handles container sizes and container types. It is important that you go through this article thoroughly and understand the implications and impact of this change.

These changes affect two fields in the work order header - Container Size and Container Type. The Container Size field can currently have value of 20' or 40', or it can be blank. The Container Type can currently have one of the following values:

• General
• Insulated
• High Cube
• Flat Rack
• Tank (Gas)
• Tank (Liquid)
• Open Top
• Reefer (Live)
• Reefer (Dry)
• Half-Height
• Platform

The default Container Type was 'General' and you can set the Container Type to any one of the above choices.

In order to align TrakIT with industry ISO standards, the Container Type field will be changed to store the standard ISO Code of the Container Type.

ISO 6346 is an international standard covering the coding, identification and marking of inter-modal (shipping) containers used within containerized inter-modal freight transport. The Size and Type Codes section in the document will now be used by TrakIT to identify the container type and size.

As the Type Code includes the size of the container, the Container Size field in TrakIT will become a read-only field that will be populated automatically when the Container Type is set. Furthermore, the Container Type field in TrakIT will be non-mandatory.

The complete list of the Container Type Codes can be seen in Master Tables > Container Types. Some of these codes are set as "common" and appear in bold. These codes appear first in the list of codes.

The existing Container Types selected in Work Orders will be mapped to the new container codes as per the following table. It is possible the below mapping is not 100% correct for all work orders as there isn't a one-to-one correspondence with the new codes.

Old Container Type	New Code for 20'	New Code for 40'
General	22G1	42G1
Insulated	22HR	42HR
High Cube	25G1	L5G1
Flat Rack	22P1	42P1
Tank (Gas)	22TN	42TN
Tank (Liquid)	22TN	42TN
Open Top	22U1	42U1
Reefer (Live)	22R1	42R1
Reefer (Dry)	22R1	42R1
Half-Height	28G1	48G1
Platform	22P3	42P3

Selecting a Container Type Code for a Work Order is straight forward. When editing the Work Order Header or creating new work orders, click on the Find link next to the Container Type text box as shown below:

A popup (shown below) opens up with the common container types listed. Click on a code to select it and insert the code into the text box. If the container code required is not a commonly used code, click the Show All link to see the full list of container codes.

As before, you can choose to apply the code to the specific work order or to all work orders in the shipment.

Once the container type code has been entered, the length of the container is automatically set as per the code.

Impact of Changes

1. Custom & Advanced Reports - All Custom reports and Advanced reports that have the Container Type field present will now export the new code instead of the old one. The Container Size field will remain unchanged and will accordingly export the correct length of the container as per the code.
2. Corridor Demurrage Defintions - The existing demurrage rate settings will apply to the 20' and 40' containers as applicable. If non-standard container sizes are used (i.e. other than 20' or 40'), demurrage rates will not apply if the particular size has not been defined in the Demurrage definitions for the corridor. Additionally, the Container Type field will be removed from all Demurrage definitions and rates will only apply on the size of the container.
3. Container Size field has been removed from New Work Order creation page - both for Form Input and CSV input.
4. Container Size field has been removed from the Edit Work Order page.
5. All export of work orders will now include the new code for the Container Type field.
6. A new field called 'Container Type Detail' has been made available to Custom & Advanced reports. This field will provide the description for the container type for the relevant code.

Other Changes in TrakIT

Other notable changes in the new update:

• The Carrier is now an optional field for Work Order creation.
• Default date filter for Advanced reports has been increased to 6 months (from 3 months). The default date filter is only applied when the WO Status filter is not being used.
• A Booking Number field has been added to the WO Header - This field is populated only when work orders are created by an external system.
• The Global Search feature has been modified to exclude closed work orders. It will now return only active work orders.
• Several other minors fixes and improvements...

For any questions or concerns, please contact TrakIT Support.

Work Order Comments

With the last release of TrakIT, you can now add any number of comments on a work order or shipment. A new tab called 'Comments' has been added to the Work Order page.

Click 'Create' to add a new comment for the shipment. Please note that comments apply to the whole shipment and not just one work order. Comments appear in "Newest First" order by default.

Additionally, these comments will be visible to the customer when the TrakIT Customer Access Module will be implemented (This is currently under development). Customers will also be able to make comments here. Therefore, please take care not to post internal or sensitive information here.

Comments once posted cannot be modified. You can, however, delete a comment you have posted within one hour of the posting it, provided no one has posted another comment after yours.

For any questions or concerns, please contact TrakIT Support.

New TrakIT Enhancements

In the latest release (build 96), some cool new features have been implemented to give users improved functionality and increased transparency.

Updating Event & Data for the Shipment

Users can now view or update a particular event or data field for multiple work orders belonging to the same shipment with same or different values in one go. This cuts down update time drastically when the same event or data field has different values for each work order. Users don't need to go into each work order to update the field.

When you open any work order that is a part of a shipment with multiple work orders, the event and data fields of the work order appears as a hyper link. Clicking on the event/data field name opens up the following popup:



Here, you can see the selected event for all work orders in the shipment. You can update the event corresponding to any container as required, just like a regular event update in TrakIT and click on the 'Save' button.

To copy the event date/remarks to other rows, select only those containers that you wish to copy to (by selecting/deselecting the check-boxes) and click on the icon (Copy to Selected) on the row from which you wish to copy. For example, if there are 30 work orders in the shipment and you wish to update the event for only 15 of them, just select those 15 rows, enter the event in any one row and click the icon for that row to copy the data to the other 14 rows.

Event fields cannot be updated out of sequence (unless allowed in the corridor), and this may differ for different containers belonging to the same shipment. The same validation process applies as when updating events normally.


Demurrage Fields from Container Tracking in Custom & Advanced Reports

You can now add Free Days, Actual Days and Demurrage fields to your custom or advanced reports that are created by work order, to predict and monitor detention. In the Export Fields tab select the 'Source' as Header and select the  fields as shown below:

The data is, of course, obtained from the Container Tracking module. The work order in question must be active in the Container Tracking list, otherwise no figures will be populated.


Event Completed Count option for Custom & Advanced Reports

You can now add the count of work orders for which a particular event has been completed to Custom and Advanced reports created by B/L, as shown below:



While creating/modifying an event field, the 'Select Option' menu gives you the option to choose 'Event Completed Count', which when selected will display the count of work orders for which this event has been completed. Using this in conjunction with the 'Total WO' field, you can check whether a particular event has been completed for all work orders in the shipment.


For further queries on the above features, please contact TrakIT Support.