Monday 16 November 2020

Server Migration Testing (Maersk Only)

This article is for users of Maersk TrakIT only

Dear TrakIT Users,

As you may know, TrakIT will be migrated to a new server this coming Sunday (22nd). In preparation for the transition, we would like to request you to test the new TrakIT server and functionality as relevant to you. If you would like to take part in this test, please follow the procedure below and use the test instance of TrakIT as you normally would.

  1. Go to http://scrbtktdk009097/ (On Maersk Intranet Only). This is a new TEST version of TrakIT with data a few days old. If you get a 'SSO Authentication Failed' message, or any 'Authorization Fail' message, please stop and inform us (see below)
  2. Please use TrakIT as you normally would. You can cover/test below features. Any changes made on this TrakIT will be overwritten by production data on the 22nd.
    • Creating and working with Work Orders
    • Generating Reports (Workflow and Advanced)
    • Generating Forms / PDF 
    • Adding files/attachments
    • General usage/performance of system

The deadline for this test is Wednesday COB. Please revert with all your findings or success before then.

Region Administrators: Please ensure that there are at least 2 users from each country who can test.

If you encounter any issues, please report these immediately to TrakIT Support, along with screenshots, relevant details and exact steps to reproduce the issue.

Otherwise, please report a "success" confirmation.

Please note that this TEST TrakIT version CANNOT send emails. Email functionality will be tested by the application team.

Please let us know if you have any questions or concerns.

Best Regards,

TrakIT Support Team

Wednesday 7 October 2020

Redesigned Geography & Access

Previously, the Geography & Access page was based on a Tree structure that was a bit challenging to navigate. Furthermore, there was no clear structure of the geographical hierarchy.

To alleviate these issues, we have redesigned the Geography & Access page to make it a lot easier to navigate and also create hierarchical levels based on pre-defined levels.

Level Name Description Example
0 Global The whole world. This cannot be modified or removed. NA
1 Region Continents or global regions. North America, Asia, Europe, Africa
2 Cluster Groups of Countries (optional) East Africa Cluster, Indian-Subcontinent, South-East Asia
3 Country Individual Countries India, Kenya, USA, Argentina
4 State State within a country (optional) Rajasthan, Nevada, California
5 Area Areas within a State (optional) Any area with a state - but larger than a city, containing one or more cities
6 City Cities or towns New York, London, Nairobi, Cape Town
7 Location (Depot) Specific locations / coordinates Any port, factory, ICD, depot, warehouse, customer address with a well-defined location

Based on the above table, your organisation's hierarchy can be defined in a more structured manner. Workflows can be assigned to any two geographic entities (except Locations).


The new Geography & Access page can be seen above - along with the actions that can be taken on the page, provided the user has the permission.

For any questions or clarifications, please contact TrakIT Support.

Monday 31 August 2020

TrakIT Data Retention Policy

In order to keep TrakIT performing efficiently and fast, we need to periodically reduce the load on the database by purging and deleting old data from the database. In this respect, we are introducing the TrakIT Data Retention Policy in the next update.

This policy will define when TrakIT will start purging old data from the database. The settings for this policy can be found at Admin > TrakIT Management > Data Retention Policy. The default settings are displayed below:



Most importantly - the default period for Work Orders is 7 years (84 months). If you would like to increase this (to a maximum of 10 years), please contact TrakIT Support.

If you would like to change any of the above default settings, please write to TrakIT Support at the earliest.

Friday 31 July 2020

Extending Workflow Groups

Workflow Groups have been a little used feature in TrakIT. These basically help you organize workflows into logical groups. Every workflow created in TrakIT belongs to a group (by default, there a group called 'General').

With the latest update, we're expanding Workflow Groups to play a larger role in organization and display of workflows. The Workflow Groups now has it's own page where these can be defined - this page is only accessible by System Administrators.

Menu Organisation

Workflow Groups is now available under the Admin menu for System Administrators only.


The 'Operations' menu has now been renamed to 'Workflows' and the workflow groups now appear as sub-menus under it. This means that each workflow group has it's own page. The columns displayed on the table on each workflow group can be customized as required.


The Finance > Shipments sub-menu is now renamed to "Workflows" and it displays all the relevant workflow groups as tabs in the page. It is possible to disable tabs for specific workflow groups that don't need to be in the Finance module.



In upcoming updates, workflow groups will be linked to roles so that users only see workflow groups relevant to their roles.

For any questions or concerns, please contact TrakIT Support.




Wednesday 20 May 2020

Increase Automation, Productivity & Efficiency

Over the last many years, we have constantly been adding new features in TrakIT. Automation, Computed Fields, Query Reports & Asset Management to name a few. New features are usually accompanied with blog articles or news about them. Despite this, the information sometimes does not reach some clients and not everyone may not be aware of the new features.

We've decided to put together a list of productivity enhancing and time-saving features in TrakIT. Please go through these and feel free to start using them in TrakIT. If you need assistance, contact TrakIT Support and we'll be glad to help.


Asset Management

Did you know you can create and manage any kind of asset in TrakIT? Trucks, Trailers, Drivers, Office Equipment, Machinery, Contracts, or anything else that you can think of. Assets need not necessarily belong to you - they can belong to any Entity as well. And assets can be attached to work orders just as easily.


You can create any number of assets. You can also link assets to each other. For example - you could link a trailer and driver to a truck. This way, when a truck is attached to a work order, the linked assets are also automatically attached to the work order.

Assets can also be GPS enabled. For example, if your trucks have GPS enabled, you can update their locations manually or have TrakIT pull their locations from your GPS vendor automatically every x minutes. If you have portable GPS units, we can create an Asset Type for GPS Devices and these can be linked to the trucks where they are placed. See the present locations of all your assets on one map.


What's more, you can define any number of data fields to hold information about an asset - just like you do for a workflow. And when you attach an asset to a work order, any data fields in the asset that have the same code as data fields in the work order, get copied automatically. This is a really huge time saving feature when you need to enter the same information from an asset in many work orders.


Computed Fields


All TrakIT users are well aware of Events and Data. Events simply hold the dates for actions that happen (or future events). Data can hold a variety of information as numbers, text, lists, locations, hyperlinks and so on. Did you know that TrakIT can also have computed Data fields. These fields calculate their values based on formulas and can be derived from other Events or Data fields (even computed ones). 

Similar to how you can write formulas in Excel, you can write formulas for Computed fields. A simple example for a data field that calculates a discount is shown below:

$PRICE$ - ($PRICE$ * $DIS$ / 100)

PRICE and DIS refer to the codes of the data fields that hold the Price and Discount Percentage respectively - they just need to be surrounded by $ symbols. You can add expressions of any complexity and logic. TrakIT uses JavaScript to parse expressions. TrakIT can also use SQL queries for computed expressions. This means you can use any data anywhere in TrakIT to compute your data.

Computed fields can also use other computed fields as their source. The order of processing of computed fields happens in the serial order of the Data fields. The example below calculates the total amount for truck haulage depending on the rate type:


If this looks too complicated, just contact TrakIT Support, tell us what you need, and we will create the necessary computed data fields you need.


Automation with Event/Data Actions

Automation can drastically improve efficiency of any organisation. Automation can reduce delays, process orders faster, reduce employee or manual work dependency and even reduce head-count of employees. Like machines, TrakIT doesn't need to rest and can continuously monitor your shipments and take action based on parameters you set. 

All Events & Data fields defined in any workflow are capable of taking action based on specific conditions that can be set. We can trigger action when the event or data field changes (any change or specific values). For events, the trigger can happen in advance of any date or after a defined delay.

Once you've defined the action trigger, you can setup any of the following actions to happen:


Actions can update send emails, generate documents, send messages, notify people, update other data, events or event execute customized queries. For full details on actions, see the full Documentation.


Custom Dashboards


Because of the wide variety of the kinds of workflows that TrakIT manages, users sometimes need custom dashboard to get a clear picture on what is happening within the workflow(s). TrakIT supports the use of customized dashboard pages for your organisation based on the workflows, or roles of users. 

Any kind of dashboard can be created. If the information is present in TrakIT, we can create a dashboard out of it. These dashboards cannot be provided out-of-the-box as the requirement for each scenario is different and these have to be constructed for each requirement.

A couple of examples are shown below:




Please let us know your requirements and we'll be glad to create a dashboard for you.


API Connectivity & Interfaces

TrakIT's customisable architecture lends it to being versatile to connect with other systems. TrakIT exposes it's own extensive REST-based JSON API to connect with other systems. You can use TrakIT as an intelligent database for your own front-end system or other applications.

We can build interfaces with other systems - such as GPS Vendors, Port Authorities, Shipping lines, etc. We also support standard EDI-Fact interfaces and have in-built API and FTP exports.

Integration with Finance systems such as Quickbooks, Xero, Jurnal, Sage & Thalia are already available. New ones are being added all the time.

If you'd like to connect with an external system, just let us know and we'll get it done.


Conclusion

There are many, many more features in TrakIT, but writing about all would need a small book. If you have any challenges you would like to solve, please let us know and we'll do our best to solve it. None of the features in TrakIT cost anything extra.

Thanks for reading. Please reach out to TrakIT Support for any questions or guidance.