And so for the final product release of 2020. New features have been introduced alongside enhancements to existing functionality. This includes building upon previous releases, with the expansion of the journey merging capability introduced in the 20.10 release, some enhancements to journey allocation, and improvements to fleet utilisation reporting.
JOURNEY MANAGEMENT
Journey Management customers can now incorporate last minute rush orders into planned journeys through the Web Portal by merging a new journey with an active one. In previous releases, both journeys had to be inactive to be a candidate for a merge, but this condition has been removed with the 20.12 release, improving the flexibility of this functionality and expanding the capacity for using third-party solutions to govern scheduling alongside the Microlise system.
A new customisation setting has also been added which will preserve the Site Category value of existing sites during the Journey Schedule Import (JSI) process. This will prevent third-party planning tools from overwriting this information where the tool and the Microlise system do not share the same definition of the Site Category value, improving the reliability of the system and maintaining data integrity between Microlise and third-party tools.
EPOD MOBILE APPS
Customers who use SmartPOD to help facilitate and audit proof of delivery activities will also see an expansion on previously introduced features with the 20.12 release, alongside new functionality as part of our ongoing improvements to our mobile apps.
Vehicle Off Road (VOR) capability was first added in the 20.10 release and has now been expanded to include trailer swapping. If a driver attempts to use a trailer marked as ‘Off Road’ they will now be notified by the app and directed to select a different trailer or contact their transport office. This will help to improve the efficiency of the swap process, and prevent trailers from accidentally being moved offsite when they are booked in for a service or repair.
Customers can now ensure that specific reading information (such as a meter reading or mileage) is captured by drivers at a delivery or collection via the SmartPOD app. The data entered by the driver can then be viewed in the PODPOC export alongside other consignment details if desired.
FLEET PERFORMANCE
The Temperature Audit report provides our Fleet Performance customers with a graphical view of a wide range of temperature data, and can be used both to review any exceptions for a temperature-controlled vehicle during a trip and to review historical data for compliance reasons.
Previously, the date period for the report was limited to the information present in the live database, which is archived every ninety days. To make this historical data more accessible to the user and improve the speed and efficiency of the reporting process, the date range selection period is now limited to a three month window but can be set to call up both live and archived data.
The Trailer Utilisation report has now been enhanced to ensure that utilisation data from trailers without a tracking unit (either because a trailer is being newly added or cycled out of operation as part of a customer fleet) is available to customers, alongside other smaller updates to the report to improve the accuracy and utility of the data provided.
