This article will be covering how to navigate through the appointment setting process and effectively manage your shipments. Depending on the way you schedule your appointments ShipperGuide has the solution!

Appointments can be set as soon as a shipment is created. With the Appointments feature you can set appointment times for your facilities or inform your carriers if they must schedule them. This guide will walk you through how to inform your appointments in your shipments!

This article will cover:

• How to Inform Shipment Appointments
• Carrier Rescheduling Appointments
• Appointment Status on Shipment List

How to Inform Shipment Appointments

1. From the Shipment Details page scroll down to the facility that you set the schedule for. If a shipment is pending appointments to be set, the Schedule Appointment box will show “Missing date” as well as “Missing time”. 

There are two options available to inform appointments:

• Click if the appointment is preset or if you schedule it.
• Click if the appointment must be scheduled by the carrier.

2. A pop-up menu will appear. Fill out the following details:

• Required: Appointment Date: set date
• Required: Type
  • Appointment (default selection)
  • FCFS (First Come First Serve - pickup/delivery window)

• Required: Loading Type
  • Live (default selection)
  • Drop
• Required: Time: Numerical format must be entered in military time containing 4-digits (example: for “1:00 PM” would be entered as “1300”). Please make sure the appointment time reflects the timezone of the facility.
  • After: Carrier must arrive after specified time
  • Before: Carrier must arrive before specified time
  • Between: Carrier must arrive between specified time
    • Best used if Type is FCFS window
  • Specific: Carrier must arrive at specified time
    • This is not available as an option if you selected “Carrier must schedule” 
      • Once the carrier has been booked, the carrier will be able to select “Specific” time from their Shipments page.
• Optional: Confirmation Number: Users can add if available
  • The confirmation number will only be available to the carrier once they have booked the shipment.

3. Click .

4. Once you have confirmed the appointment, the Schedule Appointment section will be updated.

If you set the appointment:

 If the appointment needs to be scheduled by the carrier:

5. To proceed to the quoting process, navigate to the Rates section of your shipment and click .

Carrier Rescheduling Appointments

When selecting “Carrier Must Schedule”, the carrier will need to arrange the appointments within the guidelines of which you selected outlined above.

At any point from the carrier’s shipment page an appointment is updated, the carrier user will have to provide a reason for updating the appointment, even if it fits within your scheduled guidelines.

Below is the pop-up form carriers are required to update when changing an appointment from their Shipment page.

Updates made by the carrier will be shown on your Shipments page as soon as the carrier makes any changes:

The BOL and the RateCon will also reflect any changes made to the scheduled appointments as they were last updated on the platform.

Appointment Status on Shipment List 

The Shipment List allows you to easily view appointment statuses. This feature provides a quick overview to see which appointments have yet to be confirmed, outside of the originally requested time frame, and which have already been confirmed. 

1. On your left dashboard click Shipments.

2. Under the Status column, find a calendar symbol:

• Red Calendar: Indicates that at least one appointment is pending confirmation.
• Yellow Calendar: Indicates that at least one appointment is confirmed but out of the expected window.
• Missing or no Calendar: Indicates that all appointments are confirmed and the shipment is scheduled as planned. No attention is needed currently for that shipment.

Red Calendar Icon:

Yellow Calendar Icon: