Scheduling with an Existing Receipt

When your customer provides an ASN, they will likely include the expected inventory on the receipt but not the expected date. Once the shipping carrier receives that inventory, they will contact your warehouse to schedule a drop-off, in which you can direct them to the SmartDock Carrier Portal to do so or book the appointment yourself.

This article reviews both the carrier and warehouse scheduling experiences for scheduling drop-off appointments in SmartDock, as well as how to link the receipts that exist in 3PL Warehouse Manager.

Carrier scheduling experience

The steps below are intended to help you guide a carrier through the appointment booking process.

1. Provide the carrier with a direct link to your calendar (formatted as such: https://book.securedata-trans.com/xxxxxxxxx/), in which they must sign in or create a new carrier account, to book an appointment. Once logged in to SmartDock, the scheduling process is fairly intuitive.
2. Instruct the carrier to follow the prompts and specify the relevant Warehouse and Load Type. If the relevant load type is not listed, they should select Unspecified.
   Please note that not every facility can accommodate every load type. This is by design and configured by your warehouse.
3. Once they select their desired time slot, instruct them to enter the Reference Number or 'TransactionID' of the associated receipt, then click Finalize Appointment to trigger a confirmation email.

Once the carrier books the appointment, you must link the receipt to 3PL Warehouse Manager—select the appointment from your calendar, then proceed to Step 6 below.

Warehouse scheduling experience

If you choose to schedule the drop-off yourself, follow the steps below to book the appointment and link the receipt to 3PL Warehouse Manager.

1. Log in to your SmartDock portal to view your calendar.
   
   Smart User Tip: There are three different calendar views: Day, Week, and Month. You can change the view by selecting the gear icon at the top of the calendar.
   Select your preferred calendar view to display the available time slots for the drop-off. Use the blue arrows at the top of the grid to proceed to the next day, week, or month. Note that if you are using the monthly view, you must click on the date to view the available times.
2. Select your desired time slot—available time slots display as white, while unavailable times are grayed out.
3. A new window opens for you to enter the Carrier Information. Enter the relevant fields, then click Next.
   • If the carrier is configured in SmartDock, use the 'Carrier Search' field to select an existing carrier. Please note that failing to use the carrier search for an existing carrier results in a duplicate entry of the carrier.
   • If scheduling for a new carrier, enter the required 'Carrier Name' and all other necessary fields.
4. Select a 'Load Type' and enter the 'Reference Number' of the associated receipt.
   
   
   • If the relevant load type is not listed, select Unspecified.
   • Once a load type is selected, the 'Duration' defaults to your configured account settings. Modify as needed.
     
     If the Reference Number does not match a unique receipt transaction in 3PL Warehouse Manager, this creates a new transaction in the WMS. Additionally, if you don't specify the customer and the reference number belongs to two different customers, the system alerts you that more information is needed, such as a transaction ID or customer name.
5. Fill out the remaining fields as necessary, then click Next > Finalize Appointment. A confirmation message appears.
   
   Since the PO Number, Customer Name, and Trailer Number populate from the respective fields in 3PL Warehouse Manager once the order is linked, there is no need to fill out these fields unless two of your customers have the same reference number entered in Step 4. If you do decide to enter these, however, please note that the Customer Name is case-sensitive and must match the customer name exactly as it is listed in the WMS.
   
   Once the receipt is linked to the WMS, the Appointment Notes field populates the Door Number value specified on the receipt.
6. Click Edit Appointment, then change the 'Status' from Scheduled to Send to WMS.
   
7. Click Next > Save to link the receipt to 3PL Warehouse Manager and populate the Expected Date, Carrier, Notes, and Capacity Type specified on the appointment. Once you refresh the page, the appointment status changes to 'In WMS-Receiver'.

Any changes made in SmartDock are not reflected in 3PL Warehouse Manager unless you manually send the updates to the WMS. If you need to modify the appointment details, you must repeat Step 6 above when you make your changes to update the receipt in 3PL Warehouse Manager. Re-sending the appointment to the WMS is also necessary each time you correct an error.

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