1. General.

Streamliner is a B2B platform, bringing companies together to collaborate on the inbound supply chain.  For more info see our website www.streamliner.cloud or consult our knowledge base on support.streamliner.cloud. 

A user in your company will be invited to onboard your company in a streamliner community. 

This miniguide describes the following steps

• Follow up the transport orders that are placed at your company
• Book an appointment to load or unload in DC
• What if you want to book outside the offered availability
• Centralize communications for any question

This miniguide is one of the 3 mini guides that are available to support you as a carrier on the Streamliner platform. Read more in the following mini guides

• Onboard as a carrier in a 3PL warehouse
• Book an appointment to load or unload without a transport order
• Book an appointment to load or unload with a transport order (this one) 
• Collaborate on the reception of goods as a carrier. 

Prerequisites

• Be invited by your customer to participate in the inbound community

2. Overview of the transport orders. 

It all starts with an invitation that your company received to perform a carrier role in a community of a 3PL. Transport orders can only be placed if your company accepted this carrier role. (see mini-guide onboard as carrier) 

Planning appointments/booking slots to load or unload is supported by a simple workflow that starts when a transport order is placed. 

2.1. Configure your company. 

Before we start booking, we show you how to set some defaults to make life easier. 

In the community where you have to book a slot, go to the companies page and search your own company. 

You can set your default truck if you wish. 

P.S. You can see on the same page which companies perform the role ‘Carrier’ in this community. It's a good plan to distinguish yourself and set your logo in 'Manage account' on the main page. 

2.2. Plugin Streamliner.

Go to dashboard page.

Enter the Streamliner application inside the community of the receiver.  It’s the yellow plugin on the dashboard screen:

2 main menu options are to your disposal: 

• transport orders: The overview of transport orders that are placed for you company 
• Shipments: the overview of the load & unload operation that you will perform in name of your customer.

When you enter Streamliner you see transport orders and shipments. By default screen of transport orders will be selected. 

2.3. Transport orders overview. 

This is your main overview screen with all open transport orders, transport orders, that are placed at your company from all suppliers that are using your carrier services. 

What information is available: 

On the top left: the locations where you have to deliver

The overview: grouped by expected pickup date, all open transport orders with 3 states

• Shipment to plan: both bullets red
• Shipment planned: first bullet green
• transport order is delivered: both bullets green

A click on a transport order line will open the detail of that transport order. Make yourself familiar with the filters, search functionality and the information on the detail pane. One of the most innovative features is the possibility to communicate within the community. Simply start a discussion about this transport order in the right pane to centralize ALL communications and evitate point-to-point emails. An email will be sent automatically to the concerned persons of your customer, and vice-versa. 

2.4. Book an appointment to deliver/book a slot. 

Place 1 or more transport orders in the shipment basket. Any transport order to the same 3PL location and zone can be grouped in 1 shipment, even if these transport orders are coming from different customers. Streamliner offers you the possibility to combine as much loads as possible for the same location. You will see the number of items in your basket in- or decreasing. 

If a transport order has no volumes set by your customer, it's up to you to add the volumes before you can book a slot to load or unload. You will see the 'Add packaging units' action instead of the possibility to add the transport order to the basket. 

See our support article: Add packaging units to a transport order

When all transport order are selected, push the basket and select ‘Book’. 

Streamliner will guide you through a simple slot booking process based upon the 3PL availability and resources. 

1. The list of transport orders you will ship.
2. The grey dates are the time window that the receiver from your customer has given as time window to plan the shipment
3. Streamliner will present you the first possible slot and will increase the N° of slots based upon the packaging units you will ship

Just click ‘Book slot’ in the right upper corner if all data is ok. Click cancel, the cross on the left right top, to cancel this operation and return to the transport order overview. 

Congrats: you just booked your first shipment:

3. What if you want to book outside the offered availability 

When you select a timeslot where one of the rules is not respected, the timeslot turns into a red timeslot and a warning is shown which rule(s) that are not respected. 

The most common issues are the following: 

• Time window to deliver is not respected
• A timeslot is chosen outside opening hours
• There are no resources available
• The slot is already fully booked
• ...

Please select another date/time to book a slot. If you persist to book the slot, a message is sent to the 3PL asking to approve the time slot. So Streamliner can not guarantee that this slot will be approved. The warehouse can deny or approve your proposal and most likely he will deny the slot, forcing you to reschedule. 

4. Centralize communication. 

You can, at any moment, place comments or pose questions regarding this transport order (transport order) or the shipment. Streamliner will send an email with a hyperlink to the persons who are responsible for the follow-up. See user management to accept the notifications of Streamliner. You can also attach upfront any document like an ASN or delivery note.

This is how you can centralize all communications regarding an operation in Streamliner to keep track of all issues, remarks or whatever. 

Please consult the knowledge base for more in depth articles. Good luck!