If you have been given access to the VIA® system as a carrier, the following documentation will walk you through some of the common actions that you can perform on your loads. When you login to the VIA® system, after receiving your partner network invitation and registering, you will be presented with any boards that your partner company has shared with you. Clicking on the boards from within the home screen will open the board and display all the loads from within it. Unless instructed otherwise by the partner network you will be able to update your loads from pickup to delivery, update documentation required and update the card with any notes or reference numbers.
Let's take a look at some of the common actions that you can perform from within the system. Please note that your rights will be determined by the partner network and you may not be able to perform some of these actions.
Navigating to an order or segment card in VIA®
There are two ways to search in VIA®; either with a board filter or by searching using the search section at the top of the screen. Let's take a look at searching using the search bar at the top of the screen.
At the very top of the VIA® screen you will find the quick search section. You can use this section to search all the cards in your system (as opposed to the board limitation you have when using filters). There are three sections to the quick search section: the search field, the board type and the field name.
By default, the search section is setup to search the title field of all cards. The search is not case sensitive and will search any part of the fields for what you enter. In most cases you will probably be searching for locations or reference numbers. To change your search criteria start by selecting the card type. If you are searching loads you will either be searching for orders or segments. You can see what type of cards by looking at the board on the main screen as each board type is displayed on the board on the bottom right corner.
The card type you select in the search bar should match the type of boards your partner network uses.
If you are searching for your trace numbers select either Order Reference Number (if the trace number applies to the whole order) or Stop Reference Number (if the reference number is related to a shipper or consignee). You do not have to know the whole reference number, if you search for a portion of the number you should see your card in the resulting list. For example, let's assume that our reference number is 20-616796-9. The reference number has a dash and sometimes when the numbers are given over the phone the leading 2 characters are not provided. The easiest way to search is to change my card type to orders (because I have confirmed by boards are order boards) and then search by order reference number:
Unfortunately, this did not return any cards. I can search for a part of the number as well. For example, I know that sometimes the first 2 characters are sometimes dropped when my staff calls in an order. I can search for part of the number to see if the order is in there:
That did bring back results. I can click on the cards and see which order is the one I am looking for. When you click on a card the order will open up onto your screen. Note, the order screen you see may look different as you may have more or less fields showing on your screen:
Understanding Card Layouts
- Title - The top section of the card will provide you with the card name. In most cases, this will also include the order or segment number related to the card. In the example to the left the order number is TRANZ000280. You can also see the list that the card currently resides in.
- Labels - Labels are color coded bands that can be attached to orders and segments. These bands appear on the card when they are visible within a list as well as at the top of the card when it is open. These labels can represent anything of importance to the partner network; and they will usually be labelled when you are viewing the card.
- Conversations - If you see a box within the conversation section it means that there has been a discussion created related to this order/segment. If you click on the conversation box (blue box) the conversation will appear on the right side of the screen.
- The buttons that appear on the right side of the screen are the actions that you are able to perform on this card. You may see more or less buttons depending on the rights you have. We will discuss the most common carrier related actions in the next session.
- Tabs - These tabs provide details on the order/segment. You may or may not have access to all the tabs. They include stop, pricing, accessorial, freight and attachment information.
- Tab Details - Depending on the tab you have selected in section 5, the information in this section of the screen will change. Currently, the order details tab is selected and the tab detail screen is showing the stop information.
- Order Reference/Notes - Any order based reference numbers and any notes will appear at the bottom of the card.
Updating within the Web Portal or Load Offering?
One of the first things you will need to decide when you start using VIA® is if you would like to update your loads from within the portal, or if you would like to send the loads to your drivers and have them do the updating from their mobile device. VIA® has a mobile app that can be downloaded from the Apple Store or Google Play; however, if the drivers don't want to download the application to their phones you can still send them their loads and they will appear to them as a text message. Once they click on the message the application will launch in their browser and they can make their updates from there. If your drivers would like to use the mobile application then you can find more information on using that section by clicking here.
Sending a Load Offer to a Driver's Mobile Device
You can send a load to a driver's mobile device by licking on the Start Tracking Button on the right side of the card:
From the popup screen select ViaMobile from the first field. In the bottom field enter in your driver's mobile number and press start. Your driver will receive a text message with a link that will either load the application if their have it installed on their phone, or it will launch their default web browser and open this card on their phone so that they can update it as they arrive and depart stops.
Updating a Load From Within the Web Portal
If you choose to manually update the orders from within the VIA® web portal the following instructions will guide you through the best way to achieve this. To start, search for the load that you want to update and open it. Regardless of if the card is a segment or an order, you will want to have the first tab open (labelled as segment details or order details). You should see a listing of all the stops assigned to the load and a progress bar on top of the stop listing. To move the load through from pickup to delivery you will need to arrive and depart each stop. Let's take a look at a stop segment:
- This is the stop completion checkbox. When you have arrived and departed a stop it will change to a checked box. It is a visual cue to see if the stop has been completed
- This section contains the link (ERIE, PA - Pickup) that you can click to see more details about the stop. It also lets you know the type of stop you are looking at (in this example, it is a pickup stop). It also lets you know the estimated arrival and departure time.
- Clicking this button is one way that you can arrive and depart the stops on a load. This button will change depending on where you are in the stop; for example, in the screenshot you have not arrived at the stop so the button reads Arrive. If this stop has already been arrived at then the button will read Depart.
- This section is a snapshot of where the stop is located. In the above example it is Pineapple Eddies Southern Bistro (we can tell by section 2 that Pineapple Eddies is located in Erie, PA). We can also see that out contact is Eddie and we are also given his number in case we need to contact him.
This is an example of a completed stop. Notice that the stop completion checkbox is marked as done, the arrive/depart button has disappeared, and the dates have changed from ETA to arrived and departed.
Above the stop listing is the progress bar for the load. Each stop we showed above has two activities related to it; an arrival and a departure. These two actions are displayed as sections of a progress bar. You should have two sections for each stop. As the load moves from dispatch to completion the status bar will fill in green. Lets take a look at some examples:
In the above example, none of the stops have been completed as the whole bar is grey. There are four segments because there are two stops on the load.
In the above example, the first stop is completed and the corresponding bar is half colored in.
Arriving and Departing a Stop
To arrive or depart a stop open the load card and click on either the arrive or depart button associated to the stop you want to work with. When you click on the button, you will be presented with a calendar option for dates and times to mark when they actually arrived or departed at the location.
Reversing out an Arrival or Departure
If you accidentally complete a stop you have the option to reverse out the stop completion. In the example below, you can see that the trip is half done. The first blue section shows that the arrival at the first stop has been done. The section section shows that the depart of the first stop has also been completed.
Let's assume that you have departed the first stop, but your driver has called to say that he has actually not left the shipper yet. If you click on the stop marked with the red circle you will be presented with the following confirmation message
If you hit reset, the bar will recede back to the previous stop.
