Marshal, Receive, & Ship
Chapter 1 — Marshalling, Receiving, & Shipping

Marshalling

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LESSON INFO

Audience

  • Dispatchers who assign trucks to a bay and door.
  • Marshalling teams staging and releasing trucks.
  • Operations supervisors coordinating bay and door readiness.

Prerequisites

  • You can log in to Themis-Trace.
  • You have web app permissions to Marshal and/or Unmarshal.
  • You can select the correct Facility, Work Area, and Work Location on the Marshalling screen.
  • Doors exist for the facility.

Skills you’ll build

  • You can identify which schedule items qualify as Arrived and Marshalled.
  • You can marshal one or more schedule items using Door Selection (set Bay, Door, optional driver note).
  • You can correct Carrier, Truck Number, Trailer Number, and Phone Number while marshalling.
  • You can unmarshal when a marshalling decision needs to be reversed.
  • You can predict when an SMS/call should be sent to a driver and understand how to get in touch with them.
  • You can recognize common failure modes (permissions, missing required fields, shipped orders, finished work, inactive/absent doors).

LESSON OUTLINE

Concept

  • The Marshalling screen manages scheduled truck movements in and out of a facility.
  • The screen is pre-filtered to schedule items with:
    • A specified Arrival Time, and
    • An unspecified Actual Finish Time.
  • The UI divides work into two operational states:
    • Arrived: Marshal Time and Actual Start Time are empty.
    • Marshalled: Marshal Time and Actual Start Time both have values.
  • A schedule item can belong to a group.
    • When you marshal or unmarshal a schedule item that has a Group ID, the system applies the same action to all schedule items in that group (and their linked shipping orders) as one operation, and it will block the update if any grouped item is already finished or any linked shipment is already shipped.

Minimum viable setup

  1. Confirm there is at least one Arrived schedule item.
    • Arrival Time must be set.
    • Actual Finish Time must be empty.
  2. Confirm Doors are configured for the facility (so a Door can be selected).
    • Doors are maintained under Administration → Facilities Maintenance → Doors.
    • A Door record has:
      • Facility (required)
      • Name (required)
      • Description (optional)
      • Inactive flag
  3. If you plan to rely on SMS:
    • The driver must have a Driver Phone value.
    • You must provide Work Location, Bay, and Door.
      • Carrier, Truck Number, Trailer Number, and Phone Number can all be corrected directly in Door Selection.
    • The driver must also have accepted SMS. The Driver Instructions column shows their status.
    • Changing the Phone Number here resets SMS consent to No. Nothing is sent until the driver opts in — call them instead.

Marshalling

  1. In the Arrived list (or grid), select one or more rows.
  2. Click Marshall.
  3. Door Selection opens. Each selected appointment gets its own panel, headed by its Appointment number, so a multi-row selection is completed one truck at a time before a single save. Work Location and Description are shown read-only at the top of the panel; the rest is arranged in three columns.
    • Carrier & Vehicle — Carrier, Truck Number, Trailer Number, and Phone Number. Each of these is editable here, so you can correct what the driver actually arrived with instead of abandoning the marshal. Admins can add a Phone Number the appointment never captured, which is the fastest way to reach a driver. A new or changed number resets SMS consent to No.
    • Door Assignment — Bay (required; populated from the work location's bays) and Door (required).
    • Driver Instructions — the SMS preview, and the driver's SMS status.
  4. Set Bay, then Door, and watch the SMS preview update.
    • The preview is live: the Bay and Door you select are written into the message as you select them.
    • Anything you type into Note to Driver is appended to the same message.
    • Read the preview before you save. It is exactly what the driver receives, including the opt-out footer.
    • The SMS status shown beside Driver Instructions tells you whether this driver has accepted SMS. If they have not, nothing is sent regardless of what the preview shows. A number you just changed shows as not consented.
  5. Click Save & Close to marshal. This behaves exactly as it did before the redesign.
    • Save validates mandatory fields.
    • If a mandatory field is missing, the form keeps your inputs and prompts you to fix the issue.
  6. Confirm success:
    • Record moves to Marshalled.
    • Marshal Time and Actual Start Time are populated.

Editing a marshalled appointment

Admins are able to edit appointment records in-place for rapid & effective issue correction & management.

  1. In the Marshalled list (or grid), select the row.
  2. Open the schedule item to reach the Schedule Item Edit form.
  3. Correct the actual information — Actual Start Time, Carrier, Truck Number, Trailer Number, Phone Number — and save.
  4. Confirm the record is still in Marshalled and the corrected value is shown.

A marshalled appointment still cannot be edited once the work is finished or the linked shipment has shipped - thsee validations are unchanged.

Unmarshalling

  1. In the Marshalled list (or grid), select one or more rows.
  2. Click Unmarshall.
  3. Confirm success:
    • Record returns to Arrived.
    • Marshal Time and Actual Start Time are cleared.

Verification

  • After marshalling:
    • The record appears in Marshalled.
    • Marshal Time and Actual Start Time are populated.
  • After unmarshalling:
    • The record appears in Arrived.
    • Marshal Time and Actual Start Time are cleared.
  • If SMS is expected:
    • SMS is triggered after a successful marshal save.
    • Confirm the schedule item has a Driver Phone.
    • Confirm the number was not changed during this marshal. If it was, consent is No and nothing is sent.

COMMON ISSUES

    • Likely cause: The item fails the Marshalling pre-filters.

    • Checks:

      • Arrival Time is set.

      • Actual Finish Time is empty.

      • Facility filter matches the schedule item context.

      • If you have narrowed the Arrived list through the filter modal, confirm those filters are not excluding the truck.

    • Fix:

      • Update the schedule item so Arrival Time is set and Actual Finish Time is not set.

      • Adjust Facility, Work Area, and Work Location filters.

    • Likely cause: No rows selected, or permission is missing.

    • Checks:

      • At least one row checkbox is selected.

      • Your role includes Marshal (and/or Unmarshal).

    • Fix:

      • Select one or more rows.

      • Request the missing permission from an administrator.

    • Likely cause: No Bay has been selected yet, or the Door does not exist for the facility, or it is inactive.

    • Checks:

      • Confirm you have selected a Bay first. The Door list is driven by the Bay, and shows No data found until a Bay is chosen.

      • In Administration → Facilities Maintenance → Doors, confirm the Door exists for the same Facility.

      • Confirm the Door is not marked inactive.

      • Confirm the Door’s Name follows constraints (max 30 characters, unique).

    • Fix:

      • Create the Door with required fields (Facility, Name).

      • Activate the Door (or clear inactive) so it becomes selectable.

    • Likely cause: Backend validation prevents the change, or another user has already marshalled the entity from another device.

    • Checks:

      • The schedule item (and any items in its group) does not have Actual Finish Time set.

      • Any referenced shipping orders are not shipped (all line items do not have Shipped Time set).

      • Any referenced freight bills do not have shipped shipping orders.

    • Fix:

      • Do not marshal/unmarshal completed work.

      • If shipping is already completed, the schedule item cannot be marshalled/unmarshalled.

    • Likely cause:

      • Schedule entries turn red if their start time has passed and they haven't been marshalled, indicating the appointment is behind schedule.

    • Checks:

      • The schedule item has not been marshalled

      • The schedule item’s Start Time is in the past

    • Likely cause

      • The phone number was never captured on the schedule item or the driver record.

    • Checks

      • Check Phone Number in the Door Selection popup.

      • Confirm whether you hold admin rights, since the field is read-only otherwise.

    • Fix

      • As an admin, enter the number in Door Selection before saving. It is stored, but consent defaults to No, so no SMS is sent — call the driver.

      • Otherwise ask an admin to add it, or direct the driver verbally and update the driver record afterwards under Administration → Drivers.