LESSON INFO

Audience

  • Operators and supervisors who use appointments to coordinate receiving, shipping, and yard work.
  • Dispatchers and schedulers who need a shared “unit of work” across teams.

Prerequisites

  • You can access Scheduling from the top menu.
  • You understand which Facility and Work Location you are operating in.

Skills you’ll build

  • Explain what an appointment represents in Themis-Trace and why it is the operational reference point.
  • Find an appointment quickly and confirm you’re looking at the correct work.
  • Understand how appointment groups change execution and communication.

LESSON OUTLINE

Concept

Think of an appointment like getting a ticket at a deli: one ticket for your visit to the counter (the facility), even if you complete several transactions while you’re there.

  • In Themis-Trace, an Appointment is the operational “ticket” for Schedule Items that a driver can check in against.
  • An appointment can contain multiple Schedule Items (distinct work steps) that are executed over time.
    • Deli example: placing an order for mozzarella can be one action, placing an order for salami can be another — still part of the same visit to the counter; similarly, one Appointment can be for multiple BOLs, each with their own Schedule Item.
  • Each Schedule Item represents one scheduled event (for example: a drop-off, a pick-up, or a load/unload step at a specific work location).
  • This is why an appointment is the primary reference point:
    • Deli example: you take one ticket, then complete the transactions for that visit without needing a new ticket for each one; similarly, the driver can check in once, then complete multiple schedule items before checking out.

Identify an appointment correctly

  1. Open Scheduling.
  2. Locate the Schedule Item you’re coordinating:
    • Use Timeline view to locate work by timestamp.
    • Use Grid view to search by identifiers (for example: Schedule Item ID, order IDs, work location).
  3. Open the Schedule Item and confirm you’re on the right work:
    • Facility (and any applicable work-area context)
    • Work Location / bay / door (as applicable)
    • Carrier / driver context (as applicable in your tenant)
    • Linked record context (Receiving Order, Shipping Order, etc.), if present
  4. Use the Schedule Item’s Appointment tab to verify the broader “visit” you’re operating within:
    • Confirm which other schedule items are part of the same appointment, if any.
    • Confirm the intended sequence of scheduled events and the required time windows across the grouped work.

Verification

  • Confirm you can locate the appointment for a known piece of work.
  • Confirm you can open the appointment and identify its work location, time window, and linkage (if any).

COMMON ISSUES

    • Likely cause

      • You are coordinating a single driver “visit” that includes multiple related steps.

    • Checks

      • Confirm the schedule items represent the same visit context (same Facility, Customer, Transportation mode (truck vs rail), and Carrier).

      • Confirm the steps could be executed as one coordinated sequence (for example: receiving + staging + loading).

    • Fix

      • Group the related schedule items into one appointment so teams coordinate the work as one set and execution stays consistent and traceable.

      • If you’re unsure whether to group, follow your site’s standard operating procedure or ask a supervisor before changing grouping on active work.

    • Likely cause

      • The two schedule items don’t represent the same “visit”, so they can’t be combined into one appointment.

      • Appointments can only combine schedule items that share the same:

        • Facility

        • Customer

        • Transportation mode (truck vs rail)

        • Carrier

    • Checks

      • Open each schedule item and compare the key fields above.

      • If the schedule items are in different facilities, different customers, different transportation modes, or different carriers, they must remain separate appointments.

    • Fix

      • Keep the schedule items as separate appointments.

      • If you believe one of the key fields is wrong, correct the schedule item(s) so both records reflect the same facility/customer/mode/carrier, then try again.