Creating Shipments

Why Create Shipments?

Creating shipments allows you to fully capitalize on our platform’s capabilities while enhancing your supply chain efficiency and transparency. By setting up shipments, you unlock valuable features such as ETA alerts, departure and arrival notifications, and departure delay alerts. Creating shipments also unlocks access to Tive’s analytics products, which enable a deeper analysis of carrier and lane performance, helping you make data-driven decisions. When creating shipments, you can also assign Collaborators to keep key stakeholders in the loop, ensuring effortless communication throughout the shipment journey.

Managing shipments efficiently is crucial for seamless logistics operations. The Shipments Tab provides a comprehensive tool for creating, tracking, and organizing your shipments. This instructional video will walk you through its key features - viewing in transit, upcoming and completed shipments, creating and viewing reports, and creating a new shipment.

What This Article Covers:

• Creating Shipments
• Editing Shipments
• Shipment Page

Creating a New Shipment

To create a new shipment:

1. Navigate to the Shipments menu and select ‘Create New Shipment’.
2. The ‘Create New Shipment’ page will be displayed.
3. Fill in the Shipment Details:
   1. Template: Select a pre-existing shipment template or leave unselected if creating a shipment from scratch. Read more about templates here.
   2. Shipment ID: Assign a unique name and description (required).
   3. Trackers: Link tracker(s) to your shipment for real-time updates. Keep in mind that this is required only when starting the shipment;  you can create and schedule an upcoming shipment without linking trackers.
   4. Custom fields: Integrate custom fields for seamless tracking within the Tive platform.
   5. Ship From and Ship to Address: Enter the shipment’s origin and destination (required).
   6. Ship Date: Specify the date to initiate the shipment and activate alerts (required).
   7. Alert Presets: Choose predefined alerts for shipment monitoring (recommended).
   8. Mode: Select the transportation mode (Road, Air, Ocean, or Rail).
   9. Carrier: Add a carrier to each shipment leg so you can unlock analytics (available on the Plus tier) on carrier performance.
   10. Solo vs. Team Driver: Improve the accuracy of your shipment ETAs (available on the Plus tier) by filling out these driver settings.
   11. AWB (Air Waybill): Used for tracking a shipment’s location while in transit via air. Even without an AWB, non-location sensor data will continue to be recorded and synced to the platform when the tracker next connects. This feature is available on our Premium Tier only.
   12. Container ID (MMSI): Enables ocean cargo tracking by displaying vessel location. This feature is available on our Premium Tier only.
   13. Multiple Legs: Create multi-stop shipments as needed.
   14. Assign Collaborators: Click to add a collaborator’s email address and assign appropriate user roles and permissions. Click here to find out more about our collaborator features.
4. Once all details are entered, click ‘Create Shipment’ to finalize and add it to the In Transit or Upcoming Shipments list. 

Editing Shipments

After a shipment is created, it can still be edited. This is true if it is upcoming or in transit. To edit a shipment:

1. Click the Shipments page in the navigation bar of the Tive platform.
2. Click on an individual shipment from the shipments list that you’d like to edit.
3. Click the Edit Shipments button in the top-right corner of the shipments details.
4. Edit any of the following shipment fields:

• • Shipment ID
  • Tracker ID
  • Start Time
  • Ship From/To Address
  • Scheduled Departure Date
  • Scheduled Arrival Date
  • Mode
  • Carrier
  • Add/Remove Stops
  • Add/Remove Custom Fields
  • Collaborators

Shipments Page

The Tive platform’s landing page, our shipments page, is organized into three sections: in transit, upcoming, and completed shipments. Below is an overview of the functionality offered by each of these sections.

     

In-Transit Shipments

The In-Transit section shows all shipments currently in progress, based on the scheduled start time. Users can track these shipments in real-time and view their locations on the map.

• Sort Using Columns: Use the Columns button in the upper right corner to select the columns you want to display in your in-transit list, then sort the list. To view additional columns in one view, click the expand icon located above them to go to full-screen mode.

• Apply filters: Use the filters located above your shipment list to narrow down your results.

• Searching Shipments: Use the search bar to locate upcoming, in-transit, or completed shipments by entering your Shipment ID or Tracker ID.

• Alert Status: Use the icon in the leftmost “alerts” column to monitor the alert status of your shipments. Here’s an overview of what the colors represent:

• • Dark Red – Indicates shipments with active, unresolved alerts in a "Not Started" state. A single alert in this state colors the entire shipment or cluster on the map dark red.
  • Pale Red – Shows shipments where all alerts are either "In Progress" or have automatically returned to the desired range (e.g., a temperature reading normalizing or an alert being manually marked as "In Progress"). The entire shipment or cluster turns this color only if all alerts meet these conditions.
  • Green – Represents shipments with no triggered alerts or where all alerts have been manually resolved (marked with the "Resolved" state). All alerts within a shipment or cluster must be in this state for it to inherit this color.

Upcoming Shipments

The Upcoming Shipments section lists shipments that are scheduled to begin at a future date, helping users plan ahead.

• Viewing Details: Click on any shipment to view details such as the scheduled start date, origin, and destination.
• Editing Shipments: If updates are needed, select the shipment and then click ‘Edit’ to modify shipment details.
• Start Your Shipments: If you’d like to start your shipments earlier than scheduled, simply click the “Start Shipment” green button.

Completed Shipments

Once shipments reach their final destinations, they are stored in the Completed Shipments section for reference and analysis.

• Accessing Shipment History: Click on a completed shipment to view journey details and delivery confirmation.
• Generating Reports: After selecting an individual shipment, click ‘Generate Report’ to create a detailed record of the shipment’s history.

Key Points to Know

• Creating shipments unlocks advanced tracking, alerts, and analytics features.
• Required fields for starting a shipment include Shipment ID, Trackers, Ship From Address, and Ship Date. If you’re creating a shipment for the future, you can leave the tracker field empty until the shipment start date/time.
• Use search, filters, and sorting options to quickly find shipment details.
• Alert pills on the shipment list are color-coded - Dark Red (Unresolved), Pale Red (In Progress), Green (Resolved) - to make it easy to find shipments that require attention.

Best Practices

• Use Shipment Templates if you frequently ship along the same lanes, so you don’t have to repeatedly input the same information.
• Use Filters and Sorting on the Shipment page to improve shipment monitoring workflows.
• Use the Solo or Team Driver Setting when creating shipments to improve the accuracy of ETA alerts.
• Assign Collaborators to shipments to reduce time spent manually providing shipment updates.