TruckMate 2024.4 New Features: Operations

The Security tab’s appearance in Security Configuration has been updated:

Select a section in the pane to quickly move through the list of options. Select the arrows to hide the pane.

A search option has also been added:

Enter keywords in the Search field to quickly find specific settings.

In Codes Maintenance, you can create your own user fields and define how they work across TruckMate. These options can be labeled on a company by company basis.

The CLIENT table of user fields has always existed in Codes Maintenance in the User Fields Setup pane.

However, its field labels were only editable in Application Configuration.

Now the ability to edit the CLIENT Table user field labels has been moved from Application Configuration to Codes Maintenance.

Your existing labels have been migrated over from Application Configuration to Codes Maintenance. There will not be any changes to the names or designs of your user fields.

The Terminal Access option in Security Configuration can no longer be selected if there are no terminals in the system.

Previously, you could select this option even if you had no terminals, but it would open an empty window.

You can now use PC*Miler Web Services to automatically bring in highway directions for routes.

Previously, turn-by-turn directions could only be stored within TruckMate if you used an on-prem version of PC*Miler.

Now, when a route is calculated in TruckMate, the system can correctly extract and store these directions in the LEG_HWY_DIRECTIONS table. These can then be opened in your application of choice and be sent to the driver. The driver then has access to turn-by-turn directions to guide them through their trip.

These directions will only be pulled into TruckMate if you have the Highway Directions app config set to True.

There is now an alternate way to receive mileage from PC*Miler Web Services.

The standard PC*Miler Web Services engine runs using Amazon Web Services (AWS). Some customers may not want their data to be used in AWS because they are a direct competitor. Because of this, Trimble Maps has developed an alternate version of PC*Miler Web Services that uses Microsoft Azure. This version has now been integrated into TruckMate.

To support this, there is a new app config called Enable Azure Hosted ALKWS. You can set this config to True to use Azure-based mileage instead of AWS.

There are no differences in how the mileage service behaves or performs between the AWS and the Azure variant.

TruckMate typically releases a new version of PC*Miler Web Services every year after it has been reviewed and certified. However, Trimble Maps also has a "Current" dataset offering. This dataset is updated more often than the yearly release.

The "Current" dataset is now available for you to use if you have a Web Services API key. This version will need to be configured like any other version of PC*Miler Web Services.

However, you only need to set up this version once. After it has been set up, it will automatically sync with the "Current" dataset. You will not need to change to a different version again.

Yearly numbered version of PC*Miler Web Services will still be released normally.

With this version of TruckMate, PC*Miler 38 (Web Services) is certified to work with these features:

TruckMate attempts to cache non-street based mileage when possible. Mileage calculations are stored in the DMILE (Client Mileage) or VENDOR_DMILE (Vendor Mileage) table.

This allows the system to create a route with the same mileage by extracting the mileage from this table instead of sending out a new job to PC*Miler to calculate it.

However, this approach does not work for the "Current" PC*Miler dataset model. If the system were to cache mileage after every job, you would not get mileage updates from the Trimble Maps team until you manually purged the old mileage from the DMILE/VENDOR_DMILE table.

To avoid this, TruckMate will no longer cache mileage records when the "Current" dataset is used to calculate a job. This ensures that the latest mileage will always be used.

You can now restrict freight bills that are in a credit hold from being assigned to trips.

In Security Configuration, there is a setting called Credit Hold Activity. This setting determines how a service user can interact with credit hold bills. The setting options are:

If the user running the Mobile Communications service is set to Disallow All or Disallow Assignment, the driver cannot use an assign bill macro to assign credit hold bills to a trip. The macro event is blocked and an error message is reported in the MobileComm log.

This prevents drivers from picking up any unexpected freight from a client that is on credit hold in your system.

A change was made to the MatchResources function in the SOAP API Mobile Communications workflow. This change adds further support for handling freight bills that are on credit hold.

The way MatchResources functions depends on two settings: the service user’s Credit Hold Activity security setting, and the Dispatch.exe > Credit Hold-Hold app config’s setting:

Previously, the SOAP Mobile Communications service has included log items in the standard logging mode that are normally reserved for the debug logging mode in other TruckMate services.

Some of these items have been moved out of standard mode and into debug mode. This makes log files much smaller on production servers so more files can be kept. This lets you use a less aggressive rotation strategy. This also improves the SOAP API’s performance because less logging is required on basic API functions.

These are the log items that have been moved:

Two macros have been changed to enhance support around the creation of freight bills when the bill-to customer is on a credit hold. The two macros are:

The behavior of each macro depends on two settings: the service user’s Credit Hold Activity security setting, and the Dispatch.exe > Credit Hold-Hold app config’s setting.

Trips that are older than one year no longer appear in trip grids in Multi Mode Dispatch.

This significantly improves system performance. The system needs to pull in fewer trips overall to determine which trips should be displayed per grid and per terminal.

As a part of this change, an app config called Show Trips Older Than One Year has been added for Multi Mode Dispatch.

This config gives you the ability to either show or hide trips that are older than one year in Multi Mode Dispatch.

This config defaults to False, which means that trips older than one year will no longer appear on trip grids by default. If you want to see trips older than one year on these grids, change this config to True.

As a part of this change, several other back-end performance changes have been made to Multi Mode Dispatch:

You can now save multiple groups of Quick Filters together. This lets you quickly load multiple Quick Filters for any grid within their respective applications.

Previously, you could only save a private "default" Quick Filter Layout. This let you save any Quick Filter Layout so you could load them quickly. This layout was only visible to the user who set it up.

Now you can also save "public" Quick Filter Groups that anyone can use. To do this, select Save Quick Filters Layout as.

This allows you to save the filter with an ID. Once the filter has been saved, all users will be able to load the layout.

Because the layout is public, any user with permission to apply filters in the application can adjust the layout and save their changes.

This function is available for these grids in Dispatch and Multi Mode Dispatch:

Previously, Filter Templates in Dispatch could only support one SQL filter or one Quick Filter. However, with the addition of Quick Filter Layouts, you can now assign Quick Filter Layouts to Filter Templates. This allows you to assign many more filters to a grid at once with one action.

Templates that use Quick Filter Layouts appear under their own header:

No changes have been made to existing Filter Templates. Any user who already could adjust Filter Templates will be able to use this feature.

In Dispatch, you can build Filter Templates that have a default SQL filter saved for each grid. You can then select the template to load the filter onto all of the grids.

This feature has now been added to Multi Mode Dispatch and its functionality has been expanded.

Go to Tools > Filter Templates to access the Filter Template Setup window.

Here you can create your own Filter Templates. You can also set a default grid layout if a particular grid design should be used with a specific filter.

In addition to SQL filters, you can now use Quick Filters and Quick Filter Layouts in Filter Templates. Because Quick Filter Layouts have no limit to the number of filters that can be assigned to them, it is possible to load more than 100 filters in one action by using Filter Templates.

To use this feature, users must have the MMDisp Templates security setting enabled.

A new security setting has been added called Allow Cancel Trips with finished legs.

This setting has been added to provide more control over a common scenario that can result in driver pay not being recorded. For example, a move would be started in TruckMate, resulting in a driver changing locations and expecting pay for the move. However, if the purpose of the move (such as picking up a bill) did not occur, dispatchers would cancel the move in TruckMate. This would result in driver pay not being recorded.

The Allow Cancel Trips with Finished Legs security setting gives you more control over this scenario. The setting has two options: Error and Warning. The setting defaults to Warning, so dispatchers will see no change in behavior unless it is set to Error.

Filter lists are now sorted by both filter group and filter name.

Previously, filter lists were only arranged alphabetically. Filters from the same group could be separated based on their name. Now filters that are in the same filter group are listed together.

The Reload Quick Filters option has been added to the Tools menu in Dispatch and Multi Mode Dispatch.

One of the types of Quick Filters are "dynamic checklist Quick Filters". These filters generate a list using an SQL query. This means that, as records are changed or updated in TruckMate, the list can change while you are using the filter.

Previously, the only way you could update these checklists was to completely remove the Quick Filter, reload it, and then reapply all the checkboxes to recreate the filter.

Now you can select Reload Quick Filters to refresh all the currently applied Quick Filters. This reloads the lists for all dynamic filters, and any settings that were checked remain checked.

You can also select CTRL+Q to reload Quick filters.

When logging in to Multi Mode Dispatch, the Terminal Selection window no longer opens if the user only has access to one terminal. The application now just opens to the user’s one terminal.

If the user has zero terminals, they get an error message:

If the user has multiple terminals, but one default terminal, the Terminal Selection window will not open. The application instead opens to their default terminal.

A new field called Terminal Depart has been added to the modify dates form in Multi Mode Dispatch.

This field only appears in the modify dates form when accessed from the Cross Dock grid.

Use this field to pre-plan when a freight bill is set to leave the current terminal. This can only be used on bills that are outbound from that terminal. This excludes delivery bills.

If you enter a value into Terminal Depart and save it, it automatically updates the DeliveryBy/Terminal Depart field with the new date.

This helps you plan the bills that need to leave the terminal on that day.

On login, ConnectedDock now checks that system settings are configured correctly. If any necessary settings are not configured correctly, an error message appears that prevents the user from logging in.

The error will persist until all the issues are resolved. This prevents situations where ConnectedDock would function incorrectly in ways that are difficult to diagnose and resolve.

Here is a list of what is checked on login:

A new option has been added to ConnectedDock Admin under Groups > Notification called Enable Vibration on Warning/Error.

This setting is part of a larger change to ConnectedDock to add vibration (haptics) support.

This setting allows you to enable or disable vibration for specific groups.

Support for vibration (haptics) has been added to ConnectedDock.

Previously, only a sound played if an error or warning occurred in ConnectedDock. This sound was easy to miss in a noisy dock environment. This resulted in errors not being caught that caused freight issues.

Now ConnectedDock fully integrates with the vibration features on devices. If the vibration setting is enabled, the device will vibrate when warnings or errors occur. This setting can be enabled or disabled in ConnectedDock Admin. It is disabled by default.

While the vibration feature was tested on several in-house devices, not every handheld device certified for use with ConnectedDock has been tested. If you encounter issues with a device, contact Trimble Transportation Support.

You can now restrict freight bills from being assigned or loaded if they have not completed all their checklist items.

This feature applies to checklist items that have the Completion is mandatory before Freight Bill can be assigned or added to a Trip option selected.

If this is enabled for a checklist item, and that item is incomplete, the system will either warn the user or prevent them from assigning or loading the freight bill.

If the Use an Error message rather than a warning message checkbox is selected for an item, the user is shown an error message. The bill cannot be loaded until that checklist item has been completed.

If there is only one checklist item to complete, the error message names the item:

If there are multiple checklist items to complete, then the error message does not list the specific items:

If the Use an Error message rather than a warning message checkbox is not selected, the user gets a warning if they try to load a freight bill that has incomplete checklist items. They can select YES to load the item anyway.

If there is only one checklist item to complete, the warning names the item:

If there are multiple checklist items to complete, then the error message does not list the specific items:

The Zebra MC94 has been officially certified for use with ConnectedDock.

It went through the standard certification tests without any reported issues.

Using this device requires the symbolRelease APK or the dataWedgeRelease APK. Both are included in our APK package. The APK package can be accessed by running ConnectedDock from your TruckMate folder.