Zone Codes

The section of the screen on the left is used to create Zone Codes.

Find Zone Code

To display the Zone Code Definition for a previously defined Code, enter the Code in this field. You can enter the starting characters of the Zone Code and click the search button to display a search form.

Zone Code

Can be up to 10 characters in length. Both the Zone Code and the Code’s Short Description are used throughout the system to select Zone Codes, although the Short Description is more commonly used.

When you add a Zone Code, it will automatically appear in the right-side 'World' menu of the Zone Tree as an 'un-positioned' Zone. You will have to manually drag and drop it into its relative position on the Zone Tree’s left side (which contains all your already configured Zones) for it to be added to the Zone Tree.

Find in Tree

If you want to display the position of the selected Zone Code in the Zone Code hierarchy (on the right side of the screen), click this button.

Short Description

Enter a description for this Zone Code, up to 30 characters in length. Third Party mileage software, such as PC*Miler and Rand McNally, use the short description to perform mileage lookups, so you must enter the short description in the format that is used by your mileage software. In most cases, the city name, followed by a comma, followed by the two digit state or province Code is acceptable. For example, 'Washington, DC' is an acceptable format for third party mileage software.

Long Description

Is optional, and used for information and reporting purposes only.

Terminal Zone

Use this field to select the Terminal Zone for the selected Zone Code. This will often be the same Zone as the Zone Code itself, but some Zones may have their Terminals at other locations.

Rating Zone

Can be used to assign a substitute Zone for rating purposes. For example, if you wanted all the Zones in one province to be calculated using the same rate, you would enter the province’s Zone Code in the Rating Zone field of each of the province’s child Zones. Then, when you set up the rate table, your origin or destination Zones would be provincial Zone Code, and all the child Zones would be included in that rate sheet.

Export Field

Is used to specify Zone equivalencies for export to third-party programs, such as TruckMate Legacy. If your third-party product uses a different Zone Code than TruckMate Code, specify that product’s equivalent Code here.

Automatic Tax Calculation

To indicate that 'Code 1' and / or' Code 2' apply to Freight Bills using this Zone as a pickup or delivery point, check one or both of these boxes. These fields work in conjunction with the Tax Rules configured in the Tax Calculation Configuration program.

Interliners Button

You can automate the process of assigning Interliners by configuring the Zones that Interliners service using the Interliner Zone Setup window. In the Customer Service program > IP tab, the 'Determine Interliners and Rate' button will look for an Interliner assigned to the Start Zone of the Freight Bill. If it finds one, it will create an Interliner record using the Interliner assigned to the Zone Code, the Start Zone as the Interliner’s From Zone, and the Junction Zone as the Interliner’s To Zone.

This Zone

Displays the Zone Code that was selected when the Interliner button was clicked.

Default Interliners

This section allows you to configure the default Interliner for several different shipping/movement circumstances: 'Advance (to terminal)', 'Crossdock (at Beyond)' and 'Beyond (from terminal)'.

Interliner

Select an Interliner Code from the search button menu list for the 'Advance', 'Crossdock' and 'Beyond' fields. Only vendors who are configured as the Interliner type in the Customer & Vendor Profiles program will be available for selection.

The Vendor selected here will become the default Interliner for the movement that this field corresponds to ('Advance', 'Crossdock' or 'Beyond') for the particular Zone Code that was selected on the main Codes Maintenance window.

Junction Zone

Select a Zone Code from the search button menu list for the 'Advance' and 'Beyond' fields. The Zone specified here will become the To Zone on the Interliner record in the Customer Service program.

Serviceable Days

For both the 'Advance' and 'Beyond' fields in turn; select the days of the week that the delivery or pickup is allowed, this functionality provides the flexibility to allow or decline a delivery or pickup operation in certain days of the week.

Service Level-Specific Interliners

These options become available when a User clicks the 'By Service Level' button on the main form. Setting a default Interliner by Service Level will make that Vendor responsible for the movement of Freight that has a Service Level Code that matches the one configured for the current Zone.

Advance tab

Double click the first three fields to select a 'Service Level', 'Interliner' and 'Junction' for the 'Advance' Leg of the Trip. Enter a numeric value in the 'Days' field for the approximate length of the Trip.

Crossdock tab

Double click the first three fields to select a 'Service Level', 'Interliner' and 'Junction' for the 'Beyond' Leg of the Trip. Enter a numeric value in the 'Days' field for the approximate length of the Trip.

Beyond tab

Double click the first three fields to select a 'Service Level', 'Interliner' and 'Junction' for the 'Beyond' Leg of the Trip. Enter a numeric value in the 'Days' field for the approximate length of the Trip.

User Condition

The User Condition section is an SQL entry field that allows the User to specify additional rules (against the TLORDER table) to determine whether or not to apply the Carrier chosen in the above 'Service Level-Specific Interliners' section.

For example, the User could input: SITE='SITE1' AND BILL_TO NOT IN ('r;D')

This condition would perform the automatic Inteliner assignment if the Freight Bill was a SITE1 bill (LTL, for example) and the charges are not collect.

Multi Terminal Button

This button can appear in one of four different forms described next:

The first form is being invisible (Hidden). This takes place when the 'Use Multi Terminals' configuration option of CITYDISP.EXE program is set to 'False'. In this case the button will not appear on the window and the user is only allowed to define a single terminal per zone.

The second form for this button is to be visible and tagged with 'Multi Terminal' on its surface. This happens when the 'Use Multi Terminals' configuration option of CITYDISP.EXE program is set to 'True' and the zone has no defined terminals yet. Use this button to access the Multi Terminal Setup window, where you can use the '+' button to add multiple Terminal records to a single Zone.

This window allows the user to define multiple terminals for a selected zone code. The upper part of the window is a grid to define the terminal, in addition, the week days with a 'True/False' value for each day are in the grid. This can be useful when defining the same terminal for different vendors where a vendor can be used on certain days and another is used on different days. The grid also has another two fields to define the terminal as being an 'Advance' or a 'Beyond' terminal.

The lower part of the window is to enter user defined SQL conditions (SQL where clause). If the user enters conditions in this area the system will use those conditions in determining pickup and delivery terminals for freight bills.

The third form takes place if the 'Use Multi Terminals' configuration option of CITYDISP.EXE program is set to 'True' and the zone has a single terminal defined. The button in this case will appear tagged with 'Multi Terminal [\{Terminal Code}]' on its surface. The defined terminal code will appear on the button between the brackets '[ ]'. use the button to access the 'Multi Terminal Setup window' (described before) to edit the existing terminal or add additional terminals.

The fourth form of this button takes place when the 'Use Multi Terminals' configuration option of CITYDISP.EXE program is set to 'True' and the zone has already multiple terminals defined. In this case the button will appear tagged with 'Multi Terminal […​]' on its surface. You cam access the 'Multi Terminal Setup window' (described before) by selecting this button to edit the existing terminals or add additional terminals.

Filter Level

Use the pull down button to select a Filter Level for use with all Zone Codes. Filter Levels correspond as follows:

Terminal

If this Zone represents a freight terminal, check this box. Terminal Zones are used in the CrossDock program. They are also used for the Driver Check In function in the Dispatch program.

Default Term

If you selected the current Zone to be a Terminal (see 'Terminal' field description above), then you can set it to be the default terminal using this field. To do so, just check the checkbox. It’s important to set one terminal zone as the default terminal. TruckMate assigns the default terminal to any freight bill on a trip that is docked (its status changed to 'Docked') but does not have a terminal zone selected for its delivery record. The reason for such logic is to maintain freight bill visibility in Multi Mode Dispatch program. You can only have one terminal as the default terminal. If you select a Zone to be a terminal even though you already have one as a terminal, TruckMate will cancel the first terminal a being the default one and sets the newly selected one as the default terminal. To enforce this concept further, a pre-defined terminal is created called 'Defterm'. If you don’t assign any terminal to be the default one, TruckMate will assume that the predefined terminal, Defterm, is the default terminal. Defterm is a system internal default terminal.

Interchange

Added functionality to allow only configured vendors to interline freight. The user may now configure vendors.

IM Termination

Selecting this option will set any Containers to 'Inactive' Status once they are delivered to this Zone.

Hub

Selecting this option will indicate the zone you are creating is a hub zone (that is, it contains a port, a railyard, an airport, etc.).

Service Type / Setup

Before assigning a 'Service Type' to a specific TruckMate Zone Code, the user must select the 'Setup' button adjacent to the field to access the Service Type Setup window. There, the user must assign a 'Service Type' ID value, a 'Description' of that Service Type, and specify whether this Service Type will disallow the user of the Zone Code in the Customer Service program ('Stop Use').

Once setup, the user can assign a 'Service Type' to the Zone. If the selected Zone is used on a Freight Bill, and it is set to 'Stop Use' = 'True', the system will prohibit a 'NA' Freight Bill from being posted, or an existing Freight Bill from being saved, providing a warning to the user.

Doubles Profile

This button pops up the Doubles Waypoint Profiles window, which can be used to enter the start profile for Segment 2, the end profile for Segment 2 and the Start profile for Segment 3. These three fields define the profiles to implement a doubles trip.

Location Info

Time Zone / DST

Click on the 'Watch' icon to open a window where you can select a Time Zone Code from a list of available Time Zones in your system. Check the 'DST' option to calculate for Daylight Savings Time.

Latitude / Longitude

These fields are used by the mapping function in the Driver Call In program, and by the Mobile Dispatch module. To use your third party mileage software to fill in the values, click on the 'Position' button.

Position

Selecting the 'Position' button will update the 'Latitude' and 'Longitude' fields.

Address Fields

The 'Address 1', 'Address 2', 'City', 'State/Province' and 'Postal Code/Zip Code' can be used to enter the default address location for the currently selected Zone. If you are using third-party Mileage software’s 'Street Level' functionality, and have the Application Configurator program > MILESERV.EXE > 'Street Level' option set to 'True', these address fields will be used to validate the Zone instead of the 'Lookup Code' field value (below).

See the How do I setup street-level mileage calculations? topic for more information.

Country Code

Use the edit-pick to choose the two-character Country Code for the selected zone code. Country Codes are configured on the Countries tab. Only those Country Codes that are flagged as 'Active' will be available for assignment to Zone Codes.

Mileage System

The purpose of the Mileage System setup area is to assign lookup Codes from the mileage system to your Zone Codes. This only needs to be done if the Short Description of your Zone Code does not correspond to your mileage server’s lookup value for this Zone Code. Also, if your mileage software has multiple points that match your Zone’s short description, you can configure which of those points should be assigned to this Zone Code. If a value is entered in the Lookup Code field, the system will use this value when performing third party mileage lookups. If no value exists in this field, the system will use the Zone Code’s Short Description.

Show Inactive

Selecting this flag will make 'Inactive' Mileage software on your system available for selection.

Def. Pcs/Hr

This is for Terminal Zones only and is the loading and unloading speed in pieces per hour. This is the default when no specific customer is involved.

Def. Zone Access

Default number of minutes to access this Zone from the highway.

Mileage System

The drop-down menu at the bottom of the Zone Definition section allows you to select the Mileage System that will be used with your TruckMate Zone codes. 'DMILE' refers to the internal TruckMate mileage table that is accessible from the Customer Service program > Mileage tab. If you have a third party mileage system (and it is properly configured in the Mileage Server program) you will be able to select that software from the drop-down menu as well.

Lookup Code / Validate

Will send the Zone Code’s Short Description to the third party mileage software (selected in the Mileage Server program) and return a matching value, if found. The lookup is not case sensitive. If multiple matches are found, a window will be displayed where you can select the third party’s Code. This happens when there are multiple zip Codes for the same city / state combination. Be sure to select the 'Save' button (check mark) to post the Lookup Code record.

The Zone Tree is a hierarchical structure of your Zone Codes. It is used for filtering in the Dispatch program. The Zone Tree can have as many levels of depth as you like. The Zone Tree is structured in a similar manner to Windows Explorer - sub levels are indicated by a plus symbol, collapsible levels are indicated by a minus symbol. On the right side of the Zone Tree display, Zone Codes that have not been positioned in the Zone Tree are displayed. The Zone Codes 'World' and 'PENDING' display in this area by default.

To position a new Zone Code in the hierarchy, expand the tree so that you can see the new Zone Code’s parent Zone. Then click and drag the new Zone from the right side of the screen into the desired tree position.

Rebuild

The 'Rebuild' button will Rebuild your Zone Tree data based on the Zone Codes available in the TruckMate system. When clicked, this button will generate a Warning window. If you are sure that you want to Rebuild your Zone Tree data, click 'Yes'. Otherwise, click the 'No' button.

Context Menu

Find Zone Code

To display the details of any Zone Code, click on the Zone Code in the Zone Tree, then click the right mouse button and select the Find Zone Code option. This will display the record in the Zone Code Definition section of the screen.

Because in TruckMate 7.0 the Terminal Zone wasn’t used to determine what Terminal a Freight Bill would show in, it’s important that the Customer run the 'Update Terminal Zone' tool after an upgrade. This tool looks at the Parent Zone’s 'Terminal Zone' and then updates any Child Zones that do not have Terminal Zones already. The best practice would be for the Client to manually check their Parent Zones and then run the tool.

If using PC*Miler Streets as your mileage calculation software, users can opt to validate their mileage from zone to zone at street level, meaning that the mileage calculations will be precise down to the actual address associated with a specific zone code.