The following is a quick overview of the very simplest scenario of what the
Loadman Fleet Manager does.
The Loadman Fleet Manager (FM) has a Route. This Route can be manually
entered, generated by the FM from Customer information, or imported from
virtually any external data source. The Customer information that supports
FM Route generation can also be imported or manually entered.
See the tutorial on database setup for more
information on the database.
The Route is sent to the Meter by issuing a command at the FM interface.
(Depending on your needs, the FM can also print a Route sheet with optional
bar-codeds.)
See the Route menu for more information.
The Driver does the Route selecting each load at the meter (or scanning
it from the Route sheet) as it is picked up. It is also possible to train
the FM to use GPS data to automatically determine the source of pickups,
thus eliminating some of the Driver's work load.
The load data and GPS way points are automatically sent to the FM.
The data is then available at the FM for viewing (in tables or on maps),
printing reports, or exporting to another application.
Now let's do it again with specific instructions of one way to actually make
something happen.
You configure your connections (menu : tools : connections). This will
depend the details of your specific installation and you will be assisted in
this step. This is only done once when the equipment is first installed.
Enter your Drivers and Trucks into the FM.
Prepare a text file that might look like this (perhaps exported from
your current computer database or application). See
database setup for information on more complex
data importing.
ACCOUNT,LOAD-NAME,ROUTE
10091,JOES DELI,ROUTE A
10092,DENNIES,ROUTE B
10093,COWS DAIRY,ROUTE A
10094,LUMBERVILLE,ROUTE C
10095,MCDONALDS,ROUTE A
Create Microsystems will provide an import description file that describes
your chosen import data layout to the FM so the data can be imported.
From the menu tools, select data import. You will then select the
import description file that was provided and then the file containing your
import data.
From the Route view, assign each Route to a Truck (this only needs
to be done once, not when the Route is re-imported due to changes).
From the Route view download the Route to the Truck (meter actually).
Run the Route, the Driver selects each load from the meter.
When the Route is complete and the data has been collect,
open the LoadData view, run a filter to select loads that have not
been exported, and select export. You will then select a destination file
for the data or it can be viewed in a spreadsheet.
The export data will contain an the account number for each load
so that you can connect it to the proper Customer.
The export file might look like.
Any other fields that you see in the LoadData view can be added to the export.
In many cases, more data would have to be provided in the import
(eg: address) or entered into the FM (eg: Products/Problems,
which can then be selected by the Driver from the meter)
to have meaningful data provided at the export.