OnTime System Features

Calculating Percentages for Tax, Fuel Surcharges, and More

Jeremy Tilley — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 01:32:49 GMT

OnTime gives you very flexible pricing capabilities across the system. We’re happy to say that there is even more power behind OnTime’s pricing architecture starting in release 2.4.133.

Many times there is a need to calculate a percentage of an order for use in determining charges such as fuel surcharge and tax. OnTime has always allowed you to determine these percentages in relation to the order’s base price. Over time it became apparent that more flexibility was needed. Many times only certain charges should be used in the calculation of the percentage. For instance, instance driven and weight charges may factor into a fuel surcharge but items like wait-time would not. Or in the case of taxes, only certain types of items may be taxable at a certain rate.

We’re happy to say that OnTime now easily accommodates these scenarios by allowing you to choose one or more price modifiers that will make up the base price that a percentage would be calculated from.

To use this feature, follow these steps:

Create price modifiers as necessary to describe the percentage charges. These should be set to an Action type of Flat Percentage.
Once created, add them to a price set.
Once added to a price set, you will be able to right click on them and choose Price Modifiers for Percentage Calculation.
Next, place a check mark next to each modifier that should be evaluated and used as the base price to calculate the percentage.

Enabling OnTime GPS Transmission on a Blackberry

Jeremy Tilley — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 05:16:12 GMT

OnTime can work with Blackberry devices to transmit GPS locations. Since OnTime Mobile Web operates primarily through the Blackberry’s web browser, some configuration may be necessary to ensure that the Blackberry successfully transmits location information.

Follow these steps to ensure that the Blackberry web browser is properly configured to allow GPS tracking:

Open the Browser application.
From inside the browser main menu, choose Options > General Properties
Ensure that the Enable JavaScript Location support option is checked as shown here:
Save the changes and return to the browser home page.

After logging into the OnTime Mobile Web application in the browser, you will be prompted with a message box similar to this:

Be sure to check the box labeled Remember my decision for this site and then click the Allow button. OnTime will automatically transmit the device’s current location once every 60 seconds.

Depending on how the Blackberry device is configured, the device may power down automatically if the user is not interacting with the device for a period of time. To work around this power saving features you might try the following:

The user can adjust the power settings to prevent the device from turning off automatically
The user can interact with the device from time to time
A third party application may be loaded to give you greater control over preventing certain applications from turning off. Leave It On is an example of a program that can help with this (http://appworld.blackberry.com/webstore/content/4893)

File Attachments for Orders

Jeremy Tilley — Thu, 13 May 2010 05:55:21 GMT

Ever need to attach a document or scan to an order for your customers? Wouldn’t it be nice to have a convenient way of managing that so your customers could always have access to these files through a web portal. With OnTime you can accomplish very easily.

Just go to the tracking view in either OnTime Management Suite or OnTime Dispatch, open the desired order, and select the attachments tab as shown here:

You can add files to the list by right clicking in the list and choosing the appropriate option or you can simply drag and drop files from anywhere in Windows. There is a limit of 100 KB for each file, which should be fine if your scans are black and white. A PDF scanned black and white (not grayscale) will be around 50 to 80 kb.

When your customers log in to the OnTime Customer Web Portal they will see something that looks like this when viewing that order’s details:

Clicking on the file will download and open it on their computer, where they can then manipulate it or print it.

Sliding Commissions for Drivers

Jeremy Tilley — Wed, 12 May 2010 18:39:01 GMT

If you pay drivers and other employees with a commission, you are no doubt aware of the need to be able to make some things eligible for commission while other things are not. This is especially true when it comes to certain service levels and accessorial/optional charges. At the end of your pay period, you want to be able to print reports from OnTime which show exactly how much you owe a driver. If you have to go back and double check every charge, on every order, so that you can adjust for the commission, you would be adding several hours a month to your workload. There needs to be a better way.

And of course this all has to do with the circumstances. You would no doubt include earnings on a fuel surcharge in the driver’s commission if he were using his own vehicle. However, if he is driving the company vehicle, that same fuel surcharge probably wouldn’t be included in the commission. It might instead go entirely back to the company, who is paying for the fuel.

So there needs to be some way of telling OnTime which charges are eligible for commission and which ones are not. Good news: OnTime has such a feature. This in itself would be very helpful in “programming” OnTime to know in advance which items earn commission and which ones don’t. But is that enough?

Customers have given us feedback that they need more that just an on/off switch to say that a charge is eligible for commission or not. They need more of a sliding scale. And this sliding scale needs to be available on a per charge basis… not across the board.

For instance, let’s assume you pay a driver 50% commission on a standard delivery. But for a rush delivery, even though the base price for the order goes up, the driver needs to get 70% of that rush service base price. We immediately see that an on/off type approach is not sufficient. We need a way of making a 70/30 split in the rush service’s base price.

These types of situations can be handled with ease in OnTime. To apply this adjustment to a service level’s base price, just open the corresponding price set and set the percent of base price eligible for commission as illustrated here:

To make the adjustment to an individual charge, such as a fuel surcharge, open the corresponding price modifier and set the percent eligible for commission as illustrated here:

This powerful yet easy to manage approach makes it possible to “program” into OnTime a wide array of compensation models. Then, at the end of your pay period, you will then be able to print out a report that automatically accounts for these variations in the compensation to each individual driver.

This is yet another way that OnTime saves you time and money each month. If you have questions about how this feature might work in your situation, feel free to contact technical support for more information.

Required Fields for Order Entry

Jeremy Tilley — Wed, 12 May 2010 15:59:23 GMT

Have you or your dispatcher ever forgotten to fill out a field during order entry? Maybe a purchase order or reference number should have been entered and we just forgot. It would be nice to have OnTime remind you to fill out those fields before you hit the submit button. The problem is that most companies wouldn’t do this on a global level. In other words, if only a few customers require that a purchase order be on the order, then why make that a requirement for all of your customers? A better solution is needed. In fact, you need to be able to set order entry requirements on both a global level AND a customer level.

With OnTime, all of this is possible by setting up the required fields feature.

To set required fields at the global level (meaning that it will apply to each and every order, no matter the customer) start OnTime Management Suite, go to the Tools menu, and choose General Options. You’ll notice on the Order Entry tab that there is a button labeled Configure Required Fields. Click this to choose the fields you need.

To set these same requirements, but on a customer level (meaning that the requirement will only apply when creating an order for that specific user), start OnTime Management Suite, navigate to the Customers list, and then open the customer you want to set. You will see on the General information dialog a button labeled Configure Required Fields. Click this to choose the fields you need.

What happens if you have required fields set at both the global and customer level? In that case the requirements are combined and both apply.

We hope this feature will be beneficial in ensuring that your orders are filled out more completely from the very start.

Free Tracking Applets for Your Web Page

Jeremy Tilley — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 23:53:35 GMT

We’ve been asked several times in the past few months for a quick and easy way for shippers to be able to track a package using nothing more than a tracking number. While we’ve always offered robust and feature rich tracking via the OnTime Customer Web Portal, that did require that the shipper log into his account, you to setup such accounts, and for you to have an Enterprise subscription. There needed to be a simpler way.

We are pleased to say that starting today you can offer shippers easy tracking with a free tracking applet. Here is a sample of what it looks like:

This small form, or applet, can be inserted into any web page you wish. It works by OnTime generating a small bit of web page code that you can insert into any page and any location. The tracking applet will allow the shipper to enter a tracking number and then get a real-time status update. They can even see POD information, including signatures at both pickup and delivery points.

This applet is the first of several that will be offered to companies using OnTime. The tracking applet is available free of charge for all subscription levels, not just the Enterprise level.

How can you get it on your web site right away? First, ensure that you are using at least version 2.4.122 of OnTime Management Suite. Go to the Tools menu and choose Web Site Applets. Next click on the Shipment Tracking Form button and copy the code that is generated. It should look something like this:

The last step is to paste it into your web page. If you employ a web site designer, just pass this code onto them and instruct them exactly where you want it to appear on your page. If you maintain your own web site, then using your web site editing program, paste the OnTime generated code in the page you like at the location you need. The code that you paste in will automatically generate the form needed by the shipper to track their orders.

If you have any question on how to integrate this handy tool on your web site, feel free to contact technical support.

How to Check for Pending Changes

Jeremy Tilley — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 16:33:06 GMT

OnTime improves its performance on your computer by synchronizing information in batches, instead of instantly one record at a time. This allows you to keep working quickly when your internet connection becomes slow or even when your connection drops out altogether.

When you make changes and they have yet to fully synchronize with the OnTime server, they appear as Pending Changes. Here’s how you can check if you have pending changes:

If you are running OnTime Management Suite:

From the File menu, choose Data File Management.
Select the Statistics tab.

If you are running OnTime Dispatch:

From the Application button, choose Resources and then Manage Data File as illustrated here:
Select the Statistics tab.

From either program, you should see a window like this with the pending items list:

If the number of pending items appears as zero, then you have nothing waiting to be synchronized to the OnTime server.

Rebuilding Your OnTime Data File on Windows Mobile

Jeremy Tilley — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 04:55:24 GMT

From time to time it may become necessary to rebuild the data file used in the OnTime Mobile for Windows Mobile application. Doing so can allow your mobile device to take advantage of new features that OnTime will implement from time to time and sometimes help resolve synchronization issues.

Note: You will need a good internet connection to perform this operation. Its not suggested that you perform the steps when there is a chance you will be losing internet connectivity.

How to rebuild your data file in OnTime Mobile for Windows Mobile:

Start OnTime Mobile and sign in.
Once signed in and at the home screen, wait for the initial synchronization to complete. You will see a message like this appear:
Once completed, click on the Tools menu and choose Options.
Select the Database tab and then click the Repair Database button.
If successful, a message will appear stating that the recreation was succeeded and the application is synchronizing with the server. Dismiss the message and then tap Cancel to exit the options screen.
Notice the synchronization process as shown here. Wait for the process to complete before using the application.
Once synchronization is completed, you may resume using the program.

If the steps outlined above don’t completely work, try performing a soft reset on your device and repeating the process. This help help ensure that no other programs are keeping a lock on your data file.

Installing OnTime Mobile on Windows Mobile 6.5

Jeremy Tilley — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 04:19:44 GMT

While it’s possible, and in some cases preferable, to install OnTime Mobile to your Windows Mobile 6.5 device by using a connection to your desktop computer, in this post we’ll talk about the alternate method which is to install directly on the device. This works well if you are in the field and don’t have access to a desktop computer to install the software from. Here’s how it’s done:

From your Windows Mobile 6.5 device, start Internet Explorer and navigate to this web site: ppc.ontimesystem.com.
Once there, tap the Download Now link.
You’ll next be asked what you want to do with this file. Choose Menu and then Open as illustrated here:
The program will download to the devices, usually using the “My Documents” folder as the download location.
Once downloaded the installation will start and should look like this for a minute or two:
Once completed, you will see an “All Done” message at the bottom and then the installer will automatically close.
You should then find a shortcut to OnTime Mobile by going to the Start menu and scrolling toward the bottom as shown here:
Finally, tap the shortcut to launch OnTime Mobile.

Send Messages to Drivers via SMS Gateways

Jeremy Tilley — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 18:48:53 GMT

OnTime courier software makes it possible to send text messages to your driver’s phone or pager using “email to SMS gateway”. This saves you money by not having to pay big SMS sending fees. The question often comes up of what email address to use. Usually the address is the ten digit phone number followed by the domain of the mobile service provider. For instance, an address for an AT&T device might look something like this:

5417721234@txt.att.net

You can find a comprehensive list of carriers and their email to SMS gateway addresses here:

http://www.mutube.com/projects/open-email-to-sms/gateway-list/

If you still have trouble locating the correct email address, just contact your mobile service provider and they should be able to assist you with that.

Finally, don’t forget to test the address before you go into production with that phone. Try it in OnTime and also try simply sending an email to that address, ensuring that it goes through without a problem.

Customize the Information on Your QuickBooks Invoices

Jeremy Tilley — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 13:11:37 GMT

OnTime already makes it extremely easy to automatically generate and send invoices to QuickBooks, but what if you want to customize the information that is put into those invoices? Now you can easily do so with the new options available as shown here:

After clicking the Options button, you’ll be presented with a list of fields that you can have included in your invoice as it’s sent to QuickBooks. These fields will appear in each line item under the description. Simply check the items in the list that you would like included.

If you would like to rearrange the order that these fields appear, select the field you would like to move and then drag it above or below the other checked items to ensure you have the placement desired.

Once you are done, click OK to save the changes and continue with your export to QuickBooks.

How to Grant OnTime Permission to Communicate with QuickBooks

Jeremy Tilley — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 20:11:27 GMT

If you would like to take advantage of the ability to export transactions from OnTime to QuickBooks, you’ll need to tell QuickBooks that it’s ok for OnTime to send data over. Usually QuickBooks will automatically prompt you with a window letting you know that OnTime is trying to communicate data. Sometimes however, you might need to manually configure QuickBooks to allow OnTime. If you get a message indicating that “QuickBooks could not be started”, that “QuickBooks is not installed”, or that “OnTime could not find QuickBooks”, try these steps:

Note: You will need to have administrative access to QuickBooks to adjust some of the settings below. If you do not have that access, you may need to contact your QuickBooks administrator to change these settings.

If not already open, start QuickBooks and ensure that the desired company file is loaded.
From OnTime Management Suite, attempt to post an invoice or payment to QuickBooks.
If you are prompted with a window as shown here, then select the option Yes, whenever this QuickBooks company file is open and then click Continue.
If you still have trouble posting to QuickBooks or the window shown above does not appear, then continue with the next step.
close all programs and restart your computer. Sometimes this will help clear out cached settings in QuickBooks that prevent third party programs from connecting properly. It may not be enough to restart just QuickBooks as it may continue to run in the background.
Once you computer is restarted, open QuickBooks and the desired company file.
In QuickBooks, from the Edit menu choose Preferences.
Select the Integrated Applications section.
From the Company Preferences tab, ensure that the check box labeled Don’t allow any applications to access this company file is unchecked.
Ensure that there is a check mark next to the OnTime entry in the list box as illustrated here:
With the OnTime entry selected in the list box, click the Properties button.
Ensure that access rights are selected as illustrated here:
Click OK to save the changes in QuickBooks and close out of all the windows. Now attempt to post an invoice or payment from OnTime.

Connecting OnTime with QuickBooks

Jeremy Tilley — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 07:10:07 GMT

OnTime makes it easy to transfer invoices and payments into QuickBooks 2002 Pro and better.

Minimum requirements

OnTime requires QuickBooks 2002 Pro or better. OnTime does not support QuickBooks Basic versions.

How to export an invoice to QuickBooks

Launch QuickBooks and ensure your company file is opened. The company file that is open in QuickBooks is the one that OnTime will connect with.
From the Billing area in OnTime Management Suite, choose the Invoices list.
Select one or more invoices from the list, right click with the mouse, and choose Post to QuickBooks.
A window will appear with a list of the invoices you selected to transfer. Review the list and then click the button labeled Send to QuickBooks.
If you are prompted for permission to allow OnTime to communicate with QuickBooks, ensure that OnTime is granted those rights.
Answer any onscreen prompts to ensure all information is successfully copied to QuickBooks.

OnTime keeps track of the invoices that are transferred to QuickBooks and will alert you if you try to send the same invoice more than once. However you always have full control over this process in case you want to delete the invoice in QuickBooks and import again from OnTime.

The invoice number in OnTime will be used as the invoice number in QuickBooks. You can choose to override this and change the invoice number once it is in QuickBooks.

OnTime requires that the company name of a customer exactly match the customer name in QuickBooks. If a match is not found, OnTime can create a new customer record for you. It is important to keep the names of your customers consistent between OnTime and QuickBooks in order to minimize duplicate customers.

Line items in the invoices must be assigned to an Item in QuickBooks. OnTime creates new services items in QuickBooks that correspond to the name of your price sets in OnTime. If the service item does not exist in QuickBooks and OnTime creates it for you, it will automatically be assigned to the "Other Income" account in QuickBooks. If you need to change that to point to a different account, you can do so in QuickBooks anytime. QuickBooks should give you the option to retroactively assign those transactions to the new account.

How to export a payment to QuickBooks

Launch QuickBooks and ensure your company file is opened. The company file that is open in QuickBooks is the one that OnTime will connect with.
From the Billing area in OnTime Management Suite, choose the Payments list.
Select one or more payments from the list, right click with the mouse, and choose Post to QuickBooks.
A window will appear with a list of the payments you selected to transfer. Review the list and then click the button labeled Send to QuickBooks.
If you are prompted for permission to allow OnTime to communicate with QuickBooks, ensure that OnTime is granted those rights.
Answer any onscreen prompts to ensure all information is successfully copied to QuickBooks.

OnTime keeps track of the payments that are transferred to QuickBooks and will alert you if you try to send the same payment more than once. However you always have full control over this process in case you want to delete the payment in QuickBooks and import again from OnTime.

The reference number in OnTime will be used as the payment number in QuickBooks. You can choose to override this and change the payment number once it is in QuickBooks.

OnTime will automatically attempt to apply payments to invoices as you've specified in OnTime. However this is subject to those invoices existing in QuickBooks so that the payment in QuickBooks can be applied correctly.

Fast Zone-to-Zone Pricing

Jeremy Tilley — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 00:37:58 GMT

A question often asked about OnTime is whether it can do zone-to-zone pricing. In other words, “can we just type in two zip codes and get a quote?” While there are pros and cons to this method, the short answer is: absolutely yes!

Why not the most accurate method?

Most agree that simply using zip codes is not the most accurate method, especially for couriers servicing a limited area. One reason is because zip codes can be large, irregular areas and most of the time distance is measured from the center of the zip code. In rural areas this is especially a problem because the center of those zip codes will generally be some distance from the city central. Also, since zip codes can be large areas, the actual address you are shipping to could be several miles off. When multiplying this by two zip codes, the discrepancy can double.

Another big problem with this type of measurement is that it is generally measured in a straight line, not along the roads and streets your drivers will use. As a result, the distance will almost always be shorter than in reality. These issues generally cause zip code to zip code measurements to be 5% to 30% off from actual distance.

Due to this, OnTime includes a much more sophisticated mapping and routing web service that will actually find the distance by road between two locations down to the 10th of a mile.

Why we still use it

So why do we still need zip code to zip code pricing? Two reasons:

Speed
Simplicity

Speed is an important factor when you need to offer a customer a quick quote. If you don’t have time to type in the full addresses, then just getting the zip codes involved will be the next best thing. This is also important to couriers just starting out who have yet to invest a lot of time and effort in developing a more comprehensive pricing structure. Using tools in OnTime to automatically download hundreds of zones in just seconds, a new courier can quickly assign some pricing to those zones and then use this feature in OnTime to do quick zip-to-zip pricing:

Quick Zip Code Lookup

From within OnTime Dispatch, start a new order and you will see a ribbon across the top that looks like this:

Notice the Postal Code Lookup button. Clicking on that will cause a window appear like this:

In the example above, we entered a couple of zip codes from the Texas area. Notice that we might also want to specify the locations by name and state instead of by zip code. Once we entered in the zip codes, we can click OK to have OnTime calculate the distance between the two. This distance will be copied into the order as well as any appropriate zone information as shown below:

Notice that we have the zone names (based on each zip code), the calculated distance (30.88 miles), and because we set up some zone based and mileage based pricing we have prices for both methods of charging a customer. Once set up, this whole process of getting a price for the customer takes the dispatcher less than 15 seconds.

This feature is available in OnTime software versions 2.3.1002 or higher. While you may have paid for a feature like this in other software, OnTime includes it for free with any Standard or higher subscription plan.

Download Hundreds of Zones and Postal Codes in Seconds

Jeremy Tilley — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 23:52:09 GMT

We’re always on the lookout for ways to make OnTime save its users time and money. One area in which we thought we could do better was in giving you immediate access to postal codes and zip codes quickly and easily. If you have used PC*Miler, or similar product, in the past you are probably familiar with the quick and easy method of offering quotes to customers by just using two zip codes. The question is, how do you get all those zip codes organized into zones in the first place? OnTime has always allowed you to enter these zones in by hand or import them in bulk from an Excel spreadsheet file, but this didn’t always prove helpful to couriers just starting out as they wouldn’t have such spreadsheets to import from.

In view of that dilemma, we are happy to announce that starting with version 2.3.1002 of OnTime, you can quickly download zones from our web service that is provided free of charge to our customers subscribed to the Standard or higher subscription plans. How does this work?

In OnTime Management Suite, go to the Locations area, and then click on the link labeled Download Zip Codes as shown here:

In the window that appears, you can choose to search for your zip codes by State, City, or Area Code. Then type in the search term and click the Search button. (Note that for state searches, you need to use the two letter state abbreviation.) Once the search is completed, you will see the results in list area.

Here is an example of a search for all zip codes in New York state:

Notice that you can click on the column headers in the list to re-sort the columns. This can allow you to group things in a way easier to understand.

At this point, if you click the OK button all items selected in the list will be imported as zones with the city name being the name of the zone. But what if you only want a few items from the list, not all? Just be sure to select only the ones that you want to bring in. While the example above shows all records selected, the example below shows only a few:

In this case, only the items highlighted in blue will be imported as zones. Remember the shortcut in to select individual items from a list like this is to hold down the control key (CTRL) on the keyboard while you click the items with your mouse.

After you make your selections, click OK and you will see the new zones imported along with a message like this:

Merging Zones

If you import a lot of zip codes in this way, it may be helpful to merge them together into more manageable zones. We’ve made this easier by adding a function for merging zones together. To learn how to use this feature, click here.