Rate Shop - Trips (Employee)

General

This topic describes the Rate Shop screen for trips that can be accessed directly from various trip lists in Transportation Manager. Refer to "Rate Shop via Rating (Employee)" for information on the Rate Shop screen that can be accessed from the rating screens for each of the ratable entities (that is, shipment legs, shipments, trips, loads not attached to a trip, non-operational freight).

The Rate Shop screen is displayed if even if there are no eligible tariff/service combinations. However, if the trip is currently undergoing re-planning or is in a Financial Status in greater than Voucher Pending, the browser will be redirected to the Routing, Rating and Scheduling screen for trips.

Initially load the screen

When the Rate Shop screen for trips is first presented, tariff / service combinations will be selected for presentation based on the setting of the "Direct Rate Shop Default Constraint Level" flag in the Global Settings. If setting is "Soft Committed", the Rate Shop list will initially include just the tariff / service combinations that are compatible with the current hard and soft commitments for carrier, service, trailer equipment type, tractor equipment type, trailer domicile and tractor domicile; if "Tendered or Manual Input", only hard commitments will be honored; if "Confirm or Shipment", hard commitments will be honored only if they are based on shipment requirements, plus carrier will be locked if first load on the trip is in a status of Confirming, or higher.

Initially, the first tariff / service combination on the list will be the one selected by the route, rate and schedule process as the preferred alternative, based on the eligibility rules described in the previous paragraph. If scheduling has been deactivated for the trip, only rating and rating will be performed. The sequence will be established based on the "Carrier Selection" method from the Global Settings: if "Cost", sequencing will be based on computed cost; if "Performance", sequence will be based on costs that have been adjusted to reflect relative differences in Carrier Performance (Grade).

When multiple services for a single tariff meet the routing, rating (and optionally scheduling) requirements for a trip, the Rate Shop screen will present a separate row for each qualifying tariff / service combination. While there could potentially be multiple tractor domicile / tractor equipment type combinations for each tariff / service combination with multiple trailer equipment type and trailer domicile combinations for each tractor domicile/equipment type, the Rate Shop screen will initially present the preferred equipment types and domiciles, where the selection within each tariff/service combination will be based on lowest cost and then priority for the equipment types.

Options section

The Options section on the Rate Shop page provides the following controls. These control fields can be used to change the selection criteria for the Rate Shop list. Use the Refresh icon () in the section header to trigger reload of the Rate Shop page after modifying one or more of these selection criteria:

• Include Entries with Invalid Scheduling - If scheduling is active for the trip, the list will initially include only the tariff/service combinations where all scheduling constraints can be satisfied. If there are other combinations where routing/rating succeeds but scheduling fails, this check box will be enabled. Select this check box to also include tariff/service combinations where routing and rating was successful but where scheduling failed. If scheduling is not active for the trip, routing and rating (that is, not scheduling) will be performed when loading the screen and this check box will not be enabled.
• Remove Commitment Constraints - If the "Direct Rate Shop Default Constraint Level" flag in the Global Settings is not "Confirm or Shipment", use this check box to remove existing constraints for carrier, service, equipment types and domiciles. If selected, all hard and soft commitments will be lifted (excluding commitments based on requirements for attached shipments and also excluding commitments for carrier if load status for first load on the trip is Confirming, or higher).
• Equipment Type Selections - Use this combo box to view other eligible equipment types and domiciles for a given tariff/service combination. If value "Applicable Equipment Types" is selected, you must select exactly one tariff/service combination from the list:
  • Best Equipment Types - Default. List will include the best equipment types and domiciles, if applicable, for each tariff/service combination.
  • Applicable Equipment Types - If the carrier for the selected tariff/service combination is domicile based, list will be updated with all eligible tractor domicile / tractor equipment type combinations for the selected tariff/service combination; otherwise, list will be loaded with all eligible trailer equipment types for the tariff/service combination.
• Apply Resource Constraints: Indicates whether resource constraints such as, lane constraints and equipment availability are applied when executing any rate quotation request. If this flag is selected and Transportation Planner configuration is also set to True, then resource constraints will be considered when selecting a carrier/tariff/service combination. If this flag is deselected, then, regardless of the Transportation Planner configuration, resource constraints will not be honored.

Select a tariff service combination

When a tariff / service combination is selected from the Rate Shop screen:

• If the Hard Commit flag in the Rate Shop section is checked, the carrier and service for the trip will be hard committed based on the chosen tariff / service combination. If there is a tractor equipment type and tractor domicile associated with the route, these values will also be hard committed. Otherwise, any of the values associated with the selected route that are not hard committed will become soft committed.
• If scheduling is currently active for the trip but scheduling failed for the selected tariff/service combination, the "Scheduling Active" flag for the trip will be set to False when updates are performed.

Additional Operations

Note: Scheduling Information can be accessed only when the Rate Shop screen is presented for a tariff/service combination where scheduling is active.

Note: Business Hours and Contacts can be accessed for the Origin Location, Carrier and Tariff/Service combination associated with each row on the Rate Shop screen. Origin Location refers to the first pickup stop for freight for the first load on the trip. Information for tractor domicile will be available when the carrier is domicile based.

Note: The Resource Utilization Chart can only be accessed for a tariff/service combination where the applicable carrier is domicile based.