Mobile Dispatch Board | Overview
- Cooper Blakemore
Introduction to the Mobile Dispatch Board (MDB)
The Mobile Dispatch Board is specially designed for use on mobile and tablets. No setup is needed to use it, as it will automatically appear when accessing the Visual Dispatch Board from the Operations App on smaller screens. It provides a compact, readable user interface that makes it easy to manage your shipments and drivers while on the go.
You can swap between three work views with the tabs at the top of the Mobile Dispatch Board, On Demand, Routed and Driver. The Driver view shows you all the work currently assigned to individual drivers, and whether they are active or inactive. Each work view also offers drop-down filter and sort menus so you can quickly focus on what you want to see, such as seeing all Unassigned shipments, Inactive drivers, including or excluding specific Fleets, and more.
By clicking on the three-dot menu in the top-right corner of any On-Demand shipment, Route or Driver card, you’ll have access to several management options, such as assignment or reassignment, updating times and status, cancellation, and more.
For optimal experience, we recommend you access the Mobile Dispatch Board using Chrome or Firefox, as these will give you the best performance.
This page is for the Modern Operations App.
Navigating the Mobile Dispatch Board
You can get started by simply going to the Visual Dispatch Board on the sidebar of the Operations App from a mobile device or tablet, and the Mobile Dispatch Board will open automatically. If the sidebar is not visible, click on the hamburger menu icon in the top-left corner.
Once you’re inside the Mobile Dispatch Board, you will notice three work views you can swap between at the very top of the screen, On Demand, Routed and Driver.
At the bottom of the screen are view-dependent counters. This is the On Demand view, so the counters are showing numbers for shipments that are Assigned, Unassigned, On Time, Almost Late, and Late.
Using the On Demand Work View
From this view, you can view and manage all your existing On Demand shipment cards. You can sort cards by Order ID, Pickup From and Deliver To. You can also filter cards by Assigned, Unassigned or All, and include or exclude cards based on Fleets and Order Times.
Let’s take a closer look at an On Demand shipment card.
The Status Indicator Bar on the far-left side will tell you at a glance whether a shipment is Unconfirmed, Late or Ready. Completed shipments are removed from the On Demand work view.
At the top of an On-Demand card is the Shipment ID number. By selecting this number, we can open a page with additional information about the shipment, as well as a link to Get Directions.
We can also select the three-dot menu on the shipment card for management options.
Selecting the View Tracking Status option takes us to the Shipment Status screen, where we can view and edit timestamps, barcode, review POD and POD Comments, signature, and assigned fleet.
Finally, you can filter and sort what cards you want to appear in the On Demand work view. The left drop-down menu is for filtering by Assigned and Unassigned, the right lets you sort by Order ID, pickup and delivery, and the three-dot menu has additional filter options covering broader operations. There is also a Search bar which can be used for locating specific shipments, searching by address, driver or other details.
Using the Routed Work View
From this work view, you can assign/remove a driver from a route, and activate/deactivate all stops. You can sort the route cards by Route ID, Driver ID, Start Time and End Time. You can also filter routes by Open, Completed, or All and include or exclude based on Fleets and Calendar.
Let’s take a closer look at a Route card.
The Status Indicator Bar on the far-left side of the Route card will tell you whether No Stops Are Late So Far, 1 or 2 Stops Are Late, or 3+ Stops Are Late.
Much like an On-Demand card, by selecting the Route ID/Name at the top-middle of the card, we can view additional info.
We can select the three-dot menu to open management options for the Route card. Here, we can Assign/Remove from a driver or Activate/Deactivate All Stops.
Like other work views, you can sort and filter the Route cards to suit your operational needs. There is also a Search bar which can be used for locating specific routes by Route ID or addresses.
Using the Driver Work View
From this work view, you’re able to see all your drivers. You can filter by Active/Inactive or Both, and you can sort them by Driver ID, Vehicle, Stops or Name. You can include/exclude Fleets from the results, if for example, you just wanted to see your downtown drivers, not those in the suburbs. Last, you can also use the functions on a driver’s card to view all of their Active Work, Check them In/Out, force them to Logout, or pin their location.
Let’s take a closer look at a driver card.
We can select the three-dot menu on a driver card for functions.
Active Work lets us see all On-Demand and Routed work a driver currently has assigned to them.
You can also filter and sort driver cards, including by Fleet.
How to Increase MDB Performance
If you’re using older devices, browsers besides Chrome and Firefox, or you have an extremely high number of shipments or routes, you may experience slower performance on the Mobile Dispatch Board.
One way you can immediately increase performance is changing the number of cards loaded per page. If you’re experiencing slowdown, try changing this from 100 to 25, or lower. Do this for your On Demand, Routed and Driver work views at the same time, so you only have a total of 30-75 cards total loaded across all work views.
