The time slots admin tab is where you set up your time slots.
Go to Timeslots in the Admin section.
You can add new zones at which time slots apply using the green ‘+’ button below the other settings tabs on the left side of your screen.
Once you have added a new zone, you can set up one or multiple configurations for that zone to reflect, for example, different capacities or opening hours on different days of the week or seasons.
For each configuration at that zone, you can specify the following details:
1. Whether the booking slot configuration applies to pickups, deliveries, or both.
2. Effective date - This will be the date range over which your specified time slots configuration will be active (i.e. if no zone is made effective, no time slots will show). This feature can be used to reflect differences in opening hours or truck capacity by season.
3. Effective weekdays - These will be the days of the week over which your specified time slots configuration will be active. This can be used to reflect different opening hours or truck capacity for weekends.
4. Cut-off mode - This setting specifies the amount of time before pick up a carrier must select a booking slot. This can be set either by time (e.g., 90 minutes before pickup) or by day (e.g. 5pm one business day before pickup).
If you set a cut-off period, the carrier will not be able to book in during the window you have specified.
5. Opening hours - Specify the times the site is available to take bookings.
6. Slot size - How wide the time slot is (15 mins, 30 mins, 1-hour etc).
7. Vehicle availability per slot - Select how many vehicles can be booked in for each slot by using the arrows at the bottom. You can also set all by using the ‘Set All’ function in the top right of the configuration window.
8. Set up email notifications for any changes to existing carrier bookings - Add your email in the 'Receive Change Notifications' entry field to receive an email whenever a carrier changes or cancels a slot they have already booked.
This tab allows you to define status labels. You can add as many as you like and set them to any colour of you prefer. Then, you can apply the label of your choosing to each booked slot in the live view (e.g. maintenance, breaks etc).
You can also decide whether carriers are able to book beyond site-specified opening hours using the toggle on the right-hand side. If this is enabled, carriers will be able to book outside opening hours. If disabled, carriers are restricted to booking during opening hours.
Once you have set up your zone configurations, it’s time to map your products to your zones - following these steps:
Add a product mapping. Click 'Add Mapping'.
Select a start date. This will be the date the mapping takes effect (it will continue to remain active until a new mapping is specified for a date in the future).
Here there are two types of mapping; Slotmate mapping (this will only appear if you are providing organisations you work with the Slotmate App), and Business Product Mapping (for order product mapping). Use Business Product Mapping for orders.
Be careful when adding new product mappings as updates will happen live for carriers. Our advice is to set up new mappings at least a few days in advance the lower the chance of carrier bookings already in the system.
Mapping products to:
One Zone - When products can be picked up/delivered from one zone only, you may search by and select the products you wish to map to the zone concerned. Once you have selected all relevant products, click the 'Bulk Assign' button in the top-right of the screen and allocate your desired zone to it.
Multiple Zones - When adding products to multiple zones, you have two options available for presenting the available zones to carriers.
Normal mode – This is enabled by default. If you map a product to multiple lanes, carriers, when booking, will have the option to select from any zone that has been made available for that product.
Overflow mode – This is enabled by selecting the Overflow Mode toggle in the top right of the product mapping screen. If Overflow Mode is enabled, you can select an order of priority for available zones when carriers are booking. Carriers can only book in at a secondary or tertiary zone if that time slot at the primary zone is unavailable.
Unmapped products - There may be occasions when a booking is made against your site, but the product on that booking has not been mapped to any zone.
In this case, the carrier will not be able to make a booking at any zone, as they the product they are picking up/delivering is not mapped to a zone.
By clicking on the warning sign next to the product, the site can map the appropriate booking zone. This will map that product to this booking zone going forward.
Once this has been completed the carrier will then be able to make a booking at the mapped zone.
