Configuring SAP Dock Appointment Scheduling

SAP Dock Appointment Scheduling helps shippers and carriers to streamline the booking process, reduce waiting times, and improve dock utilization.

This image depicts the key entities modeled in SAP Business Network for Freight Collaboration to support dock appointment scheduling:

• The yard is an enclosed area outside a warehouse where vehicles and transportation units are dealt with.
• A gate is a physical gate at the yard entrance, where vehicles and transportation units (TUs) arrive at or leave the yard.
• The loading point represents a set of warehouse docks.
• A docking location represents a group of loading points.

Dock appointment scheduling helps shippers and carriers to streamline the booking process, reduce waiting times, and improve dock utilization.

To enable dock appointment functionality, you must perform the following steps.

1. Set up location master data.

   You can set up location master using any of the options below:

   • Manual location creation
   • Manual Excel upload
   • Replication from SAP S/4HANA using Data Replication Framework (DRF)
   Note

   More information on this is available in the Manage Locations section of application help for SAP Business Network Freight Collaboration.
2. Define entity settings

   The Manage Entities application allows you to define and manage attributes for loading points, docking locations, gates, and yards.

   Note

   You can find detailed information about defining each of these entities in the Manage Entities section in application help for SAP Business Network Freight Collaboration.

You can define the attributes of the loading point and manage business hours and block time.

Loading points situated in the same geographical location are grouped into one docking location. You can define the attributes of a docking location and manage the corresponding loading points.

You can define the attributes of a gate and manage business hours.

You can define the attributes of a yard and maintain the corresponding gates and docking locations.

You can also integrate dock appointment scheduling functionality in SAP Business Network for Logistics with external systems, such as:

• SAP Extended Warehouse Management (SAP EWM)
• SAP Transportation Management (SAP TM)
• SAP Yard Logistics for SAP S/4HANA

For this integration, SAP Business Network for Logistics offers APIs that can be used to trigger appointment creation and cancellation in SAP Business Network for Logistics, from an external system. These APIs can also be used to communicate appointment confirmation from SAP Business Network for Logistics to your external system.

SAP Business Network for Logistics enables collaborating with customers and carriers who are not onboarded as business partners in SAP Business Network for Logistics.

If the customer or consignee is not onboarded in SAP Business Network for Logistics, the system creates an appointment and sends this appointment to the guest customer in an email notification. The guest customer can sign in using the guest URL and can either assign carriers or decide to execute the transportation on their own.

A dynamic URL or a static URL can be configured for guest users.

• Configure dock appointment scheduling by setting up location master data and defining attributes for loading points, docking locations, gates, and yards.
• Integrate dock appointment scheduling with external systems using provided APIs, supporting solutions like SAP EWM, SAP TM, and SAP Yard Logistics.
• Enable guest user access to appointments via configurable dynamic or static URLs for non-onboarded customers and carriers.