Transportation Cockpit

The transportation cockpit is the main UI for performing planning. Transportation planning, including freight order (FO) creation, is conducted in the transportation cockpit. Transportation requirements lists (freight units (FUs)), capacity lists (vehicle resources and schedules), order lists, and order details can be all seen in the transportation cockpit. The following are transportation cockpit tasks:

• Manual planning
• Creation of transportation proposals
• VSR optimization
• Load planning
• Carrier selection
• Triggering of a tendering process
• Creation of delivery proposals
• Creation of freight bookings

The cockpit requires users to enter several profiles that govern the content of generated result lists. The selection profile determines what is to be planned, that is, what FUs or FOs are pertinent for a particular objective. The planning profile determines how the selected FUs are planned. The capacity selection profile restricts the planning run in relation to the transportation resources that can be used. Once the profiles have been determined, planners can use the cockpit to create freight bookings or manage existing FOs.

The transportation cockpit is dynamic and can be configured as per users requirements. The transportation cockpit layout offers flexible settings to control what information is presented and the processing options available. Depending on the user requirements, certain elements can be hidden or visible on a page. Page layouts are used to define a view the user wants to see during planning. A page layout defines the buttons, functions, levels, and hierarchies that are displayed in the transportation cockpit, carrier selection, and delivery creation application UIs.

A combination of selection and planning profile together with a page layout can be assigned to a profile and layout set, such that this specific planning scenario is always shown in this layout, while another planning scenario requires another layout. Profile and layout sets are used to distinguish between different planning areas or functions. One profile and layout set can be assigned as the default. Such a profile and layout set is based on the specific information requirements of a planner. For example, in one scenario, a planner has to plan liquids on tank trucks and must be able to see the volume of product, while in another scenario, the liquids are in barrels on pallets and the planner requires the pallet count to be displayed. It is possible to switch between different layouts on-the-fly, for example, if a multistep planning process leads to different needs in each step. The following are a few examples of different layout sets:

• A set for a planner who plans the next day
• A set for a dispatcher who makes the planning changes for today
• A set for an air and ocean planner
• A set for carrier selection
• A set for each area planner per country or region

In the standard layout, the main screen is broken up into four quadrants (views). The maximum number of views in any layout is 6. If a user works with several screens, they can choose a separate layout for each screen. The transportation cockpit can be deployed in multiple windows on up to three screens. Note 2551221 provides additional information on this topic:2551221.

Hierarchical view: You organize the view in the transportation cockpit by creating hierarchical views for FOs, freight bookings, and transportation units (trailer units, rail-car units, container units, and package units). If you organize these business documents into hierarchies, you can filter and sort various areas in the transportation cockpit according to specific criteria, such as the vehicle resource. Defining hierarchical views simplifies your rescheduling activities and the coupling and uncoupling of trailers. The following notes provide additional information on this topic:

• 2768608
• 2182927

Maps: The map can be displayed as one screen area in the transportation cockpit or in full screen. However, having the map displayed as one screen area enables the planner to directly see the selected FUs, FOs or bookings, transportation units, and resources on the map. You can perform the following actions on the map:

• Address Search: You can use the context menu of the map to start the address search and display the search results on the map. The address search is based on the geocoding of the location. This allows you to perform several address searches and display the search results simultaneously on the map. You can use the context menu of the map to hide the search results individually or completely.

• Route Display: You can use the context menu of a connection line to determine a route display along real street routes. This function depends on the geographical information system available in the system. Alternatively, you can use the context menu of a resource to display the connection lines of all FOs assigned to this resource.

• Dynamic Adjustment: You can adjust the map display to meet your individual needs by selecting the option Show Display Profile from the context menu for the map. For example, you can specify whether map objects are to be shown or hidden, whether you want to display the descriptions, and whether you want to allow clustering for overlapping nodes.

• Create Location and Transportation Zone: You can use the context menu for the map to create locations and transportation zones directly on the map. The locations or transportation zones are created where you open the context menu. However, you cannot use the context menu to change the positioning of an object on the map.

• Proximity Search: You can use the context menu of the map to find resources as well as unplanned FUs or transportation units that are close to a particular point on the map.

• Resource Item: You can use the context menu of the map to specify the exact location of a resource at any time.

• Differentiate Between Business Documents Using Colors: You can use the context menu of the map to display different colors for multiple business documents selected simultaneously. This enables you to better differentiate between the documents. The color of each respective document is displayed in the Color column in the document list.

Gantt Chart: The Gantt chart is fully integrated into the transportation cockpit. The Gantt chart is a screen area in the transportation cockpit, which can be enabled in a page layout of the transportation cockpit. You can also update maps, generate transportation proposals, and run optimizer planning for the selected items in the Gantt chart and in the lists and hierarchies of the transportation cockpit. The Gantt chart has the following features:

• Transparent availability of resources and drivers: The chart panel presents you with an overview of the availability of vehicle resources, handling resources, and drivers over time. For example, different colors indicate whether a truck has a document assigned to it, or whether it is traveling, in downtime, or in nonworking time. You can also check whether a handling resource is available or in downtime at a location and if drivers are available or if they are absent. You can use the Operating Time Calendar hierarchy to visualize the operating time configured for a specific location. The Operating Time Calendar displays the nonworking times and activities occurring in that location. These activities are: loading, unloading, prepare, and finalize. The hierarchy also displays the overlaps between loading activities.

• Visibility of utilization of resources: You can display the level of consumed capacity of a vehicle resource at a specific point in time. The system displays the utilization curve of the selected vehicle resource in the chart panel. The tool-tip along the utilization curve displays the loading utilization of a vehicle resource in terms of volume, weight, alternative quantity, or normalized quantity, depending on your settings in customizing. The tool-tip along the utilization line of a handling resource presents you with information on the available capacity, required capacity, and overcapacity of this handling resource at a specific point in time. You can display loading or unloading activities that are planned for a handling resource at different times.

• Option to display or hide document separators in the Gantt chart: The Gantt chart presents you with document separators indicating the precise document start and document end. You can choose to display or hide document separators in the Gantt chart by selecting the corresponding checkbox in the legend area. Document separators apply to the resources (truck, trailer, driver, locomotive, rail-car, and container).

• Option to display or hide time windows in the Gantt chart: The Gantt chart presents you with time windows indicating when goods are to be picked up and delivered. In the Gantt chart, time windows are shown as dotted lines and solid lines. You can choose to display the time windows by using the corresponding check-boxes in the legend area.

• Option to display and solve warnings in the Gantt chart: The Gantt chart presents you with warnings such as the Missing Stage warning or the Incorrect Driver Assignment warning that are indicated by a warning icon. You can solve a warning using the context menu. You can choose to display or hide this type of warning in the Gantt chart by selecting the respective checkboxes in the legend. The legend area also displays the number of warnings for each warning type. Moreover, the number is dynamically updated once a warning of a certain type is solved or generated. Besides of the legend area, the Number of Warnings column in the table area shows you the total number of warnings on each row in a real-time manner. You can also deselect a certain warning type in the legend area so that warnings of that type are not considered when calculating the total number.

• Insights into planning and execution status of documents and transportation activities: If you transfer event-related data from SAP Event Management to SAP Transportation Management, you can gain real-time insights into the planning status and execution status of the documents and transportation activities in the chart panel. The statuses of documents and activities are presented in predefined colors and patterns, as described in the legend. Note that the Gantt chart automatically hides a legend item in the legend area if no corresponding documents or activities are shown in the chart area.

• Flexible and dynamic switch between different views: You can switch between a single view and a dual view (with its horizontal and vertical versions). In the chart panel of each view, you have the option to switch between a document view and an activity view. The dropdown lists and the related push buttons in the toolbar enable you to switch dynamically between views and hierarchies that are predefined in Customizing. For example, in a horizontal dual view, you can choose to display FOs in the upper view and trucks in the lower view, so that you can assign unplanned FOs to trucks using drag and drop.

• Flexible rendering of hierarchical structures: You can simplify the hierarchical structure of document flows in Customizing so that stage documents can be directly shown under a higher-level parent, instead of their direct parent. This provides you with more flexibility to render document flows in the Gantt chart.

• View all objects with one click: Bird Eye provides you with the capability to have a panoramic view of all objects with one click. With this feature turned on, the system intelligently adjusts the zoom rate so that all items are displayed on the chart without a need to move the horizontal scroll bar. This feature can be implemented on all rows or just on visible rows. This can be configured in Gantt Chart customizing.

• Personalize table area appearance: You can personalize the appearance of the table area with the following options:

  • Display or hide a column

  • Modify the column sequence

  • Adjust the column width

  Moreover, you can save all personalization settings as a variant so that the table area is presented with the saved settings for the next time you load the Gantt chart.

• Configurable visualization of notifications: You can define the color and height of a certain type of notifications in the Gantt chart. Moreover, you can configure when to display the following types of notifications by specifying a utilization range value of vehicle resources:

  • Empty run

  • Low utilization

  • Overcapacity