Release Date: April 2024
Here you will find the latest features, improvements, and bug fixes for Ghost.
To ensure you have the best experience using our product, we recommend updating to the latest version available.
Note: The features available to you will depend on the configuration and the current version of Ghost you're using.
What's New
Route Based Dispatch
We are excited to announce the new Route Based Dispatching feature. This feature considers several factors such as the route, traffic, and speed to determine the route for dispatching instead of a straight line calculation. This will result in more accurate Estimated Time of Arrivals (ETAs).
For this new routing-based feature, we have some new settings in 365 Management which include:
A new toggle in Dispatch > Dispatch Configuration > General Settings called 'Nearest or Soonest Vehicle?' For this setting, there are two options to choose from:
- Nearest Vehicle: The vehicle that is closest by distance is dispatched to the booking.
- Soonest Vehicle: The vehicle that will reach the pickup first is dispatched to the booking. The options in backup zones and bidding mode are also changed to 'Soonest Vehicle' upon selecting this option.
Along with the new routing options, there is a new setting that controls the routing engine that is used to work out the routes between the suitable drivers and the pickup of a booking. This setting is located in Dispatch > Dispatch Configuration > Route Calculation. The setting 'Mode for Dispatch' allows you to set which routing to use for dispatch.
To use Route Based Dispatch, Mode for Dispatch must be set to Google, Autocab Routing (Quickest) or Autocab Routing (Shortest). With these options, the calculated routes come with a distance and a duration. The 'Nearest or Soonest Vehicle?' setting uses this distance and duration to determine who to send the booking to.
Traffic Based Dispatch
Traffic Based Dispatch considers live traffic data to optimise routing in real-time. To enable Traffic Based Dispatch for your system, you must select the Google option as Google's suggested route considers real-time traffic conditions between the drivers and pickups.
Important: The Google option requires an API key and Google's route calculation comes at a cost to yourself.
Booking Recipes: New Name & Conditions
To make Booking Recipes easier to use and accommodating for more users, we have introduced some new enhancements which include:
Name Change
Renaming the feature to 'Booking Recipes'. All instances of 'Special Bookings' throughout 365 have been replaced.
Conditions
Improvements to the conditions section of booking recipes, including:
- Underlining the configurable parts of each condition in the list in Booking Recipes for better visibility of what can be configured.
- Two new conditions:
- "If the pickup/dropoff time matches this schedule" Found under the Time category.
- "If the booked by company does/does not match the completed by company" Found under the Account category.
- Adding a filter and clickable categories buttons to the top of the conditions list modal. Previously, you would have to scroll down and visually search for the condition.
Available Vehicle List
When creating a booking, you'll find the Available Vehicle List feature right below the map on the booking form. This feature is a list that shows all available drivers in the main zone and backup zones for this booking based on the dispatch settings you've chosen, giving you better visibility of all the suitable drivers available for the job.
This includes the following features:
- Time in Zone: You can see how long a driver has been in a zone, along with their vehicle's call sign and current zone location.
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Live ETA: The system displays the live estimated time of arrival (ETA) of your selected vehicle and its call sign at the top of the map. You can select different vehicles in the list by using Ctrl + Arrow Up/Arrow Down.
- Map Shortcuts: To easily navigate around the map, use Ctrl + Shift + Arrows to move around and Ctrl + Shift + '+' / '-' to zoom in and out.
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Approx. Distance: Displays the approximate distance of the vehicle from the pickup location. This column is hidden by default, to add this:
- Right-click on the table header.
- Select Customise Table.
- Click the Add ( + ) button next to Approx. Distance.
- Update Frequency: The system checks every 5 seconds for available vehicles and updates the list accordingly for up to 5 minutes, after which the list stops updating.
Functionality Groups: Booking Offer Fields
We have added Booking Offer Fields functionality to Functionality Groups, allowing drivers from different fleets or groups to access different information fields on job offers, job accepts and bid offers on their driver companion.
Within Functionality Groups, there are two settings to choose from:
- Use Global Setting: Enabled by default and uses the global booking offer fields for this functionality group.
- Custom: Gives you the option to create customised booking offer fields that the functionality group will use, and the global booking offer fields will be ignored.
In addition, we have also added two new fields in Booking Fields called 'Payment Type' and 'Capabilities' for Bid for Active and Bid for Prebooking. This enables drivers to see the information under these categories on the bidding lists in Driver Companion.
Note: Driver Companion does not currently support these fields so they will not appear. Support will be introduced in a future version.
To use this feature:
- In Management, go to Drivers / Vehicles > Driver Companion > Settings Groups > Functionality Groups.
- Edit an existing group or create a new one.
- Navigate to the Interface tab.
- Scroll down to the bottom of the screen until you see Booking Offer Fields.
- Select the Use Global Setting to use the global settings or create a new configuration of fields by selecting Custom.
- If Custom is enabled, click on the Booking Offer Fields button.
- Here you can enable or disable any fields for Job Offer, Bidding and After Accepting.
- Make sure to Save to apply your changes.
Pay By Link: Link Time Validity
We have extended the Pay By Link validity period to 24 hours and added a feature to invalidate the original link upon sending a second link.
Bug Fixes
- Fixed: Issue where occasionally the confirmation that a Pay By Link payment has succeeded or failed does not make it through to Ghost.
- Fixed: Issue where searching for jobs that occurred on the 29th of February is causing an error.
- Fixed: Issue where an exception is thrown when a suspended driver is deleted and then purged.
- Fixed: Issue where the Charge for Prebooking feature is not being applied on Fixed tariffs.
- Fixed: Issue where Cab Exchange bookings could be auto-completed when they are "Allow Final Price" bookings.
- Fixed: Issue where customers details on multi-pickup bookings are not saving.
- Fixed: Issue where the first Judopay payment is duplicated.
- Fixed: Issue affecting Ghost Windows clients.