Release Date: April 2024
Here you will find the latest features, improvements, and bug fixes for the 365 Management.
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 the 365 Management 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. This distance and duration are used by the 'Nearest or Soonest Vehicle?' setting 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 takes into account 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.
Bookings 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 of 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.
Charging Zones: Combined Going Through Charges
When creating charging zones, we have a new feature that allows a charge to be set from an entry and exit point, in which the zone you enter and then exit from decides what charge is applied.
To use this feature:
- Go to Pricing Payments > Area Groups > Charging zones.
- Create a new group or edit an existing group.
- Right-click on the zone that you want to apply charges to and select Combined Going Through Charges from the dropdown menu.
Or click on the Cog (
) icon next to the zone name and navigate to the Combined Going Through Charges tab.
- Once on the Combined Charges tab, you can select another zone by clicking + Add Zone.
- Modify the Price and Cost and add any required capabilities.
- Select Confirm to apply your changes.
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 job offer, job accept, and bid offer information 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.
Improvements
Original Queue Position Setting: Tooltip Text Update
We have updated the tooltip text for the Original Queue Position Setting in Driver/Vehicles > Driver Companion > Global Settings > Acceptance to better reflect the settings functionality.
Updated Translations
In this newest release, we have updated the translations available throughout B&D to ensure all text has the correct translations available.
Bug Fixes
- Fixed: Issue in Booking Configuration > Address Configuration is displaying the wrong units for local addresses where area width and height are showing as metres instead of kilometres.
- Fixed: Issue when deleting an add-on group from the settings group area, the list is not updating.
- Fixed: Issue where Phantom agents are not being called on startup.
- Fixed: Issue with Independent Companies enabled, an address group templated cannot be created.