Freightools can email the documents related to a shipment on its own, the moment a process step on that shipment comes due. This article explains what that alert type does and where it is chosen. The mechanics of alerts — recipients, templates, limiting an alert to certain service mixes — are in Alerts in Freightools, and how a process step gets its due date is in Process Steps in Freightools.
Before you start
- Alerts are managed under Settings → Process Configuration → Alerts, and a new one starts with New Alert. The grid lists each alert's Alert Type, Recipients Party, Creator User, Email Sender, Notification and Email. See Alerts in Freightools.
- Process steps, and the dates they are expected by, are configured per service mix by your Freightools administrator. See Process Steps in Freightools and How to configure a service mix.
- The documents Freightools emails are generated from your printout templates. See How to manage printouts in Freightools.
What the alert does
When a process step on a shipment comes due, the alert emails the documents related to that shipment. Nobody has to open the shipment, generate the documents and attach them to an email — the hand-off happens at the moment the step is due.
This is different from the process-step alerts described in Alerts in Freightools, which are triggered when a step is completed and its execution tool has run. This alert is tied to the step coming due, not to someone marking the step complete.
Documents that Freightools generates are named automatically from the shipment's parameters, so the files that arrive in the recipient's inbox can be told apart without opening them.
Choose the alert type
The alert is an alert type like any other, chosen when you create or edit an alert:
- Go to Settings → Process Configuration → Alerts and click New Alert, or open an existing alert.
- Under Alert Type, choose Process step - Automatic document sent by email. It sits in the same family as Process step - Automatic PDF sent by email, the type that emails a step's PDF printout when the step's expected date arrives.
- Fill in the rest of the alert the way Alerts in Freightools describes for step-based alerts: who receives it under Party Entity, with a CC Party or Specific Emails if you need them; whether it goes out as an Email, a Notification or both; any Service Mix or Service Trade restriction; and, once the alert type is chosen, the step it watches under Step, with its document under Execution Tool.
- Click Save Changes.
Recipient parties include Customs Operator To (SO), so the customs operator on the shipping order can be the recipient.
Set up the same alert for another flow
The alert grid has a clone option. To create a second alert that differs only in its service mix, service trade or recipient, clone the one you have and change what differs, instead of filling in a new alert from scratch.
If something goes wrong
| You see | What to do |
|---|---|
| The documents were not emailed when the step came due | Check that the alert is restricted to the right Service Mix and Service Trade for this shipment, and that the step on the shipment is the one named in the alert. See Alerts in Freightools. |
| The step's due date is wrong | The due date is the step's Expected Date, calculated from the shipment's milestone dates. See Process Steps in Freightools. |
| You cannot find the alert type | If Process step - Automatic document sent by email is not in the Alert Type list on your company, ask your Freightools contact. |