Overview
Voyager is a freight management system (FMS) which supports the booking and shipment planning of Road shipments between the UK and NI/Europe.
Processes
Bookings are sent into the system.
Shipments are created based on the bookings and priced using rate cards.
Bookings are closed once the shipment has been delivered or the booking has been cancelled.
Relevant notifications are sent to inform the different parties of the progress of the booking.
Use Cases
Voyager is only being used by a company called Knauf.
Bookings are sent in XML format from Knauf SAP to Voyager when required.
No UI exists for sending or editing information; everything is done by API calls from Knauf’s SAP system.
Process Flow
The application opens on the dashboard page
. The dashboard page displays the main menu of the application, the current user, search and the current list of bookings and shipments, as well as a list of exceptions associated with them.
From the dashboard page you go to the booking page, with the status “New”
. The booking page displays all the information related to the booking, such as Summary, External System Details, Collection, Delivery, Goods, Containers and Notes. To create a shipment from this booking, you need to click on the “Create shipment” button in the Call to Action (CTA) panel.
Each booking can be cancelled on the booking page after clicking on the "Cancel booking" button in the CTA panel
.
After creating a shipment, the application redirects to the shipment page with “Planning” status
.
On this page we see all the information related to shipping, such as Summary, Carrier and Costs, Activities, Goods and Notes. Each section on this screen is editable. After entering all the necessary information about the shipment, you need to click on the “Planning Complete” button.
After successful validation, the shipment goes into the “Awaiting Approval” status
. In this status all the editable shipment sections become
readonly, except “Carrier and Costs” section. From this status we can replan shipment and go back to Planning status by clicking “Replan” button from CTA panel.
After obtaining client approval, shipment goes to “Approved” status
. It still can be replanned from the CTA panel by clicking “Replan” button. After clicking “Goods Collected” button, user must select a date of collection and confirm.
Then shipment goes to “In Transit” status
. In this state user must confirm export clearance completed by clicking “Export Clearance Completed” button in the CTA panel.
The shipment status changes to ”Export Ready”
. In this state user just need to select delivered date and confirm it.
After confirmation, the shipment goes into status “Delivered”
.
Shipment can be closed from this status by clicking “Close Shipment” button in the CTA panel.
Every shipment can be cancelled by clicking “Cancel Shipment” button in the CTA panel. Status of such shipment changes to “Cancelled”
.
From each shipment user can navigate back to booking by clicking “Associated booking” link in the CTA panel. A booking that has shipping will have the status “Has Shipment”
.
Documents can be attached to each shipment in the CTA panel in the documents section. Documents can be attached to a shipment regardless of its status, unless it is closed.
From the dashboard page user can also navigate to the archive page
. In this page user can view the list of closed shipments with the status “Delivered” or “Cancelled”.
Screenshots
System Flow
Overall Architecture
Organisation Roles
Organisation Roles
Organisations are a critical and central part of the overall system, defining the various parties involved in freight movement & management activities, and internal SEKO organisations, branches and departments.
They are a critical part of defining user access rights and client coverage. Processing and viewing of bookings and shipments and carrier instructions are largely defined along organisational boundaries.
Each organisation can have one or more ‘role types'. The possible types of role the system needs to be aware of is the following:
Role Type | Concept |
|---|---|
EXTERNAL ENTITY | Purely a legal entity, for external parties |
INTERNAL ENTITY | Purely a legal entity, for the SEKO organisational parent entities |
CARRIER | A basic carrier of goods |
HAULIER | Another kind of carrier covering line-haul, the transmission of goods over longer distances |
PARTNER AGENT | For example, another freight forwarding agent that SEKO receives goods from, or provide goods to, at a handover point |
CLEARING AGENT | A party responsible for carrying out all tasks relating to import or export clearance |
CONSIGNOR | The party of record, that is responsible for sending the goods at the beginning of the shipment process |
CONSIGNEE | The party of record, that is responsible for receiving the goods at the end of the shipment process |
SHIPPER | The party that is requesting the shipment. In many cases this is the same as the consignor |
RECEIVER | The party that is receiving the shipment. In many cases this is the same as the consignee, but in the case of Knauf UK the receiver party will be the client of Knauf UK that originally ordered the goods, but the Consignee of record will be the Knauf Sales Office that acts for that receiver. |
PORT | The organisation that owns / runs an international port |
INTERNAL BRANCH | An internal SEKO business entity or branch |
INTERNAL DEPARTMENT | An internal SEKO department e.g. Manchester Road Exports |
EXTERNAL DEPARTMENT | An external department, if it is necessary to distinguish at a lower functional level than the external party roles stated above |
Locations
Locations exist within Organisations. Each Location can be given one or more ‘capabilities’, which describes what that location is used for within the end-to-end shipment flows.
Capability Type | Concept |
|---|---|
COLLECTION POINT | Goods collection point for this location. Typically this is a source factory which produces the goods |
DELIVERY POINT | A point where Goods are finally dropped at the end of the shipment. This is typically a warehouse of the Consignee or of the client of the shipper / consignor |
OFFICE | The registered office of an organisation. This is typically needed for formal documentation requiring this location to be stated |
PORT | The address of a Port. This typically will be associated with an Organisation that has the role of “Port”, perhaps a port authority or port owner |
FREIGHT STATION | An interim location that handles preparation of goods, such as loading loose goods into containers ready for international transit, and/or for the consolidation of goods from multiple shipments into single container consolidations |
CONTAINER YARD | Another interim location, where containers may be held prior to the international / port-to-port transit |
APIs
Inbound: /wiki/spaces/SSTD/pages/2359955994 /wiki/spaces/SSTD/pages/2409988144
Outbound: /wiki/spaces/SSTD/pages/2359955566 /wiki/spaces/SSTD/pages/2359957898
Shipment Instructions
One shipment results in one supplier instruction, which for Road-based shipments is one carrier trucking company responsible for picking up the goods at a Knauf factory in the UK, transporting across to Ireland or mainland Europe and delivering to final destination.
Rate Cards
Rate Cards are not subject to frequent change and are loaded up using Postman using a CSV file.
Resources
/wiki/spaces/SSTD/pages/2359955723
/wiki/spaces/SSTD/pages/2359960148
/wiki/spaces/SSTD/pages/2359956794
/wiki/spaces/SSTD/pages/2359955826