Locations used to be an address book. It could tell you where a place was. It could not tell you that the shipper on Tuesday's load keeps trucks sitting for two hours, or that the address on it was typed in by hand three years ago and has never been checked since.
What changed
One page for every place you haul to. Dispatch → Locations opens with three tabs over the same book: All, Facilities and Locations. A facility is a place set up properly, with hours, zones and contacts. A location is a bare address. The table carries the columns that actually decide a load: the place and its city, the type, the owner or client, median dwell with a sparkline beside it, on-time, how many orders have run through it, and when it was last used. Each of those sorts, and the date range and type filters narrow the book.
Add Facility looks the place up for you. Type a name and an address and the dashboard searches Google Places, either anywhere or only inside the map area you are looking at. Every match comes back with its photo, its rating and review count, what kind of place Google thinks it is, the full street address, and whether it is open right now - so you pick the real distribution center instead of guessing between five results that share a name.
Five Walmart DCs in Texas, each with its photo, rating, category, full street address and whether it is open right now, so you pick the right one instead of guessing.
Picking a match fills in the name, the address and the map point, and the rest is four short steps: Find location, Details, Zones, Hours. On Details you set the code, whether the place belongs to your company, a broker or a customer, and a contact. If the spot is not on Google at all, a yard, a lot, a gate on a county road, then Drop a pin manually lets you place it on the satellite map yourself.
Picking a Google match fills in the name, the address and the map point. Details, Zones and Hours are what turn it into a facility.
A bare location becomes a facility in one click. Any location that has never been set up carries a Set up as facility prompt, on its row and in its panel, with what you get for it spelled out: hours, zones, contacts, amenities and Google reviews. Nothing is retyped, and the place keeps its orders and its history.
The Map view, with a pin's dwell, on-time and order count in the popup, and Set up as facility one click away in the panel.
Every place has its own page. Open one and the Performance tab shows median dwell, on-time against the appointment, and how long trucks wait before they get a door, each labelled with the number of visits it is based on, so a single stop never reads as a trend. Under that: how dwell is distributed, a Best time to arrive grid by day and hour, pickup against drop off, waiting outside against waiting at the dock, who ships through the place, and its top lanes. The range switch runs 30 days, 90 days or a year.
A place's own page: median dwell, on-time and a Best time to arrive grid, each figure labelled with the small sample it is based on.
The Map view, Add Location and Import sit in the same header, so the whole book on a map, one new address, a list of them, and a properly set up facility all start from one page.
Why it matters
- Fewer wrong addresses. The place arrives from Google with its real name, its real street address and its own map point, instead of from whatever was pasted into a rate confirmation.
- You find out who holds your trucks. Median dwell on the list, the distribution on the page, and the on-time figure next to it. The shipper that costs you two hours a stop stops being a feeling and becomes a column you can sort.
- The numbers say how much they know. Every figure carries the sample behind it and says so when there is not enough of it. A place with one visit is never presented as a pattern.
- The book tidies itself as you use it. Last used, order count, and a one-click prompt to finish setting up the places that have earned it.
How to use it
Open Dispatch → Locations. Sort by Dwell to see where your trucks sit longest, then open a place and check its Best time to arrive grid before you set the next appointment. Use Add Facility for anywhere you run regularly, because the hours and zones are what make the appointment and the dwell numbers mean anything, and Set up as facility on the bare locations already in your book.
