Carrier Notifications and Booking Approval

Table of Contents

• What gets sent, and when
• Turning notifications on
• Requiring booking approval
• Who receives the emails

What gets sent, and when

There are four carrier emails. Three are controlled from Settings > Notifications, and the fourth is part of booking approval.

Two things never trigger an email:

• Moving a booking between docks. Carriers are told a time, not a door, so a dock change on its own sends nothing.
• Changes to bookings dated in the past. Tidying up last week's schedule will never email a carrier.

Turning notifications on

All three notifications start switched off, so nothing changes until you turn them on.

1. Go to Settings > Notifications.
2. Switch on the emails you want carriers to receive.
3. Click Save Changes.

These settings apply to every site in your organisation. You'll need admin access to change them.

Which ones should I turn on? Most sites start with Booking cancelled and Booking time changed, since both save a phone call and stop a truck arriving for a slot that no longer exists. Booking departed is a completion receipt — useful if your carriers reconcile their own run sheets, unnecessary for most.

Requiring booking approval

By default, a carrier who books through your booking link gets an immediate confirmation with their check-in code, and the slot is theirs.

If you'd rather look at every request first, switch on booking approval. The carrier's booking then arrives on your calendar as Pending Approval status, and they receive a Booking Requested email instead — no check-in code, and a clear note not to travel to site until they hear from you.

Your team approves the booking either by dragging it onto a dock, or by opening it and clicking Mark as Scheduled. Either way the carrier is sent their confirmation with the check-in code.

1. Go to Settings > Site Settings.
2. Choose the site you want to configure, or leave the site selector on your organisation default to apply it everywhere.
3. Switch on Require booking approval.
4. Click Save Changes.

A few things worth knowing:

• There are two ways to approve. Dragging a booking onto a dock approves it, and so does opening it and clicking Mark as Scheduled. Use the second when you want to accept a slot before deciding which door it will use.
• Dock approval can be switched off. If you'd rather approval was always a deliberate click, turn off Allocating a dock also approves the booking under Settings > Site Settings. It's on by default. Turn it off if your team puts bookings on a door while still deciding whether to accept them.
• A booking is only confirmed once. If you later move it to a different dock, or take the dock off and put it back, the carrier isn't emailed again.
• Unapproved bookings stay put. They hold their time slot and show as Pending Approval until someone approves them. Nothing expires. You can filter the bookings list by Pending Approval to see everything waiting on you, across any date range.
• Only carrier bookings are affected. Bookings your own team creates are never treated as requests. Imported bookings can be included too, by switching on Also require approval for imported bookings. Bookings your team creates one at a time are never held for approval.
• To turn a request down, open it and click Cancel booking. The carrier is notified if you have Booking cancelled switched on.

Who receives the emails

Emails go to the address the carrier entered when they made the booking. If there isn't one (eg. on a booking your team created), the email address on the carrier's record is used instead.

If neither exists, no email is sent. Adding an email address against each carrier under Settings > Carriers is the simplest way to make sure nothing is missed.