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With
the relatively recent addition of the Assisted Dispatch Communications
Server (see Feb
'09 newsletter), RDS's that previously had no experience with
Assisted Dispatch are now learning the operations lessons that others
have long learned: "When you let the system help you, it's
easy to mentally lose track of the status of an order".
So,
its time once again to detail the use of the Alarms feature in the
dispatch screen, and how other RDS’s are using them in the
operations world. I thought I would take the opportunity this
month to go into a detailed explanation as to how to configure them,
and what each alarm means.
First,
let’s dive into configuration. The Dispatch Alarms are
configured by going into Setup --> Dispatch Alarms, and clicking
on the ‘Alarms’ tab. This will bring up the
following screen:
Each
line represents a different alarm that can be configured for use.
- Restaurant's target
prep time vs. current time: This alarm looks at the time the
order is supposed to be prepared by the restaurant, and compares it
with the current time. If this time difference falls inside
the minute threshold set, and the order has NOT YET BEEN FAXED, the
alarm will trigger on the dispatch screen. This particular
alarm comes in handy if your operations have difficulty in getting
orders faxed to the restaurant on time.
- Target Delivery Time
vs. Current time: This alarm looks at the target delivery
time on an order, and compares it against the current time.
If this time difference falls inside the specified minute threshold, it
will trigger the alarm in the dispatch screen. This alarm
comes in handy if you wish to be alerted for orders that are in
jeopardy of being late, and your operations dictate a "heads-up" call
to the customer.
- Driver waiting at
restaurant: This alarm looks at the driver's arrival time at
the restaurant, and compares it against the current time. If
the difference falls outside the specified time threshold, an alarm
will be triggered. This alarm is handy for operations that have
repeatedly slow restaurants.
- Driver en-route to a
customer for over X minutes: In this case, the system
compares the current time against the departure time from the
restaurant. If the difference falls outside the specified
threshold, and the driver has not yet arrived at the customer's door,
an alarm is triggered.
- No Driver Assigned
within X minutes of the target delivery time. With this
alarm, the system looks at the target delivery time, and compares it
against the current time. If a driver has not been assigned
to the order inside the specified threshold, an alarm will be triggered
on the dispatch screen.
- The driver not at
restaurant vs. target delivery time: In this scenario, the
system looks at the target delivery time, and compares it against the
current time. If no driver has arrived at the restaurant
inside the specified threshold, an alarm is triggered.
- Driver not departed vs.
Target Delivery Time: In this case, the system looks at the
time the driver arrived at the restaurant, and compares it against the
current time and target delivery time. If the difference
falls inside the threshold, an alarm is triggered on the dispatch
screen. This is a handy alarm for operations that want to be
alerted when a driver leaves the restaurant without enough time to
complete the delivery by the target delivery time.
Obviously, it does not do any good to enable EVERY item, as it
will cause an alarm to trigger for nearly every single order.
From our experience in talking with other RDS's, it seems that most opt
for enabling just the "Driver En-route" alarm. The most
common scenario is one where the driver will pick up the food from the
restaurant, but then not know where the address is for the customer,
and waste valuable time wandering around, too embarrassed to call in to
the dispatcher for assistance. If too many orders are on the
board, even the most seasoned dispatcher might miss the fact that a
driver has simply been "en-route" too long, and action needs to be
taken.
If you wish to turn off a particular alarm, it is now as easy as
right-clicking on the order that has an alarm condition and selecting
"Clear Alarm". This tells the DMS system that you have
acknowledged the alarm condition, but it no longer requires you to
alter the status of the order in any way in order to clear it. |
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Newsletter Copyright 2005-2009,
DataWedge, LLC
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