Dispatch Software

Hands-on knowledge for frontline users.

JOHN BENDEL
TECHNOLOGY EDITOR

      The scope of the software is enormous. It will dispatch your trucks, pay your drivers, bill your customers and keep your books.
      It will interface with your mobile communication system, your maintenance software, your web site and maybe keep your customers — and their customers — up to the second on the whereabouts and well-being of their freight.
      But how will it help your newly hired dispatcher or customer service rep? What piece of it will he or she actually use? What should they know about how the software works for other departments?
      Successful software implementation depends on the answers to those questions and an effective training effort. The more comprehensive the software package, the more critical that effort will be.
      Increasingly, software training takes place over the Internet. Participants dial into a conference call and log on to a web site where they download software that allows a remote instructor to take over their computer screen. The instructor demonstrates software operations in real time and students can interrupt with specific questions.
      Still, remote training is only one gadget in the software training toolbox. HDT asked three leading providers how they bring the necessary working knowledge to the people who actually use their software.

Bob Maddocks, President
Maddocks Software
Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
www.maddocks.ca

      Maddocks Software, providers of TruckMate for Windows software, is building what Bob Maddocks calls a library of training courses. Most of those courses are available over the Internet through a system from Webex (www.webex.com) of San Jose, Calif.
      "We actually have 45 separate courses that we currently offer,'' Bob Maddocks said.
      "If you're a rater or a biller you're going to reference the customer service screen. All you're going to learn about are the tabs that are important to you,'' he said.
      "The same thing for rating. You're going to learn how the rating system works, but then you're going to go back into the order-entry screen and actually see it in production. The same program will be referenced many different ways based on what the application is or the job function that we're training on that day,'' Maddocks said.
      "We have courses 12 hours a day solid. So there are six courses a day, two hours per session. We plan on expanding that quite a bit,'' Maddocks said.
      Some of these real-time, interactive training courses are being archived for use as recorded instruction. Maddocks believes users will prefer recorded courses even without the ability to ask real-time questions because students will be able to replay difficult course sections at will.
      "The part I like about recorded events, you have the ability like a tape record on VCR to stop at any point and say, I didn't quite understand that. Rewind it to a minute ago and replay it two or three times until it really sinks in what the instructor is saying,'' Maddocks said.
      Perhaps more important for busy trucking companies, recorded sessions can be streamed from the Internet at the customer's convenience.
      "You take dispatchers: when's the best time to train them?'' Maddocks asked.
      "It's real difficult to find the right time and certainly you can't train them together. That's why on-site training doesn't work very well. It's because you can't afford to get all your guys away from the phones at the same time.''
      Maddocks said that key operating personnel tend to miss parts of scheduled training sessions.
      "So you wind up duplicating the training sessions and these guys are still going to get the phone calls,'' he said.
      Maddocks plans to make his recorded courses available over the Internet on demand. Customers will pay $375 a month for unlimited access to the courses.
      "That's as many people in your company as you want as much as you want. We call it All You Can Eat,'' he said.
      Maddocks said the company plans to offer training sessions beyond the immediate use of TruckMate software.
      "We should be adding about 10 courses every month. We may have something on how to use Outlook. It may be on how to install Qualcomm. It may give them the ability to do a little sales pitch, so if you really want to learn how Qualcomm and Maddocks work together, click on this and have this electronic sales guy come out without pressuring you. It's a library, a great resource of great information, and not just limited to TruckMate,'' said Maddocks.

Tom McLeod, President
McLeod Software, Birmingham, Ala.
www.mcleodsoftware.com

      Tom McLeod said that a training plan depends on the size of the company.
      "We typically like to concentrate on key users, two or three people within the company who are going to help train all the individual users,'' he said.
      McLeod said new customers send key people to McLeod's Birmingham, Ala., offices for four-day, comprehensive training programs on the company's flagship LoadMaster software.
      "During the initial implementation of a system, a very important thing has to happen: the company acquiring the software has to take ownership of implementing the business process through the software,'' McLeod said.
      "For example, the users usually have several options on the way they might select a particular control file option or use a particular field on the screen. One company might use it one way, a different company might use it another way.
      "My people doing software training can't really tell user at XYZ Trucking, here's how you've got to use it. There are options. So somebody on the business side at XYZ Trucking has to make that decision and say, 'This is how we're going to run our business on the software. Our customer requires this information to be visible on the freight bill and other places and this is where we're going to put it, this optional field right here.'
      "So we look to make sure that ownership of the process — the hand-off — has taken place. A company can't just sit back and say, 'Well, these guys are the computer experts. We just plunk down big bucks for the software package. They'll tell us what to do and this big expensive thing will just grab the work off our desks, suck it into the computer and at the end of the month we get a nice looking financial statement.' "
      So customer commitment is essential for successful training.
      "It's tough for all of that to take place remotely,'' said McLeod.
      Nevertheless, the Internet has its place at McLeod Software, which uses a system from PlaceWare (www.placeware.com) of Mountain View, Calif.
      "It's ideal both for initial sales presentations of the software and we do use it a lot that way. Also for remote training and also just support, help desk type calls. It will help to reduce the travel for followup training, for training on sub-modules and for followup training for new users that might be hired after the initial implementation,'' McLeod said.

Tom Weisz, CEO, and Shelli Weisz, Director of Implementation
TMW Systems, Beachwood, Ohio
www.tmwsystems.com

      Training over the Internet is one tool for TMW Systems, provider of TMWSuite and TL2000 software. Like Maddocks, TMW uses the Webex system.
      "But we don't believe you can entirely replace face-to-face training,'' said TMW CEO and president Tom Weisz.
      "We take into consideration the individual company and tailor the training as much as possible to that particular company. That training should be very much towards their business processes, their way of doing business and what they hope to accomplish,'' he said.
      "Everybody in the organization needs to have an understanding at some level of what the whole system does. If you're in dispatch you need to know what you're doing to invoicing and to settlements. So everybody gets at least an overview of the whole system.''
      But TMW tailors its overview as well.
      "We do have an agenda that tells us the particulars we want to cover but there is a lot of tailoring. For example, there are features in our system that talk about load requirements especially important for a bulk carrier, hose sizes, hazmat materials and so forth.''
      That material will be less relevant for a van carrier, Weisz explained, hence the individual presentations even at the overview level.
      "We have a multi-part implementation. Here it really starts with the sales department,'' said Shelli Weisz, TMW's Director of Implementation. The hand-off from sales includes a questionnaire Shelli Weisz described as "a business process analysis worksheet.''
      The worksheet asks for specific input such as the number of loads dispatched in a day or week, the method of driver payment, the kind of tariffs used, major customer requirements including delivery schedules and much more.
      "As part of our initial questionnaire we have names and functions identified, who is doing what. From that it's usually easy to tell what particular training that person will need,'' said Tom Weisz.
      That allows TMW to customize generic training agendas for individual clients "as we get to know their staff better,'' Shelli Weisz said.
      "When we come out to do dispatch training, we don't need to have their back office staff available for that necessarily,'' she said.
      "We use Webex pretty much as an enhancement to our face-to-face training throughout the whole implementation process,'' Tom Weisz added.