If you know which carrier you wish to send a consignment with and you need to create a series of consignments quickly, MachShip has developed the consignment generation method called Quick Consignment. This screen is constructed to work via keyboard shortcuts and tabbing to try and limit the need for mouse clicking and will send all consignment creation requests to the printing app. 

How to navigate to Quick Consignment Screen 

• To get to the Create Consignment screen, from the top menu Create/Manage, click Quick Consignment under the Consignments section.

• Or you can alternatively use the link here.  

Quick Consignment screen

The Quick Consignment screen layout is very similar to the quote and standard create consignment views. The user is required to provide pickup location details, delivery location details, answer any questions, references and then add in the relevant items. 

The key difference between the quick consignment page and the standard consignment page is the carrier selection options.

• Carrier Selection: The carrier selection method for the quick consignment page has a couple of default views, these will be pre-set by your freight consultant for most efficient use of the system.
  
  These selection methods can be:
  
  
  • Specify Carrier  - YES
    
    
    
    
    • Expanded Carrier Selection: The expanded carrier selection section will prompt the user to select the carrier from a series of drop downs. These dropdowns are Carrier, Account, and Service. MachShip will pre-fill any information it can. For example, if you had one account with a carrier this would be auto-filled after carrier selection.
      
      
      
      
      • Service Groups: There are certain occasions where a carrier will have what is known as Service Groups. Service Groups are how MachShip will internally assign a set of services which have a similar attribute. For example, local transport companies can have Standard, Express, VIP and Premium options for the same vehicle size. If you select a carrier which has a service group, then you will need to make one more selection level to choose which service group you want.
        
        
        
        
    • Short Carrier Selection: The short carrier selection is a condensed selection of the above and works best for users who have a small number of carriers and services to select from. As can be seen from the below, this method of service selection only has one dropdown which will contain every carrier, service, and account which is available to you in MachShip. The list of carriers can be sorted in alphabetical order of the carrier abbreviation or the service name.
      
      
      
      
  • Specify Carrier - NO
    
    
    
    • Route Selection Method: If you do not wish to specify the carrier then all you will need to supply MachShip with will be if you wish to create the consignment via the cheapest method possible or the fastest ETA.
      
      

• Carrier Specific Options: If you select any of the carrier selection methods under Specify Carrier - YES then if the chosen carrier has specific questions or options, these will appear on the screen under the pickup and delivery section. These fields will all change depending on the carrier. For example, Toll Express requires to fill in the fields below: 
  
  
  
  For Startrack these will be 

•  Consignment Creation: The premise of the Quick Consignment creation method is to enable a user to manually create a set of consignments in quick time one after the other. 
  
  There are three methods to create a consignment:
  
  Note: For all methods below and if set up, a call to the MachShip Printing Application to print labels and documentation will be made.
  
  
  • Create (Ctrl + S): This method will create the consignment and clear all fields except for default information.
    
    
  • And Keep Details (Ctrl + Shift + S): This will create the consignment and maintain all the information which was entered. This will be useful if you have several consignments to create to the same location on the same carrier and service. It can also be advantageous if you only have a small amount of information to change for the next consignment.  
    
    
  • And Keep Carrier Details (Ctrl + Alt + S): This will create the consignment and refresh the page, clearing the delivery and item details. This method is useful if the user is to create multiple consignments for the same carrier one after another.