cargo tracking manual -...

CARGO TRACKING MANUAL

How to use the Cargo Tracking System CTS

© 2012 Softship AG 1

Table of Contents

Welcome at our Cargo Tracking System (CTS)........................................................ 2

Navigating the manual .......................................................................................... 2

How to access the Cargo Tracking System CTS ....................................................... 3

Customers: Log-in to your account .................................................................... 3

New users: How to register an account ............................................................. 4

Forgot your password: What to do? .................................................................. 6

CTS main screen .................................................................................................... 7

How to find your cargo ...................................................................................... 8

Quick search with your tracking code ............................................................ 8

Alternative searches ...................................................................................... 8

The standard search and its options .............................................................. 9

The extended search: Fine-tuning search results in advance ........................ 10

Options of the search screen ....................................................................... 10

Your tracking results ........................................................................................ 13

Customizing the results screen ........................................................................ 14

Sorting data ................................................................................................. 14

Navigating through multiple list pages ......................................................... 15

Choosing the number of rows displayed ...................................................... 15

Choosing the columns to be displayed ......................................................... 16

Action Buttons .................................................................................................... 17

The Search button ........................................................................................... 17

The Export to Excel button .............................................................................. 17

The Print Report button .................................................................................. 19

The Help button .............................................................................................. 20

On-Screen information and Options .................................................................... 20

Session information......................................................................................... 20

How to end a CTS session ................................................................................ 20

Helpline .............................................................................................................. 21

Contact ............................................................................................................... 21


Info

WELCOME AT OUR CARGO TRACKING SYSTEM (CTS)

The Cargo Tracking System, or CTS, gives you 24/7 access to tracking your cargo. This

manual will help you find your way around the tracking system and get the desired

results quickly.

NAVIGATING THE MANUAL

To give you easy access to all help topics within the document, the table of contents and

any references made throughout the text are hyperlinked.

We used symbols to mark important steps and passages:

Illustrates the sequence of user actions on a screen

General information or hint

Important information or hint

Indicates areas of interest on a screen with quick-info

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperlink


HOW TO ACCESS THE CARGO TRACKING SYSTEM CTS

The protection of data, private or corporate, is important to us. For this reason a

registration and log-in are required. Only registered users have access to the Cargo

Tracking System.

Customers: Log-in to your account

1. If you already have an account and user credentials, type your user name

and password into the respective fields.

2. Then hit enter or click the “Login” button.


New users: How to register an account

1. Click the “Register” button. You will see the registration form shown

below.

Please note that all fields marked with * are mandatory for the

registration.

2. Enter your first name and last name.

3. The Login name will be the name you log into CTS with. We recommend

to use your email address as login name.


4. Type the graphical code into the field “Enter code below”. This is a

precaution against spamming.

5. After having completed the form, click “Continue”.

You will then receive an email with a confirmation link.

6. In order to complete your registration simply follow the link in the

confirmation email.

Congratulations! Now you are an authorized CTS user.


Forgot your password: What to do?

If you forgot your password, you can request a new one in four simple steps:

1. Click the button “Forgot Password”. A new screen will open where you

can request a new password by email.

2. Enter your user name (login name)

3. Enter the numbers of the graphical code as a spam protection


4. Click “Send email” to request a new password or “Back to Login” to

abort the process.

You will receive an email with a new password.

CTS MAIN SCREEN

After having successfully logged into the Cargo Tracking System you will see the screen

shown below.

We will explain each of the sections in detail further on.

information on your

current session log out

action buttons

search criteria

tracking results area;

empty on first access

navigation and

viewing options for

the tracking results


How to find your cargo

Quick search with your tracking code

You will find your cargo through a tracking code you received from our customer service.

This code can either be a container number, a VIN or a special tracking reference.

1. Enter your tracking code

2. Click the “Search” button or hit “ENTER”

This quick search produces a search result where the shipment with your specific

tracking code will be displayed. If you need to see several shipments, choose one of CTS’

alternative searches.

Alternative searches

You can also search for a booking or a B/L number. Enter either of these in their

respective fields, then click the “Search” button or hit “ENTER”:

The search result will show all cargo related to your booking, respectively your B/L.


The standard search and its options

The standard search criteria are

1. Container No./Tracking reference/VIN

2. Booking number

3. B/L number

You can alter your search results by choosing one of the search filters:

1. contains your search term is part of the sought data record

2. starts with your search term is at the beginning of the sought data record

3. is equal to your search term is identical to the sought data record

4. is not equal to the sought data record does not contain your search term

5. is empty shows all data records where this criterion is empty; no search

term needed

6. is not empty shows all data records where this criterion is set; no search

term needed

The search options for dates differ from those listed above and reflect the specific, time-

related wording:

When all search criteria are set, click the “Search” button or hit “ENTER”.


The extended search: Fine-tuning search results in advance

If you need different or more search filters than the standard filters, you can use the CTS

extended search with a click on the arrow to the right of the search area.

The search area will expand and display all available options:

You can set each of the search filters as described for the standard search.

Options of the search screen

If you are a regular user of CTS, you might want to customize the search screen

according to your needs. You can do so by selecting the search options to the upper

right of the window.

click the arrow to open

extended search

customize your personal

search screen


The following drop-down will appear, where you can customize your search section:

1. Select which filters should be visible and which should not by

checking/unchecking the check box to the left of each filter

2. Select which filters should be displayed in the “Standard” and “Extended”

sections by dragging the filters with the mouse or by moving them with a

click on the blue arrows to the right.

3. When you made your choices you can

a. Click to apply your changes for your current session.

b. Click to set the changes as your default.

c. Click to close the drop-down without affecting the changes.


Your customized search sections window might look like this:

You can also change the sequence of search filters by drag-and-drop.

Grab a filter with your left mouse button and drag it to the position where you want it to

appear:

drag a filter with your mouse


Here are two examples of customized search sections and how they might look on the

CTS screen.

A minimized standard search

Standard search with multiple filters

Your tracking results

After you specified your search filters and hit enter, CTS collects all data records that fit

the selected criteria, and presents them as a list.

The screen below shows a typical search result with a tracking reference as criterion:


A left-click on the Container No./Tracking Reference/VIN displays additional information

about the shipment:

Customizing the results screen

Sorting data

By default the latest event is at the top, the earliest at the bottom. A small arrow next to

the column header indicates the sorted column, which is the date column in this

example.

With a mouse click on any of the underlined column headers you can custom-sort your

data according to your needs. The small arrow will always appear next to the chosen

column’s header. The direction of the arrow reflects the sorting sequence: top to

bottom or bottom to top.

sorted by date


Navigating through multiple list pages

If your search result takes up more than one page, you can navigate between pages with

the arrow buttons at the bottom of the list:

Seen from left to right, a button click jumps to the first page, the previous page, the next

page and the last page.

go to first page

go to previous page

go to next page

go to last page

When you let the mouse pointer hover over one of the buttons you will get tooltips

helping you.

Choosing the number of rows displayed

You can customize the results screen to show only the columns you are interested in and

the number of rows displayed.

column and row options


Choose the number of rows to be displayed from the drop-down menu:

Choosing the columns to be displayed

Click on the columns selector button.

Select the columns you want to see by checking / unchecking the check boxes next to

the columns’ names:

Save your options or exit from the selector window:

a. Click to apply your changes for your current session.

b. Click to set the changes as your default.

c. Click to close the drop-down without affecting the changes.

choose the number of rows


ACTION BUTTONS

At the top of the page are four action buttons to control CTS:

What do they do?

The Search button

The search button initiates a database search with regard to the search criteria you

choose. It will deliver a list with all events correlating to the criteria.

The Export to Excel button

When you are satisfied with the search result produced, you can export the resulting list

to Excel for backup or further processing.

1. Click the Export to Excel button


2. Choose “Open” or “Save” from your browsers download options. Your

result list will be transmitted to Microsoft Excel automatically.

Please note that the “Save”-dialogue might look different on other versions of the

Microsoft Internet Explorer or different web browsers.

This is an example of how a tracking result will look like in an Excel sheet.


The Print Report button

The Print Report button creates a printable report from the selected shipment’s booking

or B/L data in a separate browser window.

1. Select the shipment to be printed

2. Click the Print Report button

The report has a PDF format and can be treated as such:

save, print or email

your report


The Help button

The help button displays this document.

If you have questions not answered in this help file, please feel free to contact our

customer service.

ON-SCREEN INFORMATION AND OPTIONS

Session information

As a part of the CTS header you find all important session information displayed:

1. The name of the user currently logged in

2. The date and time since the user logged in

3. The user’s respective company

How to end a CTS session

When you end your CTS session, we strongly recommend for security reasons not only

to close your browser window, but actively log out of the system by clicking “Logout”:

click to log out


HELPLINE

If you are in doubt what to do or have questions about CTS, please contact us at

Phone +49 (0) 40 89 06 8-0

Fax +49 (0) 40 89 06 8-500

E-mail [email protected]

CONTACT

Softship AG, Germany (Head Office)

Notkestr. 9

22607 Hamburg

Germany

Phone +49 (0) 40 89 06 8-0

Fax +49 (0) 40 89 06 8-500

General enquiries [email protected]

Sales enquiries [email protected]

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