ShipShape adds SMS notification system

IN AN industry where change is the only constant, S hipShape Software has undertaken a major upgrade of its E DI infrastructure and employed additional support staff to cope with substantial growth across the country over the past year, says executive member Chrissie Du Barry. “One of our recent system enhancements involves an improved notification system based on S MS where our customers are immediately notified when problems that affect the flow of E DI messages occur. A status update notification is also sent once the issue has been resolved.” In another significant development, a task-based system was introduced that incorporates the automatic emailing of detailed shipment status reports to any or all clients, at any scheduled time. “This new functionality makes it easy for a file controller to see at a glance how many tasks are either pending or overdue for a specific file, simply by looking at the colour-coded display. “As certain events with ShipShape are triggered – such as the entry being framed, released by Customs, the cargo dues done, or the file being invoiced – S hipShape automatically marks the relevant tasks as completed. Clients can define their own tasks for a variety of combinations such as imports, exports, sea, air, groupage, breakbulk and the like.” To make life easier for the framing clerks who frequently have to do large multi-line entries, a new bulk import facility has been added. “This allows them to simply create the header for the entry, and then import an E xcel spreadsheet that is pre-formatted either by themselves or the importer / supplier to generate large multi-hundred line entries in seconds instead of hours.” It’s all about ease of information access, says Du Barry. “With powerful yet easy-to-use filtering and reporting at your fingertips, finding the right information is an absolute breeze. “For instance, instead of having to draw and print a whole report first, you might be interested in quickly viewing all the seafreight shipments that a particular importer has brought in from H ong Kong for the past two months. By simply applying a filter to your shipment register, you have immediate access to the actual files, not just a printed document. Which of these shipments have not yet been invoiced? No problem, simply add the “un-invoiced” option to your filter and voila!” ShipShape S oftware offers the full spectrum of E DI services, including live tracking via the internet from anywhere in the world. The software has been successfully installed and configured on a host of different networks ranging from the smaller agent to large corporate enterprises, she added.