Monday, December 27, 2004

Idling Laws Affecting Truckers - A Serious Problem (Trucker's Report)

Idling Laws Affecting Truckers - A Serious Problem

Monday, December 20, 2004

Extending Horizon Vehicle Maintenance for other purposes

We just did a demonstration of our Vehicle Maintenance package to a construction company and it reminded me how you can extend the use of VME (and all of the Horizon trucking software) for other industries.

For example, an lawn care/landscaping company was looking at a way of tracking maintenance on their regular equipment. Although they had a few trucks, most of their equipment were mowers, hoes , tree diggers, etc. They don't have a need for the ATA work codes but they would still benefit from the great features found in Vehicle Maintenance by adding this equipment in as "Other vehicles" (it's a bit of a stretch but it works).

Using the Type field in Other vehicles, they are then able to track PM schedules on their equipment quickly and easily.

A few features really stick out when doing this: Alerts - a new notification service (still in beta) that pops up notifications when things occur and of course, the regular custom reporting that users can use.

Not to mention some of the cool maintenance tools we now have in VME including automatic PM item entry and PM notification.

VME is really becoming a very cool tool to work with.

Horizon Vehicle Maintenance - Trucking software to manage your fleet better

HOW DO I ADD A SCHEDULED TASK TO RUN HORIZON INDEX BACKUP?

Note: You will need to login to view this page.

The Horizon Index Backup tool allows Horizon users to maintain their Horizon information on a routine basis. The tool offers command line support and can easily be added as a Windows Scheduled Task.

HIB is found in the Horizon folder and can be passed different parameters.

BACKUP - backup data; backup folder must be defined by running HIB prior to creating Scheduled Task
INDEX - index all data files
PACK - remove deleted records in all data files (INDEX must be passed as well in order for PACK to work)
CORRUPT - check for corrupt data files

The parameters are interchangeable, but at least one key parameter (BACKUP, INDEX, or CORRUPT) must be passed in order for HIB to run anything.

You might put the following in the Run field:

F:\horizon\hib.exe BACKUP CORRUPT INDEX PACK or
F:\horizon\hib.exe BACKUP CORRUPT or
F:\horizon\hib.exe INDEX

You can also create separate Scheduled Tasks to run different aspects of the HIB. Maybe you want to index and pack your data files each and every night, but only want to backup your Horizon directory every other night.

753 - HOW DO I ADD A SCHEDULED TASK TO RUN HORIZON INDEX BACKUP?

TTNews: Successor to Omni-Tracs?

Qualcomm Inc. plans to begin on-road testing of a next-generation product with greatly expanded capabilities in the summer.

Currently kept under wraps until deployment - sounds like they have a pretty big surprise waiting. Click the

TT News link for more details.

Thursday, December 16, 2004

PeopleNet User Conference 2005

PeopleNet, one of our communication partners , has scheduled their user conference for 2005 for August 15-18 in Chaska Minnesota.

This is a great opportunity for existing PeopleNet customers and people who want to learn more about how PeopleNet works to see the products in action and learn what's coming.

We've had some meetings recently with Randy Boyles at PeopleNet and they have some very exciting plans for 2005, for their new G3 engine and driver logs.

If you want to learn more about how the Horizon Trucking software interfaces with PeopleNet, click here or visit here


PeopleNet User Conference

New Message Notification tool coming

I'm putting the final touches on a new Horizon Messaging notification tool that should be available either tomorrow or first part of next week. These new feature come directly from Gregg Langford, one of our newest customers. Welcome aboard Gregg and Joyce!
 
With it, you'll be able to check for new messages without running Horizon! It appears in your system tray. I'm looking for feedback on it so if you are a PeopleNet or Aether user and want to try it out, send me an email at amacneill@mtihorizon.com!
 
Speaking of PeopleNet, the Horizon link has been updated with several new features for our trucking software. You can now set the urgency of free form outbound messages, mark individual messages as being read and a few more cool things. In previous versions, we always requested the latest forms definition from the server when we received form-based messages. Now, we're storing it so that if the server doesn't respond properly, we still have the last set of definitions available. This offers more redundancy when processing messages.

Wednesday, December 15, 2004

New Horizon Updates Now Available

New updates to the Horizon Trucking Software have been released and are now available by clicking What's Available in the Installation Manager.

We recommend that all customers install the latest updates.
Here is a summary of what was resolved. The number in the brackets beside the item denotes the issue tracking number.
Custom Billing 2.0.28.0
MILES TAKING A LONG TIME TO RECALCULATE WHEN OPENING PRO (4355)
Custom Billing has been updated to improve the speed with which it looks up miles.
PROBLEM WITH A PRODUCT CODE (4345)
The product will now be looked up to ensure an exact match is found in the Product Master File.

CUSTOM BILLING DOES NOT CHECK SHIPMENT NO MILEAGE RECALC (4351)
Custom Billing will no longer recalculate miles for a shipment that has the No Mileage Recalculation field checked.

NEED OPTION TO PREVENT MILEAGE RECALCULATION PROMPT (4352)
A new option "Show prompt to confirm mileage update" has been added to the Custom Billing Service Properties screen. The option is checked by default. Unchecking the option will stop the prompt from displaying, updating the miles automatically.

Custom Booking 2.0.20.0
Regular Moves Do Not Retain Miles (4333)
The miles entered on a regular move will no overriden by Custom Booking. The No Mileage Recalculation option will also be checked.

Custom Data Viewer 2.0.9.0
DATA TYPE IS INVALID ERROR ON SERVICE REGISTRATION (4344)
The Custom Data Viewer will no longer error out on registration.

Horizon Settlements 2.0.28.0
CANNOT PAY AN INACTIVE DRIVER/CARRIER/TRACTOR (4346)
A new warning will now appear when you attempt to edit an existing Driver pay record and the Driver is inactive. Adding pay records for inactive Drivers will still not be permitted. The same as been done for Carrier and Tractor pay.

Stops 2.0.7.0
NEED EXTRA INFO SUPPORT FROM THE STOPS SCREEN (4341)
The Stops service now has a new Extra Info button on the Stops screen which allows for easy access to the Custom Data Center custom fields.
 

Horizon Billing 2.0.46.0
BILLING NOT CHECKING SERVER DURING MILEAGE LOOKUPS (4354)
Horizon Billing will now lookup miles from the mileage server.

Wednesday, December 01, 2004

Werner to keep GPS based paperless HOS logs

This is big news for the trucking industry!

The logs are all based on GPS positioning - the same tools that are used by PeopleNet and Qualcomm with their own hours of service application. Werner Enterprises uses Qualcomm and first started using it for paperless logs in 1998.

Horizon links with PeopleNet's Hours of Service application and can pull the data directly into Horizon Compliance for better reporting.

Werner to keep GPS based paperless HOS logs