Zone Directory

OVERVIEW 

The Zone Directory allows you to define areas, regions, or locations that are used across various features within TransVirtual.

By default, your account will initially have two zones set up, as outlined below.

1. Headports - which define your service locations and areas
   
2. Auto-Assignments - can be used to automate the assignment of pickups and deliveries to drivers
   
3. Other common examples of zones users often configure includes pricing zones that you or your suppliers define. Many users have multiple pricing zones configured for different purposes. 

                                                                                                

To see the Zone Directory page, go to Configuration > Lists and Zones > Zone Directory, the zone directory list page will come as shown below.

                                                      

STEP-BY-STEP INSTRUCTIONS 

To Create a Zone Listing

1. To create a zone listing, on the zone directory list page, first click on the New Zone Listing button. The Create New Zone Listing pop-up will display as shown below.

 

2. Manually enter the Zone Listing Name and then click on the Create button as shown above. A new zone will be added in the Zone List Directory as shown below.

3. Double click on the newly added zone list, the details of the selected zone list will be displayed on the right side of the screen as shown above.

4. If you wish to download all the Zones present in the database, on Edit Zone Listing page, click on the Download Zones button. This will download a list of all zones from the database in an Excel file.

5. Similarly, if you wish to download the list of all missing suburbs, on Edit Zone Listing page, click on the Download Missed Suburbs button. This will download a list of all the missing suburbs from the database in an Excel file.

To Create a Zone(s)

1. To create a Zone(s), on the Zone Listing page, click on Edit Zones/Suburbs, and you will be redirected to the  Zones page as shown below.

2. To add a new Zone, click on the New Zone button, and a pop-up to Create/edit a zone will appear as shown below.

 

3. Now, manually enter the details, i.e., Zone Name, Other Names (AKA) and Zone Short Name in the respective fields as shown above, and then click on the SAVE button to save the changes. The zone will be visible on the Zone Names list as shown below.

 

Zone Name is the mandatory field while creating a new Zone. 

To Import Zone List

1. If required, it is possible to create a zone list by importing a CSV file into TransVirtual. To do this, you will need to first create a csv file with your zone list data.

A CSV file is a plain text file - it stands for comma separated values file, and to create one, you would open up Excel and use the save as function to select .csv as the file type.

For Example: Refer to the CSV file below to understand how the data will look.

 

You can see in the above that there are four columns: one each for Zone Name, Suburb, State and Postcode. These four columns will define what suburbs, states and postcodes belong to what zone, in this zone list.

It is recommended that all import files contain Zone Name, Suburb, State and Postcode as this provides the best possible data.

Make sure that the data is entered correctly and that you have saved your document as a CSV file.

2. On the create/edit zone pop-up, click on the Import Zones button as shown below.

 

3. After step 2, you will be redirected to Import Zones and Suburb/Postcodes Lists pop-up as shown below:

 

If your CSV files have headings, toggle Ignore First Row to Yes.

4. Now, map the file using the Column Mapping and then click in the field and select the appropriate field names as per what is in your file, from left to right. Once mapping is completed, your mapping could look as shown below.

  

5. Once mapped accordingly, upload the CSV file, then click on the Import button as shown above, refresh the page, then you will see the result of your import file as below.

The file may take a few minutes to import if it contains a large volume of data!

6. As you can see in the above, the import was successful, and three zones have been created, i.e., Newcastle, Perth and Test.
7. These three zones have suburbs in them as per the example file above.

You can use only those suburb, state and postcode which are present in the database (As describe in Edit/Add and Delete suburb paragraph), otherwise, you cannot import the file.

To Edit/Modify a Zone 

Standard Zone Lists

1. Click on the  button beside the zone you need to modify
   
2. Here you can enter or change any of the values available.
   
1. Zone Name: Full Name of Zone.
   
2. Other Names (AKA): Alternate Names for the Zone.
   
3. Zone Short Name: Shortened Versions of the Zone Name e.g., "SYD" as opposed to "Sydney".
   
3. Once complete, click on the Save button.
   

Advanced Zone Lists     

   

1. Click on the Edit icon beside the zone you need to modify, and a pop-up to create/edit a zone will display as shown above.
   
2. Here you can enter or change any of the values available.
   
1. Zone Name: Full Name of Zone.
   
2. Other Names (AKA): Alternate Names for the Zone.
   
3. Zone Short Name: Shortened Versions of the Zone Name e.g., "SYD" as opposed to "Sydney".
   
4. Location Name: Address/Location Name.
   
5. Address 1 & Address 2: Address lines relevant to this location.
   
6. Suburb: Suburb detail of the location.
   
7. Location Phone: Contact Number for the location.
   
8. Location Email: Contact Email for the location.
   
9. Time Zone: Time Zone for this location/zone.
   
10. Silent Zone: If the zone is to be hidden from Mobile Device Selection.
3. Once complete, click on the Save button.
   

If you are not able to see this Advanced Zone List, then go to global setup and check the Headport Zone List as shown below.

- To see Headport Zone List, go to Configuration > General > Global Setup and then go to the Zone Directory Mapping section. 

Delete/Disable a Zone

1. Click on the  button beside the zone you need to delete.

2. Click on the Yes button to confirm.

When Zones are deleted, they are actually disabled. If you re-create a Zone with the same name, it will re-enable the deleted one. If you wish to delete a zone to start over, rename the zone to something different before deleting.

To Add/Delete or Update Suburbs (Zone)

If needed, then you can add, remove and change the Suburb(s) assigned to a zone.

Any changes will take approx. 10 mins to become active in system and note any existing consignments with headports or route zones will not update.

1. To add/edit or change the suburb(s), then go to Zone List Directory and select the applicable zone list and then click on the Edit Zones/Suburbs. The selected zone details will display as shown below.

If you have more Zone(s) then select the applicable zone. In the above screenshot, only one zone is there. 

2. Now, click on the Suburb tab present on the right side of the screen, as shown above. The suburb list will display as shown below.

If needed, then you can filter the suburb list. To do so, manually enter the details in the filter column and then press the Enter button to filter the list as shown below.

3. On the Suburb list, to add/change or remove the suburb, first select the applicable suburb and then right-click on the selected suburb you want to change, and you will receive 2 options as shown below.

4. If you want to add this suburb to the zone, then click on Add suburb to zone, or if you want to remove click on the Remove suburb from zone, as shown above.

If attempting to remove a suburb from a zone, be aware that if this has been assigned via a map or postcode rule, this won't change.

To Add/Delete/Edit Postcode Rule (Zone)

1. If required, then you can also set a rule for the Postcode. The Postcode rule is used to give a range for the Postcode for the particular zone.

2. To add/edit/delete the postcode rule, on the Edit Zone/suburb page, first select the zone (If you have more zones in the list) and then click on the Rules by Postcode tab as shown below.

    

3. Now, on the Postcode screen, you can edit/delete and create a new rule.

4. To add a New Rule, click on New Rule button, and a pop-up for Create/Edit a postcode rule will display as shown below.

 

5. Now, manually set the postcode limit in numeric form and then click on the Create button to add the rule for the selected zone.

For Example: If you want to set the postcode limit for this zone to be between 1000 to 2000, then manually enter the value 1000 - 2000 as shown below.

 

6. Similarly, if you want to edit any postcode rule, then click on the edit icon button, a pop-up for create/edit a postcode will display. Here, you can update the value and then click on the create button the value will be updated in the database.

7. If you want to delete any Postcode rule, then click on the delete icon. A confirm dialog will display, here click on the Yes button to delete the postcode from the database as shown below.

 

No Service and Limited Service

In TransVirtual there is the ability to create a zone list that outlines the areas that you do not service and the areas that you offer limited service to.

1. To set this up, first create zones in one of your zone list titled 'No Service' or 'Limited Service'

2. Then define what suburbs, states and postcodes belong to each of these two zones. If you wish to create this zone list via an import, your import file should look similar as shown below.

   

2. As you can see, each suburb is listed against either a No Service or Limited Service zone, depending on what category it falls into.

3. Once your file has been created, simply save as .csv and import as per the above instructions - see Import Zone List in this article.

4. You can also create this zone list manually. To do so, you have to follow the similar steps as described in the above paragraph, i.e., first create the Zone List, then go to New Zone List Edit Zones /Suburbs and here create/add a new zone(s).

Once your zone list name has been set up (before you enter the zone list and create the zones), assign it to the field below in the Global Setup page:

 

 

This section can be found under Configuration > General > Global Setup, go to Zone Directory Mapping section.

The helper icon also gives you an indication of how it is used:

As you can see, this zone list applies to the web portal (consignment creation page within TransVirtual) and to API connote creation - if someone attempts to create a connote for a No Service area via API, they will be returned the No Service message (you will enter - explained below) and the connote creation call will fail.

This setup does not apply to EDI-created consignments!

5. For this particular zone list, we will create two zones, one called 'No Service Area' and one named  as'Limited Service Area' as shown below.

 

You can, if required, only have one of these zones if you only have a No Service area and not a Limited Service area, but the zones MUST be named as per the above.

6. This zone allows you to add custom pop-up messages for when a customer tries to book/create a job that fits into one of these zones. To customise these messages, click the edit icon, a Create/Edit a zone pop-up will display as shown below.

7. You can manually enter the message in the No Service Comment field as shown above. Once you're done, click on the SAVE button to save the changes.

Similarly, you can add a message for the Limited Service Area Zone also.

You will notice that when clicking on either edit icon that you have the ability to enter comments for both the No Service and Limited-Service zones.
Please ensure that whatever zone edit button you click, you only modify the comment related to that zone; so, if you click the No Service edit icon, you MUST ONLY enter text for the No Service comment, and vice versa. The reason for this is that if you click the Limited Service edit icon and add a No Service comment, the system will treat all suburbs in the Limited-Service zone as if they were part of the No Service zone, and consignments with these receiving suburbs will not be able to be created via the web portal or API.

8. Once you have created the zones and added a comment, you have to create rules for Suburb and Postcode in a similar way described in the above paragraph of Suburb and Postcode.

Once the zone list has been implemented as per the above, allow 15 minutes for it to take effect.

9. From now on, when someone tries to book in a consignment that lies in one of these zones, they will experience a similar warning message as shown below.

OR

No Service Areas: Any consignment falls under this category while creation, will be blocked from creation.
Limited-Service Areas: Any consignment falls under this category while creation, a warning message will be displayed but consignment will be created.

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