Transflo Workflow AI Carrier Admin Guide

Transflo Workflow AI for Carriers represents a bold new era in document management system performance powered by platform-as-a-service (PaaS) cloud computing, business intelligence (BI) analytics, new data structures, and advanced optical character and symbol recognition augmented by machine learning algorithms and business process workflows.

 

 

Each customer-specific instance of the new Transflo Workflow AI Carrier solution leverages the following four main components:

  1. Load Documents (document data)

  2. TMS Data (system-of-record or source-of-truth data)

  3. Automated Process Workflows (to engineer or design requirements)

  4. Robust User Interface (for resolving exceptions and approving data)

 

As an administrator for carrier fleet operations, you can choose the data sources, ingestion points, or starting points for your business documents. Typically, we’re talking about load documents for truck transportation logistics and freight shipping. Document examples include a bill of lading (BOL), a receipt, or an invoice.

Submissions from any of the following methods are supported:

  • Scanning Stations

  • E-mail

  • SMS Text Message API

  • Directly from your own TMS or internal systems (API)

  • Transflo Mobile+ app or your own custom "white label" edition of the Transflo Mobile+ app

 

New! Send Load Document Images in a Text Message

When your carrier, broker, fleet, or other recipient of your load documents uses Transflo Workflow AI and an available TextLocate API, you can snap a photo and send your bill of lading (BOL), proof of delivery (POD), fuel receipt, and other documents by SMS text message. Unless you have an unlimited plan, standard text message rates might be applied by your Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, or other phone provider.

Starting in August 2024, Transflo Workflow AI supports a new integration with TextLocate, a subscription-based service that addresses communication and visibility issues for carriers and brokers through SMS and web-based text messaging. As a driver, ask your supervisor if your fleet supports this new service to automate check calls, locate drivers with one click, and simplify common document processes tied to a load ID number.

Brokers can leverage the Transflo API to integrate Transflo Workflow AI and TextLocate so that drivers and carriers can simply text document images to a predefined recipient contact number where they are processed for payment automatically inside Workflow AI with special editions for carrier, broker, or factor operations.

Benefits of this new integration between Transflo and TextLocate include:

  • Faster onboarding and fewer steps than e-mail and other conventional methods

  • Reduced billing time for brokers

  • Faster overall payment processing time for carriers

  • Automated ingestion and exception-handling with minimal human intervention

  • Easier visibility with everything tied to a load ID

  • Improved in-transit load communications at each step of the broker-carrier relationship

 

Each year, trillions of pages flow through our systems representing billions of dollars in freight logistics. The data that appears on these important documents is compared with the official TMS system-of-record or source of truth. For brokers, carriers, 3PLs, shippers, and drivers, all document data is ultimately rooted in or derived from this TMS source of truth, where the vast majority of shipment data originates. Transflo Workflow AI integrates with dozens of the most powerful leading TMS platforms.

A third major component of the solution is an advanced business process workflow engine. These workflows process the incoming document and TMS load data to reconcile the data, automate as much as possible, and help business users make any key decisions to keep their business moving forward.

As an admin, configure business rules that determine what happens when document data does not align with TMS data. These rules determine how the work items appear in the user interface and establish the issues that must be resolved by business users before the work items can be corrected and sent for approval.

 

As a senior manager, director, or administrator for your carrier, you are not expected to configure your Workflow AI business processes. During the 2024-2025 BETA program, a Transflo administrator will provide your organization with a default set of automated Synergize workflows and allow a limited number of changes. You can also engage our Professional Services team to secure a contract with a custom service level agreement to support your business if the requirements you provide are approved by Transflo.

Tip: As a system administrator with previous Synergize experience, reach out to your leadership team to learn how you might be able to customize and maintain your Workflow AI system after the initial BETA phase ends in mid-2025.

 

All Workflow AI solutions include access to an expert Transflo admin who will configure your automation server, workflow queues, document types, files, required and optional data, and HTTP calls to support your business users as they interact with the data in a robust modern user interface. A typical system will start by extracting data from optical character and symbol recognition software and then classify that data in automated logical ways that drive your business forward saving you time, labor, and costs. A popular related process ingests file attachments in e-mail or scanned batches that might require acting on data spread over multiple pages in PDF, PNG, or JPEG files, all of varying sizes and levels of quality.

As an administrator, you can also configure business rules that determine what happens when document data does not align with TMS data. These rules determine how the work items appear in the user interface and establish the issues that must be resolved by business users before the work items can be corrected and sent for approval.

Work items typically flow into the following default queues:

  • All Queues

  • Unclassified

  • Missing Required Documents

  • Field Errors

  • Awaiting Approval

Note: Because each configuration might include custom queues, your screen might show other queues. For example, one option is to include a separate Fuel Receipt queue to review fuel and other assessorial charges. If your organization believes it needs a custom queue, contact your assigned Transflo implementation advisor, administrator, or professional services liaison.

 

Tip: A future release of Workflow AI will include a system configuration component for administrators to create and configure custom document queues.

 

 

User configuration is managed in the Transflo Portal (formerly known as Transflo One SaaS Portal). See People Management.