Set up carriers, agents, ports, airports and border crossings

Guide information

Audience: Administrator

Time required: about 15 minutes

Outcome: ONE Line marked as a carrier, Pacific Coast Forwarding Agency, Inc. marked as an overseas agent, Hai Phong Port and Port of Los Angeles ready to use as POL and POD, and the Huu Nghi and Lao Bao border crossings confirmed in the catalog

Requirements

This tutorial requires the installation of the following applications/modules:

• Freight Forwarder Management - installing it also installs its base dependency, Logistics Shipment.

• Freight Road - optional, only needed if you register border crossings for cross-border road shipments.

Every shipment, booking and rate card in Viindoo Freight Forwarding points to a partner record marked as a carrier or an overseas agent, and to a port record marked as a sea port or an airport. Set these up once, correctly, and Sales and Operations pick the right carrier, agent and port from a list instead of retyping details that never quite match on the next shipment. Skip a step here, and a rate card you create later simply does not show up on the screen where Pricing expects to find it. If a term here is new to you, see the Freight forwarding glossary.

Running scenario: Hai Long Logistics works with carrier ONE, overseas agent Pacific Coast Forwarding Agency, Inc., and the ports Hai Phong Port (POL) and Port of Los Angeles (POD) used on every FCL export in this guide.

Mark a partner as a carrier or an overseas agent

A rate card only appears where Pricing expects to find it if the partner behind it is flagged correctly: Carrier Rates lists rates from partners with Is Forwarder Carrier ticked, Agent Rates lists them for Is Forwarder Agent. A partner that looks right in every other way still will not appear on either list if this checkbox is off.

1. Go to Freight Forwarding ‣ Partners ‣ Carriers (or Freight Forwarding ‣ Partners ‣ Overseas Agents) and open the partner, or click New.

2. Tick:

   • Is Forwarder Carrier: for a shipping line, airline or trucking company. ONE Line already has it ticked.

   • Is Forwarder Agent: for an overseas partner who issues documents or collects charges on your behalf at the other end. Tick it for Pacific Coast Forwarding Agency, Inc.

After you save:

• The partner appears in the Carriers or Overseas Agents list.

• Its rate cards become visible in Carrier Rates or Agent Rates.

Note

The Carrier field on a booking does not filter by this checkbox - any contact can still be typed there. Ticking Is Forwarder Carrier only controls which partners appear in the Carriers list and in Carrier Rates, not what you can select on a booking.

See also

Once ONE Line and Pacific Coast Forwarding Agency, Inc. are flagged, their rates are set up in Maintain carrier rates and vessel schedules.

Tip

The setup is correct when: Pacific Coast Forwarding Agency, Inc. appears under Overseas Agents, ONE Line appears under Carriers, and the agent’s Delivery Order (D/O) Fee rate shows up in Agent Rates.

Create a sea port or an airport

The Origin/Destination fields on a shipment (POL, POD, or a departure/arrival airport) only accept a contact record marked as a sea port or an airport. Hai Phong Port and Port of Los Angeles already exist with this flag - creating them again produces a second record with the same port code that is easy to select by mistake (see Troubleshooting).

1. Before creating anything, search the existing list: go to Freight Forwarding ‣ Configuration ‣ Locations ‣ Ports ‣ Sea Ports (or Freight Forwarding ‣ Configuration ‣ Locations ‣ Ports ‣ Airports) and filter by name or port code.

2. If the port is genuinely missing, click New and fill in:

   • Name: the port’s name, e.g. Hai Phong Port.

   • Port Code: the port’s code, e.g. HPH. The installed ports mix three-letter codes such as HPH with full UN/LOCODEs such as USLAX, so search by both before creating one.

   • Country: the port’s country.

After you save, Complete Name fills in by itself, in the form “<Country> - <Port Code> (<Country Code>)”.

Note

Complete Name is computed from Country and Port Code every time the record is saved - it is not a field you type into directly.

Tip

The setup is correct when: Hai Phong Port’s Complete Name reads “Vietnam - HPH (VN)”, and it can be selected as the POL of an FCL export shipment.

Add coordinates to a port

Coordinates place the port on the journey map Viindoo draws between two ports and on the tracking widget customers see on the portal. A port without coordinates leaves a gap on that map. The ports installed with Viindoo, Hai Phong Port and Port of Los Angeles included, have no coordinates yet, and neither does a port you create.

Warning

While a port’s latitude and longitude are both 0.0, the Geolocation tab hides both Compute based on address and Refresh, so there is no button to press for the first calculation. Enter the coordinates by hand.

1. Open the port (for example Hai Phong Port) and go to the Geolocation tab.

2. Enter Lat and Long by hand, from the coordinates the port publishes, and save.

Once the port has coordinates, both buttons appear, and Refresh recalculates them from the port’s address.

Tip

The setup is correct when: Lat and Long for Hai Phong Port and Port of Los Angeles are no longer 0.0, and the Refresh button now shows on their Geolocation tab.

Register a border crossing (road freight only)

Skip this section if Hai Long only ships by sea or air. A road booking that crosses a land border needs a border crossing record to fill its Border Crossing field.

Go to Freight Forwarding ‣ Configuration ‣ Locations ‣ Ports ‣ Border Crossings.

Note

15 border crossings between Vietnam and China, Laos and Cambodia already exist once Freight Road is installed, including Huu Nghi (Lang Son) and Lao Bao (Quang Tri) used later in this guide - you rarely need to add one.

If you do need to add one, fill in Name, Code, Country (your side), Adjoining Country (the other side) and Province/State.

Tip

The setup is correct when: a road booking for the Ha Noi -> Con Minh shipment can select Huu Nghi (Lang Son) in the Border Crossing field.

Known limitations

Step	What Viindoo does today	What you do instead
Add coordinates to a port	Both Compute based on address and Refresh stay hidden on a port that has no coordinates yet, so there is no button to press for the first calculation.	Enter Lat and Long by hand on the Geolocation tab. After that, Refresh can recalculate them from the address.

Troubleshooting

Two ports with the same name appear when choosing POL

Symptom: typing “Hai Phong” in POL returns two near-identical results.

Cause: there is no uniqueness constraint on port code, and the search matches both name and port code, so it is easy to create a duplicate port without noticing until a search turns up two.

Fix:

1. Search the Sea Ports list by port code (e.g. HPH for Hai Phong Port) before creating a new record.

2. If a duplicate already exists, keep the one already referenced on shipments and archive the other.

A carrier’s rate card doesn’t show up in Carrier Rates

Symptom: you created a rate card for a new carrier (e.g. Wan Hai Lines) but Carrier Rates doesn’t show it.

Cause: the partner hasn’t ticked Is Forwarder Carrier - the Carrier Rates list filters on that checkbox.

Fix: open the partner’s contact, tick Is Forwarder Carrier, and save.

Coordinates don’t update even after clicking Refresh

Symptom: you click Refresh but Lat and Long stay unchanged.

Cause: the underlying geolocation service computes coordinates from Street/City/Country - if the port’s address is blank or too incomplete, it cannot resolve a position.

Fix: fill in Street, City and Country on the port first, then click Refresh again, or enter Lat and Long by hand if you already know the port’s coordinates.

See also

Related articles

• Set up master data in the right order

• Set up HS codes, dangerous goods, cargo types and Incoterms