Drayage Empty Returns: Terminal Receiving Schedules, Return Recommendations and Site Requirements

Keep each terminal’s empty-receiving hours (by carrier and weekday) in one place, and Docklify will recommend where and when to return an empty — on the dispatch board and on the order. Location notes (site requirements) now show in dispatch, on the order, and in the driver app.

Every terminal accepts empty containers only at certain times, and the rules differ by carrier. Until now that knowledge lived in the dispatcher’s head. The Empty Return Schedules page turns it into shared data your whole team maintains: one row per terminal, carrier, weekday and time window. Docklify uses only these rows — plus the order’s own return location, carrier and container size — to recommend a return place and window. If your team has not entered any schedule yet, the system says so plainly instead of guessing.

Step 1: Maintain the schedules#

1. Open Drayage → Empty Return Schedules. Each row is one receiving window: terminal, carrier (leave blank for any carrier), container size (blank = any), weekday, opening and closing times. A closing time earlier than the opening time means the window crosses midnight.
2. Use New schedule for one row, or Import CSV for many: download the template, fill it in (the terminal name must match a terminal in your Locations address book), then upload or paste it. The import reports every row — rows that fail are listed with the reason and are not saved.
3. Schedules are maintained by your team — they are not a live feed from the terminals. When a terminal changes its hours, edit or deactivate the row; deactivated rows stop being recommended immediately.

Step 2: Read the return recommendation#

1. On the Dispatch Board, every job that still has an empty to return shows a return line: the recommended terminal and the next window (date and times), picked from your schedules.
2. On the order detail page, the "Empty return recommendation" card shows the same recommendation plus the alternatives and the reasons (which return location, carrier and size were matched).
3. If there is no schedule data yet, the card and the board say "No empty-return schedule data yet" — add schedules first (Step 1). If schedules exist but none fits this order in the next 14 days, the card says so and lists what was matched against.

Step 3: Site requirements reach the driver#

1. Write a warehouse or terminal’s special requirements once, in Drayage → Locations → Notes (for example: check in at the guard shack first, or no entry after 4 pm).
2. The note then travels with the job: dispatchers see it on the Dispatch Board card, office staff see it on the order detail page, and the driver sees a highlighted banner on the job in the driver app — before arriving, not at the gate.
3. Locations without notes simply show nothing — no empty banners. Keep notes short and operational: what the driver must do differently at that site.