November 2024 Product Roundup: Order Tracking & Improved Data Management

With this month’s launch of order tracking and collaboration, Beacon is extending visibility upstream and streamlining the multitude of interactions that take place between shippers, suppliers and forwarders to prepare orders for shipment. We’ve also made data editing easier by giving users the ability to update associated properties when viewing order or shipment details. 

Keep reading for a full rundown of what’s new in Beacon this month, or book a demo to learn how our newest features can help you.

Order Tracking & Collaboration

Building on Beacon’s existing shipment tracking capabilities, the introduction of order collaboration extends visibility upstream in the supply chain, allowing you to seamlessly manage pre-shipment workflows.

Coordinating the movement of goods relies on smooth information exchange between all the actors in your supply chain. However, this exchange often depends on individual efforts to stay on top of things and disjointed systems and processes that can delay shipments, prevent on-time delivery and erode customer satisfaction. 

Beacon’s new Order Collaboration solution tackles these challenges by introducing purchase order views on Live Boards — shareable dashboards for managing orders and freight. In addition to tracking your freight, you can now streamline the many interactions between shippers, suppliers, and forwarders needed to prepare and ship orders. With these new capabilities, tasks like agreeing on shipment schedules, exchanging cargo ready dates, sharing documents, and coordinating pickups or drop-offs can all be managed seamlessly in one place, with the information made readily available to all who need it.

Improved Data Management (& Third Party Editing)

Good visibility and good data go hand in hand, and that’s why we’ve made it easier to keep your records up to date in Beacon and replace your order and shipment tracking spreadsheets. You can now update the data fields linked to shipments and orders directly within the card view on your Live Boards. 

External stakeholders who have been invited to a Live Board with 'Collaborator' permissions now also have the ability to populate and edit properties on shipment and order cards.

Adding or updating cargo ready dates, bill of lading numbers, consignee details, destination warehouses and any other property is as simple as clicking on the relevant data field when viewing the relevant shipment or PO and entering a new value. New custom fields can also be created from within the card view. 

Start Your Beacon Free Trial

Visibility gives you insight and control over supply chain risk, but it also allows you to transform how you collaborate and exchange information with your suppliers, warehouses, customers and other supply chain stakeholders. Start your free trial today. 

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