The New Traffic Control System of MESSE ESSEN Manual Slot-Management Part 2 - Timeslot Dispatching - Version 1.0 November 2011 Modern, International, market oriented!
MESSE ESSEN s New Traffic Control System As a modern exhibition site, we are offering our customers a new traffic control system, which provides you with significantly improved logistics processes. Whether you are a customer, exhibitor, stand builder or carrier service, you will greatly benefit from the opportunity to make early reservations for loading/unloading timeslots on a special web platform provided specifically for this purpose. A prerequisite for using the system is that you order a service from our official exhibition site forwarder/carrier, i.e., your truck must be loaded/unloaded by one of their forklifts. Slot Management Manual We have prepared this manual to guide you through using the web platform. It provides an overview of the most important steps you need to take. This manual is designed to inform you of all important aspects associated with the standard booking process of the timeslot management system - from searching for free resources to editing the Entrance Pass. Page 1
Table of Contents 1. Dispatch/Timeslot Menu... Page 3 2. Screen Layout... Page 4 3. Searching for Free Loading Slots... Page 5 4. Making Reservations... Page 10 5. Conformation of Bookings... Page 14 6. Entrance Pass... Page 15 7. Cancelling Bookings... Page 18 At a Glance URL for Registering Yourself https://www.ax4.com/ax4/control/customer_service?hash=messeessen&lang=en URL for the der Web platform http://www.ax4.com/ax4/?id=608611 Slot Management Hotline Tel.: ++49 201-9597910 Page 2
1. Dispatch/Timeslot Menu You start the booking process with the Timeslots menu. It opens from the menu bar by clicking the Dispatch menu option. The screen that appears when you select Timeslots from the menu allows you to navigate between the tabs Free Resources, Reservations and Bookings, which provide the three basic Scheduling functions: 1. Search for and reserve free resources (=loading timeslots) 2. View your current reservations 3. View and edit your current bookings Page 3
2. Screen Layout The screen layout of all three functions Free Resources, Reservations and Bookings is essentially the same: the upper section titled Search allows you to define search criteria in order to search for timeslots (free, reserved or booked slots) that match your search criteria. The Results section shown below the Search section displays the hits returned by your search. The following search criteria are always available to you: 1. Fair (as dropdown list) 2. Hall (as dropdown list) 3. Date/Time (as text entry fields) The Reservations and Bookings tabs also allow you to specify additional search criteria for certain references. This will be described later. The non-editable Status field shows you the status of the loading slots that will be searched for depending on the particular tab you are currently working in (Free, Reserved, or Booked). Page 4
3. Searching for Free Loading Slots Your first step in timeslot dispatching is to search for free resources. After all, you first want to gain an overview of the loading slots that may be relevant to you. To do this, you define the three parameters Fair, Hall and Date/Time in the search fields. Whether you define all criteria and the order in which you define them does not matter. But you should keep in mind that a very broad search (such as All Fairs and All Halls with no date or time restrictions) will most likely return an undesirably large number of hits, which will make it difficult to get a concise overview of what you are interested in. 3.1 Defining a fair You select the trade fair you are interested in from the dropdown list that appears when you click the field or arrow shown below Fair. The list shows, for the respective trade fair year, all events for which we are offering this new feature of the traffic control system - the figure below shows the trade fairs for 2012. For our example, we will select LEBEN PLUS KOMFORT, which will be held in January 2012. Page 5
3.2 Defining a Hall Making the right choice for this parameter is especially important for your search results, because it affects which loading zones you will be able to use. Please read these instructions carefully. To help you get a better understanding of the procedure, we will go into more detail in the description of this step. Stored in the administrative system is a fixed association between exhibition site halls and logistics areas, where each of these areas has only a certain number of loading zones. We will continue with our example of the LEBEN PLUS KOMFORT trade fair. The event will be held in Hall 5. When you select this hall from the dropdown list, this automatically restricts your search to free loading slots at very specific logistics areas. You are therefore offered only those loading zones and timeslots that give you optimal access to Hall 5, thus minimizing the distances the forklift must travel. From a logistics perspective, the layout of the fairgrounds made it necessary to subdivide certain halls into separate segments. This was the only way to achieve a reasonable association between halls, or hall segments, and the logistics areas. In our example of Hall 5, however, this is not needed - here you simply select the number 5 from the dropdown list. The same also applies to Halls 4, 4A, 6.0, 6.1, 7.1, 8.0, 8.1, 9.0, 9.1, 10, 11 and 12. Page 6
For Halls 1, 2, 3, 7.0 and the Galleria, on the other hand, such a simple association would result in a granularity that is too coarse, and would mean unnecessarily long travelling distances for the forklift between trade fair stands and loading zones. This is why the above-named halls were subdivided into separate hall segments, which are then served from different logistics areas. The designations of these segments are composed of the hall number and, in parentheses, the number of the hall segment. The designation 3(3/1) therefore stands for Hall 3, hall segment 2. The figure shows a complete list of all designations, which also corresponds to the list shown when you open the dropdown list of the Hall search criteria field on the administrative system. Please select hall... 1(1/1) 1(1/2) 10 11 12 2(2/1) 2(2/2) 3(3/1) 3(3/2) 3(3/3) 4 5 6.0 6.1 7.0(7.0/1) 7.0(7.0/2) 7.1 8.0 8.1 9.0 9.1 GAL(GAL/1) GAL(GAL/2) Important for you when using the system is to select the correct hall segment in which your stand is located. The overview diagram titled Halls and Hall Segments for Timeslot Management can help you get oriented. The diagram is shown on page 8 of this manual, and is also stored on the administrative system as a PDF file. Page 7
Subdivision of the above-named Halls 1, 2, 3, 7.0 and the Galleria into different hall segments does not mean that there are strict borders between individual segments. If your stand happens to be located in a transition zone between two hall segments, you can try out both segments during the search for free timeslots. Tor 2 GAL/1 7.0/1 7.0/2 GAL/2 Tor 6 3/2 3/3 2/1 2/2 1/1 1/2 Tor 4 3/1 Tor 1 Web portal s database query for free slots concerning halls 1, 2, 3, Galeria and 7.0 has to operate with hall s districts labelling (red font colour), in which the booth is located. Web portal s database query for free slots concerning halls 4, 4A, 5, 6.0, 6.1, 7.1, 8.0, 8.1, 9.0, 9.1, 10, 11 and 12 has to operate with the simple name of that hall (white font colour), in which the booth is located. Page 8
3.3 Defining Date and Time With these parameters you can limit your search for free timeslots to a specific time period on a specific day. Please make sure, however, that your date entry corresponds to one of the dates offered by the timeslot management system for your particular trade fair. In keeping with our example, timeslot management for the LEBEN PLUS KOMFORT fair begins with the start of stand setup on Jan. 5, 2012. Timeslot management for the DEUBAU fair, which will be running parallel to our fair, also begins on Jan. 5, 2012. On that date, however, the DEUBAU fair will have already been in the setting up phase for a few days. If you were, for example, to search for slots for the DEUBAU fair on Jan. 4, 2012, the result of your search would be none found (i.e., no hits for free loading slots). This is because we have not set up any timeslots in the system for DEUBAU on that day - as mentioned above, the DEUBAU scenario does not start until Jan. 5, 2012. Page 9
4. Making Reservations After you have entered all of your desired parameters in the search fields, click the Search button to start the search, which then displays the results of the search in the lower section of the screen when it is finished. Using the LEBEN PLUS KOMFORT fair as an example, we will select it from the Fair dropdown list, then select 5 from the Hall dropdown list, and enter Date/Time as 05.01.2012 (German notation = Jan. 5, 2012) between 07.00 and 11.00 (again, German notation in 24-hour time). The results of this query will display four loading slots matching the search criteria entered. In the Results table, you can choose your preferred slot and select it by placing a checkmark in the checkbox shown in the rightmost column. Now click the Reserve button shown at the bottom of the table to make your reservation. Page 10
The Header section at the top of the window that appears shows the data relevant to the slot you have chosen. Here you can check whether the trade fair and date you wanted are correct. The status displayed for the slot will still be set to Free. In the Details section, you can start making your first entries to the extent they are known to you. Exhibitor name, hall and stand number should already be known to you at this point in time. You should also make appropriate selections in the fields marked as mandatory to specify vehicle type and whether your goods are subject to customs duties these fields cannot be changed later once the reservation has been booked. The actual reservation is made by clicking the Save button. This also freezes the data entry fields of the Details section for the meantime, and the status of the slot changes to Reserved. Page 11
You will also receive an e-mail confirming your successful reservation. This e-mail also contains a note saying that this does not yet mean that booking has been confirmed. To do this, you must first place a corresponding loading/unloading service order with our official exhibition-site carrier. As is also noted in the e-mail, this order must be placed within 24 hours (while taking weekends and holidays into account). If no order is placed, or it is placed too late, the reservation will be cancelled automatically. The particular loading slot is then returned to the free timeslot pool for all bookers. You will also be notified of this situation via e-mail. Seite 12 Every single loading slot must be reserved individually using the procedure described here. The administrative system does not accept collective orders where you have clicked several checkboxes at once. But you can, of course, add several loading slots to your shopping cart, which you need for different trade fairs, different halls, different days or different times, and then order forklift services for each of these different timeslots. Page 12
In order to view your shopping cart, i.e., all or a selection of the current reservations you have made, you can click the Reservations tab to view your reservations. As already described, a search function is also provided on this screen. This enables you to obtain a Results table that gives a better overview by not necessarily including all reservations you may have made. In addition to the criteria Fair, Hall and Date/Time, this search function also allows you to search for specific references (Carrier, Driver Name, etc.) that were shown in each loading slot s Details section (see pg. 11) and which you filled in when you made the reservation. In our example, the exhibitor reserved three loading slots, which are now displayed in the Results table. Seite 12 Page 13
5. Conformation of Bookings The actual booking of loading slots you have reserved is a transaction you cannot do yourself, but which instead must be done by our exhibition-site carrier on his administrative system. This booking is only triggered contingent upon arrival at his office of your order for a forklift for each specific slot you have reserved. The change of each slot s status from Reserved to Booked is notified to you automatically via e-mail. As with reservations, you can also obtain an overview and details of your bookings by entering appropriate search criteria on the Bookings page. Seite 12 Page 14
6. Entrance Pass Once booking has been confirmed for each individual loading slot, an Entrance Pass specific to that slot is generated and stored on the administrative system. This document constitutes the interface between Scheduling and Performance, and is, so to speak, the element that ties the whole traffic control system together. You can edit, print out or also download the Entrance Pass in order to e-mail it to your carrier, as required. In any case, you or your driver must have it available during Performance, and be able to present it to our personnel at check-in, at the gate entrance and at the entrance to the loading zone, and also to relinquish it at the gate when leaving the fairgrounds. Already during Scheduling, you should fill out the Entrance Pass as completely as possible. An editing function is provided for this purpose. This you call up by clicking the red button with a white arrow pointing to the right displayed in the next to last column of the Results table Seite shown 12 on your Bookings page. Page 15
This opens the Header/Details screen for the data of the booked timeslot, which you already saw while making the reservation (see pg. 11). In the Details section, fill out the fields that are still blank, or make corrections or adjustments to any data originally entered. Note that some fields can no longer be changed. Finally, confirm your entries by clicking the Save button. Seite 12 Once you are satisfied with all of your entries, you can view each slot-specific Entrance Pass by clicking the document icon shown for each timeslot in the Results table on the Bookings page. Page 16
From this view (see figure below) you can also print out the Entrance Pass, which now contains all relevant data, or also save it on your computer as a PDF file, and then e-mail it to your carrier company. Seite 12 Page 17
7. Cancelling Bookings Returning booked loading slots to the free resource pool, i.e., cancelling a booking, is only possible under exceptional circumstances. You cannot do this yourself in the administrative system. To have this done, please contact our exhibition-site carrier. Page 18