The life cycle of a dock job - Cargoflow Support

Summary

A dock job goes through only a few statuses, but every step has consequences: when the clock starts, when the driver is checked out, when the receipt or shipment changes status, when the trailer is marked empty or loaded and when it goes to the yard. This article explains exactly what each button does.

To see how it fits with the yard and cross-docking, read Dock, yard and cross-dock.

Before you start

Docks module enabled. To send trailers to the yard, the Yard module too.
To open the board and edit jobs: the Write Docks permission (Supervisor, Admin, Super Admin).
To Release, Send to Yard and Cancel: you also need the Supervisor, Admin or Super Admin role. The permission alone is not enough.
The job already exists (see How to create a dock job).

The statuses

Status	What it means	Who moves it
Assigned	It has a dock (and usually an operator). Waiting for someone to start.	Supervisor when assigning or creating.
In Progress	Loading or unloading is under way; the clock is running.	Operator (or supervisor) with Start.
Work Finished	The operator is done. The trailer is still at the dock waiting for a decision.	Operator with Work Finished.
Pending Yard	It was decided to send the trailer to the yard, with no spot assigned yet.	Supervisor with Send to Yard without a spot.
Completed	Closed: the driver left or the trailer left the dock.	Supervisor with Release, the operator with Yes, Release Dock, or the yard when moving the trailer.
Cancelled	It did not happen. The driver is checked out.	Supervisor with Cancel Job.

There are also statuses the system uses internally and that are never picked by hand: newly arrived, flagged and merged (the latter when the job was absorbed by a cross-dock).

The normal path

Assigned — the supervisor gives the driver a dock and an operator.
In Progress — the operator taps START JOB in My Work. If a receipt or shipment is linked, it moves to in progress or loading on its own.
Work Finished — the operator finishes. If there is a verification checklist, it must be complete. The trailer is marked empty (delivery) or loaded (pickup or load).
Completed — the supervisor presses Release: the driver leaves and the dock is free. Or Send to Yard, if the trailer stays in the yard.

The operator app also offers finish and release in one step (Yes, Release Dock), which takes the job straight from In Progress to Completed.

The four times of a job

Time	When it is recorded	What it is used for
Arrival	The kiosk registration time. Jobs created with Create Job do not have one.	The FIFO View order and the carrier wait time KPI.
Assignment	When assigning or creating (and when a job is brought back from the yard to a dock).	The operator report.
Start	When the job starts. Restart clears it.	The timer, the colors against the maximum time and the cycle time.
End	When the operator finishes. Releasing or sending to the yard later does not change it.	The cycle time, client compliance and the report.

The Job Details window

Click any job on the board (or View in the FIFO View) to open it. It contains:

Driver Information — photo, name, phone, company and the Additional Driver Fields (trailer, seal, plates…), which can be corrected right there if the driver made a mistake.
Job Photos — the ones the operator took, including the verification checklist photos, with View Full Gallery.
Job Type — a selector with Pickup and Delivery. For cross-docks it is only shown, with the number, the outbound dock, the truck taking the load and a link to the cross-dock.
Receiving Record — on deliveries, the dock’s record, saved with the job and printable as PDF (see The Receiving Record).
Job Information — arrival, assignment, start and end times.
Assignments — dock, operator and client, all editable.
The button to create and link the receipt or shipment, when it applies.
Notes and the Actions buttons, which depend on the status.

What each button does

Start

Normally the operator taps it in their app. The supervisor can also start a job from the FIFO View by filtering on the operator (the Start button on their first assigned job). It moves the job to In Progress and records the start time. If documents are linked:

Delivery: the linked receipts go from pending to in progress.
Pickup or load: confirmed shipments are allocated if possible (even partially) and allocated ones move to loading. If there is nothing to allocate, the shipment stays confirmed and the job starts anyway.

Work Finished

Shown on In Progress jobs (in the FIFO View it is called Finish). It marks that the operator is done:

It records the end time and takes the job out of the operator’s queue; their next job becomes the current one.
If the verification checklist has required items unchecked or missing their photo, it does not let you finish and says which ones are missing.
On pickups with a linked shipment, if you press it from the board, the Loading record opens first (seal and quantities per line, with Finish loading). See The loading record and the operator’s verification.
On cross-docks it requires at least one unload photo and one load photo.
The items the operator recorded flow into the linked receipt, if there is only one.
It marks the trailer empty (deliveries and cross-docks) or loaded (pickups and loads). Internal jobs are not marked.

The driver is still on site: the supervisor still has to decide what happens to the trailer. The board shows Awaiting Release with the trailer status.

Release

Supervisor, Admin and Super Admin roles only, on Work Finished or Pending Yard jobs. It asks Are you sure you want to release this dock? and closes the job as Completed: it checks the driver out, cancels any pending yard move, frees the spot if it had one and reorders the operator’s queue. In installations with extended driver notifications, the driver gets the job completed message. This is the normal step when the driver takes their trailer.

Send to Yard

Supervisor, Admin and Super Admin roles only, on Work Finished jobs. Use it when the trailer stays at the site and the driver leaves. The Send Trailer to Yard window offers:

Target yard — if the warehouse has several active yards.
Assign to Spot — you pick the spot (with a search box) and, optionally, who in the yard will move it. The spot is reserved immediately and a Dock to Spot move is created in the yard queue. The dock job is closed, and the driver checked out, when that person starts the move; until someone starts it, the job stays in Work Finished.
Send to Yard without a spot — the job moves to Pending Yard, the driver is checked out and the trailer waits at the dock until someone in the yard assigns it a spot.

The yard side is covered in The yard queue and quick release and From the yard to the dock and back.

Restart Job

Shown on In Progress, Work Finished or Completed jobs. It asks Restart job?, takes the job back to Assigned, clears the start time and marks the driver as on site again. Use it when a job was started or closed by mistake.

Important: restarting does not clear the end time or the trailer’s empty/loaded status, does not take the receipt or shipment back to its previous status and, if the job was already completed or finished, does not put it back in the operator’s queue. After restarting, check its order in the FIFO View and the document status.

Cancel Job

Supervisor, Admin and Super Admin roles only, and it does not appear on Completed or Work Finished jobs. It asks Cancel job? This can’t be undone. and moves the job to Cancelled: it checks the driver out, cancels yard moves, frees spots and, if the warehouse uses accessorials, voids the accessorial charges captured on that job (they leave the To be invoiced pool). Receipts in progress go back to pending and loading shipments go back to their allocation status.

A cross-dock cannot be cancelled once its receipt has been captured or confirmed: the documents must be undone first.

Update Job

Saves the changes in the window: job type, operator, dock, client, notes and driver data.

Client: if you change it, you must confirm Change the job client from "…" to "…"?, because the linked document and its number follow the client.
Dock: it asks Do you want to notify the driver about the dock change?; if you accept and the driver has a phone, they get a message with the new dock.
Operator: both operators’ queues are reordered automatically.

Important: the type selector only offers Pickup and Delivery. On an Internal job, Update Job currently fails with Error updating job, so an operator cannot be assigned afterwards. Assign the operator when you create it; if you already created it without one, cancel it and create it again. See Internal jobs.

Changing the work order

Each operator has a numbered work queue: number 1 is what they see as their current job in the app. To change the order:

On the dock board, switch to FIFO View.
Filter by the worker.
Drag the rows into the order you want and confirm Do you want to change the priority order?.

Completed jobs drop out of the queue. Every time an operator finishes a job or has one removed, the rest are renumbered from 1. Special jobs take a place in the same queue. See The dock board FIFO View.

Bringing a job back from the yard to a dock

If a job ended up in the yard by mistake (or the driver who dropped the trailer is actually loading or unloading at a dock), bring it back from the yard screen: open the job details and, under Corrective actions, press Move to dock management. You pick the dock (an active door, not a yard dock) and the type (delivery, pickup or load), and optionally the document to link.

The system cancels the job’s yard moves, frees its spots and sets it to Assigned at the chosen dock. It does not work on completed or cancelled jobs. Supervisor, Admin and Super Admin roles with Write Docks only.

Linking to the receipt or shipment

Linking the job to its documents avoids typing the truck data twice and keeps statuses in sync. You can do it when assigning, from the job details (Create receipt & link or Create shipment & link) or from the document page. It is all covered in Linking the job to its receipt or shipment.

The cross-dock button

On the board toolbar, the two-arrow button opens the page to create a cross-dock. The cross-dock creates a single dock job anchored to the inbound dock, which absorbs the inbound and outbound jobs. It only appears with the cross-dock module and permission to create them. See How a cross-dock works.

Who can do what

Action	Who
Start and finish your own job from My Work	The assigned operator.
Start, finish and restart from the board; photos and receiving record	Anyone who can open the board (Write Docks).
Release, Send to Yard, Cancel	Supervisor, Admin and Super Admin roles only.
Create, assign, update, change the order, fix driver data, link documents	Write Docks permission.
Bring back from the yard to a dock	Supervisor, Admin or Super Admin with Write Docks.

What each step changes in other modules

Step	Effect outside the dock
Start	Receipt to in progress; shipment allocated and to loading.
Work Finished	Items to the receipt; quantities and seal to the shipment (if the loading record was saved).
Release, Cancel, Yes, Release Dock	Driver checkout in Visitors and in the driver log (see Driver checkout and the driver log).
Send to Yard	A move in the yard queue and an occupied spot.
Cancel	Voids the job’s accessorials; reverts the documents.
Any close	Counts in the dock KPIs and the Dock Management Report.

Stock does not move at the dock: it moves when the supervisor confirms the receipt or closes the shipment.

Full example

9:00 — A Valley Distributors pickup is assigned to dock 5 with Luis Pérez; shipment EMB-00417 is linked.
9:10 — Luis starts. The shipment moves to loading.
9:55 — Luis saves the loading record (24 pieces, seal 889201), completes the verification and finishes; he answers No, Trailer Stays because the driver will wait for paperwork. The job is Work Finished · Loaded with an end time of 9:55.
10:20 — The supervisor closes the shipment in Shipping and presses Release on the board. The job is Completed; the driver checks out at 10:20, but the job end time stays at 9:55. The cycle time is 45 minutes.

Messages you may see

Message	What it means
Job must be in progress to mark as work finished.	Someone already finished it or it has not been started. Reload the board.
Job must be in work finished or pending yard status to release.	It has to be finished first.
Job must be in work finished status to send to yard.	Only a finished job can be sent to the yard.
The destination spot is not available.	Another move reserved the spot. Pick a different one.
Complete the verification checklist before finishing: …	Required items or their photos are missing.
Completed jobs cannot be cancelled.	Restart it first if it really did not happen.
You do not have permission to perform this action.	Releasing, sending to the yard and cancelling are for supervisors and admins only.

Troubleshooting

The operator cannot finish: it says the verification is missing.

Required items are unchecked or missing their photo. Complete them in the operator app.

The linked receipt did not move to in progress.

The receipt changes when the job starts, not when it is assigned. Also check that it is still linked.

The dock shows as occupied even though the truck left.

The job stayed in Work Finished or Pending Yard. Release it or complete the yard move.

The Cancel Job button is missing.

Work Finished and Completed jobs cannot be cancelled. If it was a mistake, use Restart Job first.

Update Job fails on an internal job.

That is the Internal type limitation described above: cancel it and create it again with an operator.

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between Work Finished and Completed?

Work Finished means the operator is done loading or unloading, but the driver and the trailer are still on site. Completed means the supervisor has released the driver or the trailer has left the dock for the yard.

Can I cancel a completed job?

Not directly. Restart it (it goes back to Assigned) and, if it really did not happen, cancel it afterwards.

Which end time counts if the trailer sits at the dock for hours?

The time the operator finished. Releasing, sending to the yard or moving the trailer later does not change it, so cycle times and client compliance are not penalized for the time the trailer waited.