NEW SUPERPOWERS.

MESSAGE CARRIERS — AND LET THEM MESSAGE YOU

The headline this month: a proper back-and-forth conversation between your dock and every carrier that books with you — right inside DockHero, tied to the exact site and appointment it’s about.

• ✦Carriers can reach your site the moment a PO won’t validate, a slot doesn’t fit, or they’re running behind — no phone tag, no buried emails.
• ✦Every conversation is a real two-way thread tied to that carrier and site, with an unread bell so your coordinators never miss one.
• ✦You stay in control: turn carrier messaging on or off per site, and get an optional email nudge the instant a new message lands.

SEE YOUR WHOLE DAY ON A DOOR × TIME GRID

The appointments calendar now has a full door-and-time board — the way a coordinator actually pictures the day.

• ✦A new Timeline view lays every appointment across your doors and hours at a glance — with Agenda and Heatmap views for a different read on the day.
• ✦Drag an appointment straight onto a door to plan it or check it in, and the time axis stays pinned to the top as you scroll.
• ✦Filter by section (receiving, cooler, freezer…) and by inbound / outbound, with a live NOW line on today’s board.

STANDING WEEKLY APPOINTMENTS

For the loads that come like clockwork: create a standing weekly appointment and it just shows up.

• ✦Set a recurring slot once and DockHero keeps it on the calendar week after week.
• ✦Perfect for the regular carrier who’s on your dock every Tuesday at 9 — no re-booking, nothing to remember.

SEE — AND CONTROL — EVERY CONNECTED CARRIER

A clear roster of exactly who can book your docks, with revoke-access built right in.

• ✦One place in Settings shows every carrier who’s accepted your invite, with their company and how many of your sites they’re on.
• ✦Deactivate or fully remove a carrier’s access in a click — admins and coordinators both get full visibility.

CARRIERS: FIND ANY APPOINTMENT FAST

On the carrier side, a busy appointment list is now easy to sort, search and filter down to exactly what you need.

• ✦The carrier appointments list now opens earliest-first, so the next stop is right on top.
• ✦Search by PO, reference or confirmation number, or jump to any day with the new date picker.

SMARTER QR CHECK-IN FOR DRIVERS

Self check-in now keeps drivers and your team on the same page about timing.

• ✦Drivers get a friendly heads-up at check-in if they’re early, running late, or on the wrong day — they can still check in, they just know where they stand.
• ✦Your team is notified the moment a driver self-checks in, with a clear flag when the arrival is off-schedule.
• ✦Check-in asks only for what the driver actually knows — never a door number.

PHONE NUMBERS GET A QUICK SANITY CHECK

A small guardrail with a big payoff: far fewer texts lost to a mistyped phone number.

• ✦Every phone field — booking, drivers, your profile — formats as you type and catches a half-typed number before you can save it.
• ✦A clear note shows exactly which number we’ll text, so appointment alerts actually reach the driver.

TWO-WAY TEXTING WITH YOUR DRIVERS

The driver text thread is now a real back-and-forth conversation — send updates, get replies, and close it out when the appointment’s done.

• ✦Drivers can text back — “at the gate,” “which door?” — and it lands right in the appointment’s chat, with a notification so your team never misses it.
• ✦Close a chat in one tap when the load rolls; if the driver texts after, they get a friendly automatic reply.
• ✦Every message, reply and status is logged to your transaction history.

TEXT UPDATES FOR DRIVERS — NOW LIVE, AND CLEARER

Driver text notifications are now switched on for every warehouse — and we tightened up exactly what they say, so nothing lands on a driver’s phone without context.

• ✦Booking confirmations plus approval, check-in, loading and completion updates now text the driver automatically — each message names the site and appointment it’s about.
• ✦Messages you send from the appointment screen go out labelled with your site + appointment number and signed from your warehouse, so drivers running several docks always have context.
• ✦We only text drivers who’ve opted in, and every message carries a one-tap opt-out — across every kind of message.

INVITING A CARRIER JUST GOT SMOOTHER

Getting your carriers connected is now a clean, one-path flow — from the invite all the way through to their first booking.

• ✦A carrier who’s new to DockHero now flows straight from your invite to sign-up to activated access — no more getting stranded after creating their account.
• ✦Invite emails and shareable links now spell out the “create your free carrier account first” step, so first-timers know exactly what to do.
• ✦New “Copy instructions” button beside shareable links — paste ready-made sign-up steps into any email or text.

YOUR PAPERWORK IS NOW PERMANENT

Every BOL, check-in/out photo and attachment is stored durably in the cloud — your documents are never lost when we ship an update.

FILES, FASTER — AND THE RIGHT TIME EVERY TIME

A batch of quality-of-life upgrades across the operations side, based on what operators told us slowed them down.

• ✦New Files view: download any document, see its PO/SO at a glance, with a confirm step before anything is deleted.
• ✦Faster, more reliable uploads — and if one ever fails you get a clear message instead of a silent drop.
• ✦Appointment logs, created times and SMS timestamps now show in each site’s local time zone — no more UTC math.
• ✦Loading states across the Dashboard, Yard and Transactions so you’re never staring at a blank screen.

EVENING SAME-DAY BOOKINGS JUST WORK

Same-day appointments booked later in the day were sometimes wrongly refused as “in the past.” Bookings now use the facility’s real local day, so evening and west-coast sites book cleanly.

SMOOTHER SCHEDULING & CHECK-IN

Scheduling and the check-in flow got tighter and harder to get wrong.

• ✦A drag-to-set time range replaces fiddly time inputs when building schedules — and impossible or zero-length windows are caught before they leave a carrier with no slots.
• ✦Check-in now requires a door before loading, and won’t let two trailers be sent to the same door.
• ✦Carrier booking and check-in forms hardened across the board.

QUIETER, STEADIER, SAFER

Ongoing security and reliability improvements across the platform, plus a faster public site and clearer pricing.