Rating, Resource Selection, and Scheduling (RR&S)

An RRS Job identifies shipments, loads, trips, and bookings that have had their rating, resource, and scheduling results cleared or that need updating. An RRS Job specifies one or more Entity Selection Criteria (ESC) that will be used to identify all entities to re-rate. Alternatively, the entities may be indicated by an Event Notification or Alert input file.

For all specified entities, the RRS Job identifies whether the entity has failed re-rate within the past X minutes, where X can be configured using the job parameters. When this option is configured, the job does not attempt to re-rate entities that have been processed by this job definition recently and failed rating and have not been updated since.

If any of the entities to be re-rated are currently suspended, the RRS Job will optionally unsuspend them. This configuration can be controlled using the job parameters. If unsuspend is specified, any charge overrides or manual input units that have been specified will be retained.

For entities that are to be re-rated, the RRS Job will call Transportation Planner to update rating, resource, and scheduling (if active) information. The rating call will enforce all current carrier/service/equipment commitments, unless specified otherwise. If the rating call is successful, the entity will be updated with the new information. If the rating call fails, no changes will be made to the entity and the error information will be stored in the job history table.

If any entities have failed and an Alert Watch Group has been configured for job failure, the group will be notified with the set of entities that have failed to rate.

The following Job Parameters may be specified when defining a Rating, Resource, and Scheduling (RRS) Job Definition:

Parameter 1 – Unsuspend settings (Optional): Specifies settings specific to unsuspending loads. Each setting should specify the setting name, followed by an equals sign (=), followed by either ‘True’, ‘T’, ‘False’, or ‘F’. When specifying multiple settings, separate each setting with a semi-colon (;). Valid settings include “Unsuspend”, “RetainSpotRate”, and “Uncommit”.
- Unsuspend: If ‘True’, loads, trips, and bookings processed by the job instance which are currently suspended will be unsuspended and rated. If rating succeeds, the unsuspension and results will be stored. If rating fails, the entity will remain suspended. If ‘False’, suspended loads, trips, or bookings will not be processed by the job instance. Default if not specified is ‘False’.
- RetainSpotRate: If ‘True’, any existing spot rates will be retained when unsuspending loads, trips, or bookings. If ‘False’, spot rates will be cleared and the entity will be rated. Default if not specified is ‘True’.
- Uncommit: If ‘True’, carrier, service, and equipment type commits are removed when unsuspending loads, trips, or bookings. If ‘False’, all commits are retained. Default if not specified is ‘False’.
Parameter 2 – Retry Frequency (Optional): Specifies the minimum retry frequency in minutes. If an entity has been rated by another instance of this job within the retry frequency minutes and has not since been updated, re-rating will not be attempted. Not specifying a value or specifying 0 indicates that entities should always be re-rated. The value must be an integer.
Parameter 3 – Entity Type (Optional): Specifies the type of entity to be rated. Required only if no ESCs are specified for the job definition. When no ESCs are specified for the job definition, the rating call uses the input XML to identify the entity to be rated. One of “LOAD”, “TRIP”, “BOOKING”, or “SHIPMENT”.

Entity Selection Criteria Usage

ESCs specified for this job type should select bookings, trips, loads, or shipments. findEntities API format ESCs need to select only the booking ID, trip ID, load ID, or shipment ID. Any other information returned will not be processed. SQL format ESCs must return TRIP_ID, LD_LEG_ID, or SHPM_ID.

Note: For more details, see the "Job Server" topic in the Transportation Manager System Administration Guide.