McLeod Software’s latest update of its transportation management software includes new carrier app for brokers and improvements for customer service teams. In addition, its Cloud IQ business analytics platform is now cloud-based.

Carrier App for Brokers

With PowerBroker Version 20.1, McLeod is introducing the new Carrier App to help brokers get the best carriers and the best drivers covering their loads.

McLeod says its new app delivers a broader set of capabilities for digital freight-matching than other apps in the marketplace, giving users the ability to offer and cover loads through a secure connection to the PowerBroker system. This means that logistics companies using PowerBroker can now deploy some of the same capabilities widely touted by “digital brokers,” who seek to engage carriers looking for loads through their mobile apps, according to McLeod.

The driver, or the carrier office staff, including operations and administration, can easily view offered loads and can search for available loads. Carriers can make changes to their Driver Profile Information, their Preferred Lanes, and update Available Tractor information, including keeping their equipment profiles current. The carrier operations and administration staff can access the same set of tools that their driver has with one login. 

The McLeod Carrier App helps to establish better communication between a carrier driver, the carrier back office team, and the broker. Brokers can send order offers directly to carrier administration or carrier drivers from PowerBroker. Carrier drivers can view, accept, counter, or decline load offers directly from the mobile app. Brokers using McLeod’s Rapid Alert Notification System (RANS) can be alerted immediately of driver load acceptance, and send load confirmations seamlessly back to the driver or their home office. Streamlining the process gets loads covered faster. 

Customer Service Reps

Version 20.1 of McLeod’s LoadMaster Enterprise and PowerBroker software includes a new Customer Service Management screen that gives customer service reps a new role-based “cockpit environment” that puts everything they need in one place.

The dashboard view offers access to Board Statistics, Market Rates, and Dispatch information, all vital to helping customer service reps make faster decisions with a complete view of company requirements, according to McLeod. Profiles can be created to filter information for more specific user views the individual customer service needs, based on customers, regions, order status, order types, inbound, and outbound destination. Multiple profiles can be readily available, displayed in a multi-tab format.

The new environment also displays the individual movements for each order to provide a complete view of the customer service rep’s workload with order and movement status information. Tracking, service incidents, appointment detail, and OS&D are all visible on one screen. 

Business Intelligence in the Cloud

McLeod Software’s Cloud IQ is a McLeod-hosted, cloud-based version of the McLeod IQ analytics product, which allows customers to deploy it quickly without the investment in hardware and infrastructure.

The Cloud IQ Business Intelligence offers visual analysis along with the ability to drill down and understand what is behind the numbers. Using Microsoft’s Power BI, Excel, or Reporting Services (SSRS) to access the Cloud IQ model, companies can be up and running in a matter of days with a full suite of standard reports and dashboards. Cloud IQ comes with an assortment of standard Power BI analytics and dashboards, built from the most commonly used Key Performance Indicators (KPIs).