General FAQ

This page answers questions that TrakIT users often ask, grouped by area. Each answer is short and links to the page that explains the topic in full. For the meaning of TrakIT’s terms, see the Glossary. For whole tasks from start to finish, see the guides, such as From job to closed work order, and for the screens TrakIT shows when it cannot open a page, see Error messages.

Some names are set up for your installation, so yours may differ from this page: the name of the job reference (for example Transport Document, or T/D for short) and the names of the entity types (such as Customer or Transporter).

Signing in and your account

How do I reset my password?

On the sign-in page, select Lost Password?, type your user ID or email address and select Submit. TrakIT emails you a link that works once, for 24 hours: open it and type your new password twice. If you don’t receive the email, an administrator whose role has Reset Password in the User Management section can reset your password, and TrakIT emails you a new one. See Reset a forgotten password.

My account is locked. How do I unlock it?

User account is locked means that an administrator locked your user, or that TrakIT locked it because you had not used TrakIT for longer than your company allows. Ask an administrator whose role has Lock User in the User Management section to unlock it. Five unsuccessful attempts made. Try again after 30 minutes. is not a lock: wait 30 minutes and try again, or reset your password. See If you can’t sign in.

How do I get a TrakIT user?

Select Request Access on the sign-in page and fill in the form. TrakIT emails your request to the system administrators of your installation, who create a user for you if they agree. See Request access.

Pages, menus and permissions

Why does a page say Authorization Failed?

Your roles don’t have the permission the page needs. Every page checks your permissions when it opens, however you reached it, from the menu or from a link. A line in red under the message can give more detail, such as Read Permission Denied, and some pages are for system administrators only. The Who can use this page section at the end of each help page names the permissions; ask your administrator for a role that has them. See Role management and Access denied.

SysAdmin Pages and the items under it appear only to system administrators.
A system administrator can hide top-level menus from a role, and a user who can update users can hide them from you on your user record. A menu is hidden from you when every role you hold hides it, or your user record does.
TrakIT Support can hide menu items for your whole installation, and extra pages your company has added can be limited to some roles and companies.
In a narrow window, the menu folds away behind the menu icon at the left of the top bar.

A menu can also have another name on your installation. See The main menu.

Why can’t I find a work order or job?

You see only the jobs and work orders of the workflows you have access to. You get access to a workflow through the places in Geo Data you are assigned to, or when it is assigned to you on your user record. Custom filters on your roles, and filters on your user record, can also hide some records. A link to a work order you can’t see shows Invalid Resource, as for one that doesn’t exist. Ask an administrator to check your Workflow Access.

Work orders

Why did my work order become Abandoned?

A work order becomes Abandoned when its latest event, not counting events for information only, is older than a number of days, or, if it has no events, when it was created that long ago. The number is the workflow’s Abandoned After, or else your installation’s default, and TrakIT checks every six hours. If the work order has required events or data fields, it becomes Active again when an event dated within that number of days is recorded. You can still update an abandoned work order, and your installation can close abandoned work orders automatically once a week.

Why did my work order close by itself?

All its required events and data fields have a value other than TBA (NA counts as a value), so TrakIT closed it.
An event or data field has a Close Work Order action.
Your installation closes abandoned work orders automatically.

The work order’s Audit Log tab shows when it was closed. To work on it again, select Re-open Work Order in its tasks menu. See Close, cancel or re-open. For all the ways a work order closes, see Close the work orders.

How do I delete a work order?

Select Delete Work Order in the work order’s tasks menu, then Delete. You can delete an active or abandoned work order within 96 hours of its creation, if it has no documents and no items committed to a warehouse, and your role needs Delete in the Work Orders section; otherwise the task is grey. After that, close or cancel the work order instead. A system administrator can delete a whole job created by mistake with Delete Full Job. See Delete a work order.

Why can’t I change the job reference (T/D)?

Change job reference in the work order’s tasks menu, for example Change Transport Document, is grey when:

the work order was created more than a number of days ago, set for your installation;
your role doesn’t have the Change job reference permission in the Work Orders section;
the work order is closed or cancelled.

To change the reference after that number of days, ask TrakIT Support. See Change the job reference.

How do I move work orders to another job?

Open one of the work orders and select Change job reference in its tasks menu.
Enter the New job reference.
In Select Scope, choose This work order only, or Selected work orders only and select the work orders.
To move them to a job that already exists, select Allow joining with existing job.
Select Apply Change.

A reference that doesn’t exist yet creates a new job, which is how you split a job in two. A job you join must have the same workflow and job type, and work orders whose accounts are on an approved invoice or bill can’t be moved. See Change the job reference.

How do I change a work order’s workflow?

Select Change Workflow/Services in the work order’s tasks menu.
Choose the workflow in Select Workflow, and the services in Select Services.
Select Save.

A new workflow applies to the whole job, and the job’s job type must exist in it. TrakIT deletes and re-creates the events and data of the job’s work orders, and keeps only the values of fields whose codes match in the new workflow. Your role needs Change Workflow and Change Services in the Work Orders section. See Change the workflow or services.

Why is a field mandatory?

The workflow decides it:

A header field ticked Mandatory on the workflow’s Header Fields tab must be filled in when a work order is created and when its header is saved, for example Seal Number is required. Job data fields marked Mandatory must be filled in when a job is created.
An event or data field can require another field first (its Requires setting). Until that field has a value other than TBA, TrakIT says Missing followed by its name, for example Missing Transporter.
A field can require remarks with its value: Remarks are required.
A star marks a required event or data field. It doesn’t stop you saving: the work order closes when all its required fields have values.

Your company can also have checks set up by TrakIT Support, which show their own messages. To change the rules, ask your workflow’s administrators. See Event and data definitions.

Events and data

Why does an event say Out of sequence?

Events are recorded in the workflow’s order: you can’t record an event while an earlier event of the work order is still empty. Record the earlier events first, or, where they allow it, set them to Not Applicable (NA) or To Be Advised (TBA). With Apply To Job, (Check all) after the message means that an earlier event is empty on another open work order of the job. Events for information only are never checked, and the check is off in a workflow with Ignore Event Sequence turned on. See When a value is not saved.

Why can’t I save an event or data value?

TrakIT checks each row when you save, and shows the reason in the row. Besides Out of sequence, the most common are:

Future Time/Date: the event is more than 5 minutes in the future.
Chronological order: the workflow wants events in date order, and this one is earlier than an event before it, or than the work order’s creation.
Event Changed or Data Changed: someone else saved the value after you opened the page.

A grey value can’t be changed: it is computed, your role can only view it, your role doesn’t have Update Events & Data in the Work Orders section, or the work order is closed or cancelled. See When a value is not saved.

Bulk updates

Why does my bulk update say Header Missing?

TrakIT reads the first worksheet that is not hidden, and its first cell, A1, must hold the heading of the first column, such as WOID, Container or your job reference label. Header Missing in the results email means that cell is empty; Invalid header means it holds another heading. Make sure the sheet with your data is the first visible one. See Bulk update.

How do I ignore the event sequence in a bulk update?

Select Ignore event sequence on the Bulk Updates or Bulk create page. It needs Ignore Event Sequence in the Bulk Updates section of your role: without it, the option is greyed out. On a work order itself, only the workflow’s Ignore Event Sequence setting turns the check off.

Can I send a bulk update by email?

Yes, if your installation reads incoming email. Ask your system administrator for TrakIT’s email address.

Prepare the Excel file as for the Bulk Updates page, and save it as .xlsx.
Email it as an attachment from the email address on your TrakIT user, with a subject that starts with TrakIT Update. To also ignore the event sequence, add IgnoreSequence, as one word, to the subject.

TrakIT applies the file as if Overwrite existing data were selected, and replies with an Email Response email that gives the results. Your role needs Upload and Overwrite Existing Data in the Bulk Updates section, and Ignore Event Sequence to ignore the sequence. A subject that starts with TrakIT Upload does something else and doesn’t update work orders. See Send a bulk update file and Emails Received.

Entities

How do I add a transporter or another entity?

Select System > Entity Management.
Select the tab of the entity type, for example Transporter.
Select Create.
Fill in at least Entity Code, Entity Name, Country and Responsible Company.
Select Create.

Your role needs Create in the Entity Management section. To let other companies use the entity, enable them on its Per Company tab. See Create an entity.

Which characters can an entity code have?

The letters A to Z, the digits 0 to 9, hyphens (-) and underscores (_), up to 25 characters. On the entity page, TrakIT removes spaces and changes letters to capitals. Other characters, such as accented letters, give Entity Code must be alphanumeric, and a longer code Entity Code cannot exceed 25 characters. For some entity types TrakIT numbers the codes itself, and the field is greyed out. An import checks each row the same way and rejects the rows that fail. See Entity fields.

Why is an email address excluded, and how do I remove it?

TrakIT stops emailing an address when the recipient unsubscribes with the link in a TrakIT email, when the address bounces on installations whose mail service reports bounces, or when a system administrator adds it to the list. While it is excluded, TrakIT leaves it out of every email, and email fields refuse it with Email … is excluded. Only a system administrator can remove it: in Admin > Logs > Message Log, on the Emails Excluded tab, select the X at the end of its row. See Emails Excluded tab.

KPIs

Why does a 40-hour KPI target show as 5 days?

The KPI counts business hours. A business day is 8 hours, from 09:00 to 17:00 in the KPI’s time zone, on the days that are neither weekend days nor holidays of the KPI’s country, so a 40-hour target shows as 5d 0h on the work order’s KPIs tab. A KPI in calendar hours counts 24 hours a day, so 40 hours shows as 1d 16h. The Type column says Business Hours or Calendar Hours. See Country holidays.

I changed a KPI. Why do work orders still show the old target?

A work order keeps the KPIs and targets it was given. When you change a KPI on the workflow’s KPIs tab, select Update Target Days in existing open work orders to give the active and abandoned work orders the new target. For a new KPI, select Apply KPI to existing open work orders where KPI is missing. Without them, only work orders created from then on get the change. See Create or change a KPI.

How do I report on KPIs for a period?

Select Reports > Interactive, then KPI Performance under KPIs. Choose the workflows and KPIs, set the dates the KPIs started, and select Run report. For month-by-month figures, use KPI Trend with Period set to Monthly; for the number of work orders each month, use WO Throughput. See KPI reports.

Delay tracking

Why isn’t a container on the Delay Tracking list?

A container is added a few minutes after its work order records an event that starts tracking. The work order must be active or abandoned and have a container number and size, and the container must not be shipper-owned. Which events start and stop tracking is set on each event of the workflow. See How containers are tracked.

Why didn’t a container get the new free days?

A container gets its free days and rates from the workflow’s delay cost definitions when it is added to the list. To give new values to the containers already on it, save the definition with Apply to Active Containers in Tracking List. See Free days and charges.

Workflow definitions

How do I add an event or data field to a workflow?

Select Admin > Workflow Definitions and open the workflow.
On the Events or Data tab, select Create.
Choose the Master Event or Master Data, and fill in the fields.
To give it to the workflow’s open work orders too, select Add to open work orders as well.
Select Create.

Otherwise only work orders created from then on get it. See Event and data definitions.

How do I make a field wait for another one?

Open the event or data field from the workflow, select the pencil (Edit Detail), and in Requires choose Header, Event or Data, then the field. Select Save. Users can then give it a value only once that field has a value other than TBA. See Fields.

How do I make header fields mandatory or hide them?

Open the workflow and select its Header Fields tab. Tick Visible to show a field, Mandatory to require it and External to show it to external users, then select Save. Location List, Yard Position and Shipper Container can’t be made mandatory, and the job reference is always visible. See Header Fields tab.

Why can’t I delete an event from a workflow?

An event that work orders have is deleted only if you select Delete from all work orders and reports, which deletes its values too. TrakIT says Unable to delete. Please check references. while users are chosen under Workflow Instructions, or while another field’s due days count from the event: remove those first. The revenue/expense recognition event, and fields that another field Requires, can’t be deleted; turn off Currently Active instead, where allowed. See Delete an event or data field.

Why does TrakIT say Cannot find event code?

A workflow setting that names an event, such as Rev/Exp Recognition or Warehouse Commit Event, takes the event’s code, not its name. Enter the code from the Code column of the workflow’s Events tab. See Workflow settings.

Why aren’t some services offered when I create a job?

A job offers only the services allowed for its workflow. Open the workflow, select its Services/Job Type tab, tick the services under Allowed Services and select Save. The services themselves are kept under Admin > Masters > Master Tables (Workflow Services). See Services/Job Type tab.

Reports

How do I stop receiving a report?

Select Reports > My Reports.
Under Recipient of Reports, select the minus icon (Remove report) on the report’s row.
Confirm.

The icon is there only for reports sent to you by name or by email address. For a report you receive as a member of a user group, ask the report’s owner to change its recipients. See Stop receiving a report.

Geography

How do I add a depot under a city?

Depots, yards, ports and other sites are locations, under a city in Geo Data.

Select System > Geo Data.
Find the city with Search code or name, and select it.
Select the plus icon next to the list under the city. Create New Location opens with the city filled in.
Fill in the location and select Save.

You can also create one from System > Location List. Your role needs Read and Create in the Geo Data & Locations section. See Add a location.

Finance

For questions about the books, postings, financial years and currencies, see Accounting glossary and FAQ.