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Short Line Data Systems Inc. ROCS Update – August 2003
Website – www.sdsrocs.com
Greetings:
I hope that everyone is having an enjoyable summer, and things have been moving very quickly here. We have new installations, new features, and a new release on the horizon. Let’s take a look at what’s been going on.
New Installations:
We have added a new customer to the SDS family: the Carolina Coastal Railway (CLNA). The CLNA is a 17 mile short line in North Carolina, and operations with ROCS starts on August 1. We are going to be performing the data input and EDI exchange for CLNA, with the required paperwork being faxed or emailed to their offices.
The M&E will be adding an additional installation for their new operation in Maine. This installation will be the first one to interface with Railinc’s Concur package for ISS settlement, and it will be a semi-remote setup, with some operations performed in Maine, and some performed in New Jersey.
New Features:
As some of you have seen in Views & News, we have created a new feature in ROCS to deal with the requirement for a railroad to be aware of the single car air brake test date for all cars on its railroad. The BrakeCheck screen shows all of the cars inbound to or on the railroad, the last test date, and the next test date. If the car is due within 90 days, the test date shows in yellow. If it is due in 30 days, the date is orange. If a car is due or overdue, the date is a very conspicuous red. There is also a companion report that can be printed for field use. The data for this report comes from the full UMLER record that is downloaded automatically. The expanded information from the UMLER record is visible in a popup screen anywhere the UMLER button is available. We are testing these new features at the M&E, OCTR, and SRNJ, and they will be a standard part of Version 7 when it is released shortly.
While there has been a lot of discussion about just getting railroads to report events, there has also been discussion about reporting in a more timely fashion. What we have done is to incorporate an automatic transmit function into ROCS. What happens is when the user exits the Customer Status section of ROCS, the data is transmitted automatically. The user can still choose when to download data, and other data can be uploaded when the user desires. This will minimize the time between user input and transmission. What it doesn’t do is get the user to sit down in front of the computer.
We have also made ROCS EDI4050 compliant. This is the most current EDI standard, and all users will be upgraded as part of the next release.
One last addition this month has been a “short” car hire summary report. This report shows the monthly car hire charges by reporting mark and parent without the individual car information.
On Line Demos
In addition to the demo version of ROCS that is available on our website, we are now offering web demonstrations of the ROCS system. The demonstrations are available at any time by appointment. Just give us a call, and we will send you an email with the information for the demonstration.
That is about all for this month. I hope that everyone is having an enjoyable and safe summer, and we look forward to seeing you at the upcoming fall meetings.
Steven Friedland President |
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