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Short Line Data Systems Inc. Update – May 2002
Website: www.sdsrocs.com
Greetings-
A lot of things have been going on at SDS over the last month, so we will bring everyone up to date on the happenings, as well as some new and planned features of ROCS.
ASLRRA Annual Meeting SDS had their first booth at the ASLRRA Annual Meeting and Exhibition in Orlando at the end of April. The reception was very warm to ROCS, and we were happy to get a chance to talk face to face with some of the people that we have talking to on the phone. We gave out a lot of brochures (and pens), and we We will probably be at the Eastern Region meeting in Baltimore, and we look forward to the next Annual Meeting in Philadelphia next year.
New Features
Block Add We have added a new feature to allow the user to add groups of waybills to the database instead of one at a time. The feature is found on the Add New Waybills screen in the EDI section.
Travel Time Report A new report has been added to the On Line Reports section which allows you to view a graph of the travel time from waybill date to interchange date for any time period, customer, or origin, in any combination.
Coming Soon
In-house Car Hire We have started the development of our in-house car hire system. This will allow you to do your own LCS car hire without sending your data off to someone to create the reports for you. Before anyone gets nervous about doing this, be assured that we will not introduce any feature before we are sure that it is as easy to use as the rest of the ROCS system
The first part of this feature will be enhanced TRAINII reporting of interchanges are movements. The big part of this will be automatic correction reporting, which will enhance the accuracy of your movement reporting.
Following next will be the bi-directional TRAINII. ROCS already receives any messages sent to your railroad, and now you will be able to view these messages. The first application of this will be retrieval of UMLER information for the cars you are handling. This will probably be done completely in the background as part of your normal data transfer, and the information will be used to enhance the presentation in ROCS.
Finally, we will introduce the full LCS car hire system. This is as big a step as it sounds, and is probably six to eight months down the road. We are not really sure of the form it will take right now, but as we make advances on the development of the system, we will keep you posted.
The timetable for these improvements is currently:
Enhanced TRAINII – Probably by the end of June
Bi-directional TRAINII – September or October
Full LCS Car Hire – November or December
As always, this schedule is subject to change, but we are aiming to have this full system up by the end of the year.
Admittedly, this is a very ambitious plan, but when completed, this feature will make ROCS a “Very useful system” (for those of you without small children around, check out www.thomasthetankengine.com and you’ll understand).
Well, that is all for this month. As always, you can view the new features on the website ( www.sdsrocs.com ), and if you have any questions, please e-mail or call.
Steven Friedland
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