Gate appointments is the vehicle booking system of your gate. It spreads the trucks over the day instead of letting them queue at opening time: a haulier, a...
Gate appointments
Gate appointments is the vehicle booking system of your gate. It spreads the trucks over the day instead of letting them queue at opening time: a haulier, a client or your own office books a time slot at a site, every slot takes a set number of trucks, and when the truck comes through the gate with the same plate or reference, the appointment is marked Arrived by itself. On the same screen you follow every truck from check-in to check-out and read the turnaround time hauliers and clients judge a depot on.
Where to find it: Workspace → Logistics → Warehouse → Gate appointments.
Who can use it
Anyone with the base Warehouse permission sees the day, the bookings, the trucks on site and the no-show figures.
Booking a slot and cancelling a booking needs Book and cancel gate appointments.
Confirming or declining a client's pick-up request needs Confirm or decline clients' pick-up requests.
Checking trucks in and out needs Gate in and gate out.
All of these are part of the daily-operations group Gate in and out, move units, fill and empty tanks. A role marked Cannot use bulk actions confirms, cancels and checks out one row at a time.
Appointments are per site: with no site yet the screen says "Add a site first: appointments are per site."
Where it sits in the operation
An appointment is a promise of capacity, not a gate pass. It is booked ahead, it holds one place in its slot, and it is closed by the gate move itself the gate clerk never ticks it off by hand. Trucks without an appointment are still let in: an appointment never stops a gate move.
Figure 1 Nobody marks a truck arrived by hand: the gate move does it when the plate or the reference matches a booking of that site today. No-show is not stored; it is what a booking looks like once its slot ended more than an hour ago.
What you see
The hero tile: how many trucks booked on the day shown. Book a slot sits at the top right of the tab strip.
The bar: the site, the day with Previous day, Today and Next day, and the site's set-up, for example "Open 06:00–20:00 · 30-minute slots · 4 trucks per slot".
The no-show badge: "No-shows, 30 days: 6 of 82 (7.3%)" orange from the warning level. Click it for the same figure per haulier.
The slot board: one tile per slot with the time, how many trucks are booked out of how many fit, and a fill bar. Full slots and slots that are over are marked and cannot be tapped.
Waiting for your confirmation (only while clients have requests open): every request for this site, every coming day, oldest first, with the truck, the reference, the client and their note.
The bookings of the day:
Column
What it shows
Time
The slot start.
Truck plate
As booked (spaces removed, upper case).
Haulier
Free text given at booking.
Reference
The booking, release or unit number the driver will quote.
Client
The client, with a via portal badge when the client booked it in the portal (point at it to read their note).
In / out
Bringing in, Collecting or Both.
Status
Requested, Booked, Arrived, No-show or Cancelled. Cancelled bookings are not listed on the day.
Below, Trucks on site: the trucks of the day, still on site first.
Figure 2 Capacity is counted per slot, not per day: the 07:30 peak is closed while 08:30 is empty. Move the hauliers who always ask for opening time to the quiet slots.
Book a slot
Pick the site and the day.
Tap a free slot (or Book a slot at the top right and choose the time; each time shows how many places are left).
Give the Truck plate or the Reference the driver will quote at the gate the booking, release or unit number. "A plate or a reference is enough."
Choose In / out (Bringing in, Collecting, Both). Optional: Haulier, Client, Note.
Click Book the slot. You see "Booked for 2026-10-18 07:00." and the board refreshes.
A full slot or a slot that is over cannot be booked ("That slot is full. Choose another.", "That slot is over."). When every slot of the day is full or over, the form says so and the button is disabled. Two people booking the last place at the same moment cannot both get it: the second is told the slot is full.
At the gate
Nothing extra to do. When a truck is gated in or out at that site today with the booked plate (however it is typed spaces, dashes and lower case are ignored) or the booked reference (case does not matter), its appointment becomes Arrived and is linked to the gate visit. Only unit gate moves do this: a tank receipt or delivery from a truck does not close an appointment, so book tank-farm trucks by reference and expect them to stay Booked. Trucks without an appointment are still let in.
While the clerk types the truck plate in the gate form, a line under it says "Gate appointment today at 07:30.", "Booked at 07:30 today this truck is late." or "No gate appointment today for this truck."
Confirm or decline client requests
When clients may book pick-ups themselves (Warehouse settings → Pick-up booking → … book a pick-up slot themselves), they choose a free slot for one of their units in the yard, and the booking appears here with the via portal badge. The settings next to it decide how far ahead they see slots (… up to how many days ahead, 14 by default), how much notice they must give (… with how much notice, 2 hours by default), who at the client may book (every contact or the primary contact only) and whether they are reminded the day before.
If … only after you confirm is on, a client's booking arrives as Requested (purple). It already holds its place in the slot, and the client sees "Waiting for confirmation".
Find it in Waiting for your confirmation above the day's bookings (all coming days), or on its row.
Click the calendar-check button to Confirm it (it becomes Booked), or the cancel button to decline it so the client can choose another time. Select several rows to confirm or cancel them at once.
When you confirm a client's booking, or decline or cancel one they made in the portal, the client's contacts get a notification (in the app, and by email if they allow it) naming the unit and the time. Settings → Notifications, event "The depot confirmed or declined a pick-up you booked.", decides whether it is sent. A requested truck that turns up anyway is still recognised at the gate.
The driver's slip. When a client's pick-up is firm (booked, or confirmed by you), the client can open a Pick-up slip from the portal the slot, the site, the truck, and a QR code of the unit number. The driver shows it on a phone or on paper; the gate scanner reads the code like any unit number.
Cancel
Click the cancel icon on the booking's row and confirm ("Cancel this appointment?"). The place is free again. Bookings are never deleted; only a Booked or Requested appointment can be cancelled.
Trucks on site and turnaround time
Trucks on site follows every truck from the gate to its departure.
When a truck arrives, type its plate (optional: driver and haulier) and press Check in. A gate in or gate out with a plate checks the truck in by itself if nobody did, and counts its moves. Checking in a truck that is already on site just says so.
When it leaves, press Check out on its row ("… checked out after 1 h 05 min."). At the end of the day, select the trucks that are gone and use Check them out (they left).
Each row shows the plate, haulier, driver, Arrived, Left at, Time on site, the number of gate Moves and On site / Left. A truck still on site from an earlier day stays on today's list until it is checked out.
Figure 3 Turnaround runs from the first sign of the truck to its check-out. The gate moves fill the timeline in by themselves; only the check-out needs a hand.
Settings
In Warehouse settings → Yard and safety:
Setting
What it does
Default
Appointment slot length
15, 20, 30, 60 or 120 minutes.
30 min
Trucks per slot
How many trucks the gate takes in one slot (1–50).
4
Gate opening hours
The first and the last appointment slot of the day, in the workspace's local time.
06:00–20:00
No-shows: warn from
The 30-day no-show rate turns orange from this level, on the badge and per haulier.
15%
A site can have its own gate hours and trucks per slot: edit the site and fill in Gate hours and trucks per slot. Left empty, the site uses the workspace's. The slot length is the same for every site.
Controls and exceptions
"Give the truck plate or a reference." one of the two is required.
"Choose one of the day's slots." a time outside the opening hours or between slots is refused.
"That slot is over." / "That slot is full. Choose another." checked again at the moment of saving, with the slot locked, so the last place is never sold twice.
"Only a booked appointment can be cancelled." / "Only a requested booking can be confirmed."
"Your role may not confirm or decline clients' requests." a client request needs the decide permission even for someone who may book and cancel.
Matching at the gate looks only at today's appointments of that site, and takes the earliest matching one. A plate booked twice the same day is matched slot by slot.
A booking made for the wrong time cannot be moved: cancel it and book the right slot.
Nothing is deleted: cancelled bookings stay in the database and count in no figure.
For the manager
No-show rate. The badge counts, over the last 30 days at this site, the appointments whose slot is over: how many trucks came and how many never did (cancelled ones do not count). Click it for the same figure per haulier bookings, arrivals and no-shows, the worst first and export it for the conversation with them. A high rate is the signal to remind hauliers, or to switch on confirmation for client bookings.
Turnaround. The average of the day and of the last 7 days is the service figure hauliers compare depots on. Watch it against the slot board: a long turnaround in full slots means the gate or the reach stackers, not the bookings, are the bottleneck.
Peak shaving. Compare full slots with empty ones over a week; lower Trucks per slot at the peak site, or give that site its own hours.
Dashboard. The card Warehouse · Gate appointments today lists the trucks still expected over all your sites, with how many arrived and how many did not show up, plus a Waiting for confirmation count while client requests are open. The Trucks on site tile shows the same truck figures.
Assistants. Marvin and AI assistants connected through MCP can read a day's slots, book a truck into a slot, cancel a booking and say which trucks are on site and for how long with the same rules and permissions as the screen.
Glossary
Vehicle booking system (VBS)
The trade name for gate appointments: trucks book a time slot instead of arriving all at once.
Slot
A fixed time window at the gate of one site, with a capacity in trucks.
Capacity
Trucks per slot; Requested and Booked appointments both use it.
No-show
A booked or requested truck not seen at the gate an hour after its slot ended.
Reference
The booking, release or unit number the driver quotes; it matches at the gate like the plate.
Requested
A client's portal booking waiting for the depot to confirm or decline it.
Turnaround time (TAT)
Time from the truck's arrival to its departure.
Double move
One truck visit that brings a unit in and takes another out; it shows as 2 moves on the truck's row.
Pick-up slip
The client's printable or on-screen slip with a QR code of the unit number, read by the gate scanner.
Related screens
Sites the gate in and gate out, and each site's own gate hours.
