| Text your drivers for ETAs from your PC, send your rate con and POD emails from a hotkey, and pin the load board over your TMS so nothing gets buried. | | You know the drill. It’s 7:40am, you’ve got DAT on one screen, the TMS on another, Outlook on a third, and your phone won’t stop buzzing. A shipper wants a truck for a reefer load out of Laredo, a driver’s been sitting at the receiver for three hours with no unload, and the customer wants to know where their freight is. Right now. Booking the load is the fun part. It’s everything around it that eats the day. Retyping the load number, PO number and MC number into five different places. The same “please send the signed rate con” email for the twentieth time today. Check calls. Chasing the POD and BOL so you can invoice. Watching the detention clock. None of that is moving freight. It’s busywork, and when you get paid per load, every minute of it is a load you’re not covering. Sound familiar? ❓ Here’s the thing: your TMS and DAT aren’t the problem. It’s all the little stuff you do between them, by hand, over and over. That’s exactly the kind of work a computer should be doing for you. So below are the tools I’d hand any dispatcher or broker, most helpful first. Most run on your Windows PC; one runs right in your browser. None of them need you to learn anything techy. Click Learn more on any one for the full rundown. Now on with the show… 😃 | | Load Numbers, Emails and Canned Text: Type It Once ✍️ | Load #, PO #, pickup #, MC #, the shipper’s address, the rate. You copy and paste the same five things all day long. Make it painless. | | Tool | What it does for you | Clipboard History
Learn more → | Copy the load number, PO number, pickup number and the carrier’s MC number once, then paste any of them later from your clipboard history. It even remembers which window you copied from, so you know which one came from the rate con and which came from the load board. | Prompt Assistant
Learn more → | Keep your canned emails and messages in folders: load details to the carrier, “please sign and return the rate con,” “send POD and BOL for invoicing,” detention notice to the customer, carrier setup packet request. Pick one from a menu or type a short trigger and it pastes into Outlook, the TMS notes or a load board message. Fill in the load number and send. | SimpleTextSender
Learn more → | A lighter option: a small menu of your most-used lines on one hotkey. Your MC number, your after-hours line, your standard “driver must check in with dispatch at pickup” instructions. | Naked Clipboard
Learn more → | Paste plain text with a hotkey, no fonts or formatting tagging along. Copy an address off a load board or a shipper’s email and drop it into the TMS clean. | AutoSuggester
Learn more → | Suggests words as you type, based on what you type most. Shipper names, receiver names, the cities on your regular lanes. Start typing, pick it, move on. | URL Memory
Learn more → | Tell it which sites to watch, and every tracking link or portal link you copy from them gets saved to one running list, cleaned up and de-duplicated. No more digging through emails for the tracking link the customer asked for. | Spell Check Everywhere
Learn more →
AutoCorrect version → | Spell check that works in every Windows program, not just Word. Because “reciever” in an email to a new shipper is not the first impression you want. 😅 |
| | Tip: Copy the load number once when you book it. Clipboard History keeps it for the rate con, the carrier email, the TMS and the invoice. One copy, four pastes, zero typos in the load number. ⚡ |
| | Check Calls and Driver Texts: From Your PC 📱 | Your drivers would rather get a text than a call. You’d rather send it from your keyboard than your thumbs. | | Tool | What it does for you | Phone Link SMS
Learn more → | Send texts to your drivers from your PC through your own Android phone. “What’s your ETA to the receiver?” “Send me a pic of the BOL when you’re loaded.” Texts come from YOUR number, the one your drivers already have saved. (Don’t expect a reply while they’re rolling. That’s on purpose.) | RemindMe
Learn more → | One hotkey, type “check call on load 48213, should be loaded by now,” pick a time, done. It pops up on your screen or emails you, even if your PC is off. Great for appointment times, check calls and “call the shipper back at 2.” | Stopwatch
Learn more → | Driver just checked in at the receiver? Start the clock so you know exactly when detention kicks in. The stop button works as a pause, so you can pick up where you left off. (Your official times still come from the BOL and the in/out times.) |
| | Tip: Driver checks in: start the Stopwatch and set a RemindMe for two hours out. When it pops, you already know whether to send the detention notice to the customer. 😊 |
| | Three Monitors, Twenty Windows: Keep Them Where You Need Them 🖥️ | The load board, the TMS, tracking, Outlook, Google Maps, a carrier setup portal and a weather map. They all want the same screen. | | Tool | What it does for you | Always on Top
Learn more → | One hotkey pins any window above the rest. Keep the load board search or the tracking map in view while you work the load in the TMS underneath it. | Bring Window to Mouse
Learn more → | Lost Outlook on monitor three? Bring the active window right to where your mouse is, or pick one from a list of open windows and bring it over. | Toggle Between Monitors
Learn more → | Send the window you’re in to the other screen with a hotkey instead of dragging it across three monitors. | Active Toggler
Learn more → | Five browser windows open (DAT, Truckstop, tracking, the carrier portal, Google Maps)? Cycle through every window of a program with one hotkey, or start it if it isn’t running. |
| | Receipts and Paperwork 🧾 | | Tool | What it does for you | ReceiptSnap
Try it → | Driver texted you a photo of a lumper receipt, or you’ve got fuel and scale tickets to track for an owner-operator? Snap it and the amounts get pulled out for you. Less retyping when it’s time to bill it back. | GetDropBoxLink
Learn more → | If you keep PODs, BOLs and rate cons in Dropbox, select a file or folder in Windows Explorer, press a hotkey, and the share link is on your clipboard. Handy for sending a customer the full paperwork packet for a load. |
| One thing I’ve learned: you don’t need to automate your whole desk this week. Pick ONE thing on this list that bugs you on every single load. Fix that. Then pick the next one. When you get paid per load, the minutes you stop spending on copy, paste and check calls go right back into covering freight (or leaving the desk before 7pm). That’s the real FREEDOM. How about you? What’s the one piece of dispatch busywork you’d love to never do by hand again? Drop me a note and tell me. I read every one. | | See All Our Tools | | the-Automator.com • Windows automation tools that give you your time back |
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