Introduction
The Edit, Approve, and Export page is your primary workspace for managing Virtual Shift Tickets (VSTs) on a daily basis. This dashboard allows you to review incoming tickets, process them through your approval stages, and prepare them for final accounting exports.
Navigation: Go to MMS > Virtual Shift Tickets > Edit, Approve, and Export.
Access & Permissions
Because this is an active editing workspace, access is strictly controlled by your system permissions:
Manage VST / Manage MDS: Users with these roles have full access to view, edit, approve, and export tickets directly on this page.
Read Only MDS & Third-Party Brokers: Users with view-only or restricted third-party roles cannot access this editable workspace. They are directed to the Virtual Shift Ticket Summary or Invoice History pages instead.
Understanding the Three Status Tables
The workspace is organized into three distinct summary tables that represent the daily lifecycle of your shift tickets:
Open Virtual Shift Ticket Summary: Displays all newly created tickets that are currently awaiting review or editing.
Review Virtual Shift Ticket Summary: This is an optional intermediate step. This table only displays if the "Require a two step process for approving Shift Tickets" setting is enabled in your MMS Controls.
Approved Virtual Shift Ticket Summary: Displays finalized tickets that have been approved and are ready to be exported. (Note: Tickets must be moved to this Approved section before you can export them to CSV or PDF, but they can still be edited after approval if you first click the "Open" button to revert their status.)
The Importance of the "Refresh" Buttons
You will notice a dedicated Refresh button located at the top of each individual table (Open, Review, and Approved).
Ticket statuses can change in the background as tickets move through the workflow. This happens most often when hired haulers approve or deny tickets by email.
Clicking the Refresh button for a specific section pulls in the latest data, allowing you to instantly see broker comments, newly approved tickets, or tickets that were denied and sent back to the Open section, without needing to reload your entire browser window.
How to Edit and Delete Virtual Shift Tickets
The Edit, Approve, and Export page allows you to make adjustments to your Virtual Shift Tickets (VSTs) before they are finalized for payroll and billing. Whether you need to fix a specific line item, expand your view to see more data, or delete a ticket entirely, you can handle it all from this workspace.
Opening a Ticket for Editing
How you open a ticket to make changes depends entirely on how the ticket was originally created:
For Tickets Created Automatically (From a Shift/LCA): Locate the ticket in the Open or Review summary table and click the Edit button in the Actions column.
For Manually Created Tickets: The standard Edit button will be grayed out. Instead, click the blue Ticket Number hyperlink to open the manual ticket edit screen.
Using the Edit Window
Once the Edit overlay opens, click the light blue Details tab at the top left to reveal all the individual line items and cycles for that truck.
Full-Screen Expansion: If a ticket has a large amount of data or columns, click the page expansion button to toggle the window into full-screen mode. Click the button again to return to the normal layout and see your ticket list behind it.
Deleting Specific Rows
If a ticket contains an invalid cycle or an unwanted line item, you can remove just that specific row without having to delete the entire shift ticket.
Inside the Edit window's Details view, select the checkboxes next to the specific row(s) you want to remove.
Click the red Remove Selected button.
A prompt will ask you to confirm the deletion, and once confirmed, the row is removed immediately.
Note: The system is designed to safely delete only the selected rows, even if your company utilizes Driver Time On/Off tracking.
Deleting an Entire Ticket
If a ticket was created in error and needs to be completely removed from the system, you can delete it directly from the summary table.
Locate the Ticket: Find the ticket row in the summary table.
Click Delete: Click the Delete button located in the Actions column for that ticket.
Confirm: A pop-up will appear asking, "Are you sure you want to delete this shift ticket?". Click Ok to permanently delete the ticket (this action is logged in the system for auditing purposes).
Important Rule for Approved Tickets The Delete button is intentionally disabled for tickets sitting in the Approved Virtual Shift Ticket Summary. If you need to delete an Approved ticket, you must first click the Open button on that ticket's row. This will revert the ticket back to the Open section, where it can then be safely deleted.
Adding Wait Time to a Virtual Shift Ticket
Wait time is the time a driver waits, for example to load or unload. You add wait time as a separate row under a cycle. The cycle's own times do not change.
For each wait row, you enter a start time, a stop time, and a pay rate per hour. FleetWatcher does not fill in the pay rate for you. After you save, the Total Charge on the ticket changes to include the wait time pay.
You add wait time one row at a time. To add wait time to more than one cycle, repeat the steps for each cycle.
Note: This feature is not on by default. You cannot turn it on in MMS Controls. If you do not see Add Wait Time in the menu, contact Support at support@fleetwatcher.com and ask them to turn on wait time for your account.
How to Add Wait Time to a VST Cycle:
1. Go to MMS > Virtual Shift Tickets > Edit, Approve, and Export.
2. Find the ticket you want to change.
3. Click Edit in the Actions column. (For a manual ticket, click the blue Ticket Number instead.)
4. Click Details.
5. Find the cycle that needs wait time.
6. In the Actions column, click the wrench icon on that row. A menu opens.
7. Click Add Wait Time. A new Wait row opens directly under the row you clicked.
8. In the Start box, select the date and time the wait began.
9. In the Stop box, select the date and time the wait ended.
10. In Pay Rate Per Hour, type the dollar amount for the wait time.
11. To add wait time to another cycle, repeat steps 6 to 10 on that cycle's row.
12. Save your changes.
NOTES
- The wrench menu has three choices: Add above, Add below, and Add Wait Time. Add above and Add below add a new row. Add Wait Time adds a wait row directly under the row you clicked.
- The pay rate box on a new wait row is empty. Type the rate each time.
The wait time and its calculated pay will now appear in the VST Summary and any relevant export reports.
How to Edit Your Manual Ticket
When reviewing your tables on the Edit, Approve, and Export page, the method you use to edit a ticket depends entirely on how it was originally created.
Automated Tickets: Shift tickets generated automatically from a shift or LCA will feature an active Edit button in the Actions column.
Manual Tickets: If a ticket was created manually, the standard Edit button will be grayed out. To make adjustments, you must instead click the blue Ticket Number hyperlink.
Clicking the blue Ticket Number hyperlink will bypass the standard Edit window and route you directly to the dedicated manual shift ticket edit screen, allowing you to safely adjust the specific details of that manual entry.
Important Security Note for Third-Party Users Access to the manual edit screen via the ticket hyperlink is strictly protected by your system permissions. Only internal users with the Manage VST role can open it. If a third-party user, hired hauler, or broker attempts to click the ticket number hyperlink, the system's middleware will actively block them from accessing the edit page.
The Broker Approval Workflow for VSTs
The Edit, Approve, and Export page allows you to seamlessly communicate with your hired haulers. Once tickets are sent to a broker via the Email PDF function, the broker can review the invoice and choose to approve or deny the work directly from their email.
When a broker responds, the system automatically updates the ticket's status and leaves a note in the Broker Comments column on your workspace.
The Broker Comments Box (Color-Coding)
You can easily track the status of your hired hauler invoices by looking at the color-coded Broker Comments box on any ticket row.
Blue (Pending): The approval request has been sent, and the system is waiting on the broker to respond.
Green (Approved): The broker has accepted the ticket. The box will update to say "Broker Approved" or "Broker Approved With Comments," and will include the date and the broker's email address.
Red (Denied): The broker has rejected the ticket. The box will update to say "denial comments," displaying the date, the broker's email, and their required explanation for the rejection.
Ticket Movement and the Refresh Button
Broker responses directly impact where a ticket sits on your workspace:
Denied Tickets Move to Open: If a broker denies a ticket, FleetWatcher automatically unapproves it and moves the ticket back to your Open Virtual Shift Ticket Summary. Brokers are required to enter a note when declining a ticket, ensuring your team knows exactly what details need to be modified before the ticket can be re-approved and sent back.
Using the Refresh Button: Because broker approvals and denials happen asynchronously in the background via email, you must click the Refresh button located at the top of the Open, Review, or Approved tables to pull in the latest data. This allows you to instantly see new broker comments and track tickets that have moved between sections without having to reload your entire browser window.
Exporting VSTs: CSVs, PDFs, and Invoice Numbers
The final stage of the Virtual Shift Ticket (VST) daily workflow is exporting your finalized data for payroll, accounting, and hired hauler billing. FleetWatcher provides distinct export methods depending on whether you need spreadsheet data for your ERP system or formatted invoices for your brokers.
The "Approved" Rule Before you can export any tickets to CSV or PDF, they must be moved into the Approved Virtual Shift Ticket Summary section on your workspace. The export buttons are intentionally located at the bottom of this specific table to ensure only finalized, approved work is billed.
Export Batch (CSVs for Accounting)
The Export Batch button is the primary method for creating CSV exports tailored for your accounting or payroll software.
Select your approved tickets, choose your custom Template, select your Summary Option (e.g., Summary, Detail, Summary by Phase), and click Export Batch.
Volume Limits: To ensure optimal system performance, FleetWatcher recommends keeping your CSV export batches at or below 2000 tickets.
Email Delivery: If you run a Preview Export for more than 100 tickets, the system may queue the export in the background and email the CSV file to you rather than downloading it directly to your browser.
Download PDF vs. Email PDF
If you need to generate PDF invoices for your hired haulers, you can use the blue PDF buttons.
Download PDF This option generates a combined PDF file of the selected tickets directly to your computer.
When downloading large batches (more than 100 tickets), a system warning will appear letting you know the file may take longer to generate.
Tip: Filtering your list by a specific Broker Name before downloading will significantly speed up the PDF generation process.
Invoice Numbers: Download PDF and Email PDF
FleetWatcher creates an invoice number when you click Download PDF or Email PDF. Export Batch does not create an invoice number.
Email PDF also sends the PDF to your broker contacts, so they can review the work.
When you click Download PDF or Email PDF, FleetWatcher does these steps:
It creates a unique, system-assigned invoice number.
Note: FleetWatcher creates one invoice number for each broker in the tickets you select. For example, if you select 10 tickets for 3 brokers, FleetWatcher creates 3 invoice numbers. All tickets for the same broker share one invoice number.
It adds the invoice number to each ticket. You can see it in the Invoice Number column.
It connects the tickets to that invoice number. This helps prevent double payments and keeps a record on the Invoice History page.
Important: Download or email the PDF before you click Export Batch. After you click Export Batch, you cannot download or email the PDF. If a ticket was exported without an invoice number, see Add an Invoice Number to an Exported Virtual Shift Ticket (VST)
📞 📬 Need Help?
Contact: support@fleetwatcher.com