To help you get the most out of your Virtual Shift Tickets, we have compiled a cheat sheet of the most common conceptual misunderstandings. Understanding these backend rules and system behaviors will save your team time and prevent billing errors.
1. "Refreshing or going back after creating a manual ticket is harmless."
The Reality: In the past, refreshing the browser or hitting the back button after saving could create duplicate manual VSTs. While the system has been updated to prevent this duplication, it is still a best practice to avoid refreshing the page immediately after saving a manual ticket.
2. "If Email PDF worked, an invoice number is always created."
The Reality: Historically, the Email PDF function successfully sent emails to brokers but did not actually create invoice records in the system. This has been fixed, meaning you must now rely on the Invoice Number columns and the Invoice History page to track invoices after sending PDFs.
3. "The VST Summary totals will always match the Edit, Approve, and Export page."
The Reality: The Virtual Shift Ticket Summary uses cached totals that are saved to the database to load quickly. If a recalculation has not run after a ticket is heavily edited, these summary numbers can temporarily be out of sync with the live workspace.
4. "Pull from Scale Tickets always copies over all data."
The Reality: Material and Phase Code data might not populate if those specific codes do not already exist in FleetWatcher's internal tables. Even with recent system fixes that automatically map missing codes, users must ensure the original scale tickets actually contain these values before attempting to pull them.
5. "Deleting rows in the Edit window is safe even with Driver Time On/Off."
The Reality: Before recent updates, unchecked rows could accidentally be deleted alongside checked ones for customers using Driver Time tracking. This is fixed so that only selected rows are removed, but it remains a prime area where users previously lost data if they were not careful.
6. "The Job/Project dropdown on Create Manual Shift Ticket is just a normal dropdown."
The Reality: This dropdown was changed to a searchable "Select2" control specifically to stop "Aw Snap" or "STATUS_BREAKPOINT" browser crashes when loading massive project lists. It behaves differently than standard dropdowns, which might surprise some users at first.
7. "Broker approvals are real-time; no need to refresh."
The Reality: Approvals and denials made by hired haulers via email do not automatically update your screen. Users must actively click the Refresh buttons located in the Open, Review, and Approved sections to pull in the latest status changes and Broker Comments.
8. "Any large CSV export will just download directly in the browser."
The Reality: For large selections (such as those over 100 tickets), exports can be queued by the system and emailed instead of downloading directly to your browser. If users do not know to check their email, they may incorrectly assume the export failed.
9. "Zone Analysis rule sets are irrelevant to whether a VST can be created."
The Reality: VST creation can fail or hang entirely when truck cycles do not satisfy any rule in the applied Rule Set, or when GeoId data is missing. Understanding your Rule Sets and ensuring your plant and job mappings are accurate is critical for successful automated ticket generation.
10. "Invoice History doesn’t matter for double-payment control."
The Reality: The system is explicitly designed so that tickets exported to history carry a unique, system-generated invoice number. Utilizing the Invoice History page is the exact mechanism FleetWatcher relies on to ensure you avoid double-paying for the same tickets.
📞 📬 Need Help?
Contact: support@fleetwatcher.com