Importing your containers or BL/Bookings into the Portcast platform is one of the most important steps on your container tracking experience. However, when dealing with a large number of containers and custom fields associated with these, this operation can quickly become tedious as you try and match the columns on your import files and the available fields on the Portcast Web Application.
In order to speed up the process and make your import operations faster and more seamless, we’ve built a field mapping memory functionality to help you speed through the process.
How does the field mapping memory functionality work?
The field mapping memory feature works in the background, without you having to configure or set-up any specific options:
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Open the Portcast Web Application
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From anywhere in the app, open the sidebar and click “Add Containers”
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A pullout panel will appear on the right of your screen, allowing you to choose to add containers via file upload or manual input; click on “Drop your files here click here to add files”
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A file input dialog to choose the file you want to import from your computer should be displayed. Choose the file and confirm, then choose if you want to upload Containers or Bookings/Bills of Lading.
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If your file is valid, a field mapping step will now display, allowing you to allocate the columns available on your file to the Container or Booking / BL identifiers and custom fields available on your Org. Proceed to choose all applicable fields, then proceed to import.
That’s it! The next time you do the same procedure and input another file, if the columns are partially or completely matched with the previous upload, they should be automatically applied. Confirm the mapping and proceed to import. Congratulations, you just saved yourself a lot of time!
A couple of notes on the field mapping memory feature:
- The memorized field mapping configuration applies on your local machine. If you use multiple machines, you will have to redo your field mapping once for every machine. But subsequent uploads will still profit from the memory feature!
- There are different memory configurations applied, depending on whether you are uploading Containers or Bookings/BLs.
- The field mapping is saved when you proceed with the import. You can therefore make changes on the field mapping step at ease; if you don’t proceed with the import, the config will not be overwritten.