Laptop GPS World

I'm a professional driver and I use S&T 2008 to help route my trips. Because of the way I use S&T I'm looking for a program that will help reduce a lot of manual work. First off let me tell you how I use S&T. When I get a load assignment, I'll use S&T to create a route from my present location to where the shipper or receiver is located, then I save that map with the customer's name and address. Then in the future should I have to go back to a shipper or receiver that I've been to before, I can just load in the map, start gps tracking and hit f3 to get a route from where I am to the customer.

Now knowing that S&T isn't designed for commercial vehicles, I'll set up avoid boxes to force S&T to route me onto truck routes where necessary. Also I have a set of custom pushpins for truck stops and other places where I can park if necessary. Then as I travel on the route and if I should discover that there is a new truck stop, or a restricted route that I must follow, I'll make the changes on that map I'm using at the time.

Now this leads me to the meat of my dilemma. Since I have a saved map for each shipper and receiver, I have hundreds of them in my map folder. If I have to make a change in am map by adding a avoid box, or pushpin, I'd like the change to be in all of my saved maps. So do you know of a program that would allow me to specify a saved map as a template, then have me point it to my map folder, then go through each map and make the pushpin and avoid box data the same as the template?

The way I'm having to update them now is to go into the route planner and remove the route information, then use the save as to replace the default map template, then go through and recreate all my saved maps. It's a royal pain...

Hi rasmith1959 -

Love your use of 'avoid' boxes to stay off truck restricted routes. I want to understand your use of S&T in trucking... Question - Why don't you save each shipper and receiver in a pushpin set, rather than saving a map for each account? You could still search on account name by using the 'find a location' box, and include all pertinent info in the pushpin balloon.

Also - curious to see if you use 'show in live search maps' to get an aerial view of shipper/receiver location - and if you find it saves you time at the account.

Thanks!

First of all, you need to condense ALL of those maps into ONE map!

Start up S&T. It will pull up the generic map of the country. Now SAVE this map under a different name that you will always use, such as TRUCK MAP. Now create a shortcut on your desktop TO this new map you created.

NOTE: BACK UP your map occasionally by SAVE AS TM BACKUP. When you BACK UP your map, it will keep that map open until you close it, so you need to CLOSE TM BACKUP, and re-open your TRUCK MAP for normal use. Otherwise you'll be making individual changes and additions to your back up map instead of your working copy, and you'll go nuts wondering why that push pin you placed yesterday isn't there now!

Now when you want to use S&T, instead of opening the generic map using the icon S&T placed when you installed the program, you will double-click on the TRUCK MAP icon on your desktop and YOUR map opens up.

Virtually every time you make changes (push pins, notes, etc.) and WITHOUT a current route plotted, SAVE your map by clicking on the little floppy disc icon in the upper tool bar or by using FILE> SAVE> The next time you open YOUR map, all of your added pins will be there.

If you save YOUR map with a plotted route, it is no problem. The next time you open your map, you can 'CLEAR ROUTE" and re-save it without the plotted route.

Next:

The 'AVOID' feature

This works okay, but try this little exercise!

Look at your map and decide where you can put a 'VIA' push pin to force the program to use that street. Name the pin v(pin name) standing for via(this road)

Example: CHICAGO, IL

You are traveling from

388 W. 71st St., Chicago, IL 60621

to

16253 Lathrop Ave., Harvey, IL 60426

Your routing OPTIONS is set to "Quickest"

Your computer should route you down Interstate 57.

Now lets say you don't want to take 57, because of construction, or low bridges, or whatever.

Place a push pin ONTO Interstate 94 where it crosses the river just south of E 130th St.

Name this pushpin: vIL94sb

In your ROUTE PLANNER, you would

- enter 388 W. 71st St., Chicago, IL 60621 (as the START)

- enter vIL94sb (as a STOP)

- enter 16253 Lathrop Ave., Harvey, IL 60426 (as the END)

Now your computer should automatically route you down I-94, because you used one of your permanent push pins to determine the road to be used to get from that particular point-A to that particular point-B.

Whenever you want to avoid that stretch of I-57, you would simply put vIL94sb (VIA Illinois Interstate 94 Southbound) into your route as a STOP, and the computer will do the rest!

Going the other way? Create a vIL94nb (NORTHbound) push pin and SAVE the map again, then back it up.

You can put hundreds of "v(push pin description)" pins on your maps and simply type in their names to include them in your routes.

I hope that this helps. Now transfer (cut and paste) all of those markers from your hundreds of other maps onto your new TRUCK MAP and free up some drive space!

Condensed.

1. Make a master map.
2. Every time you open up a file: copy and paste your push pin(s) to your master map
3. Pray like hell that S&T 2009 supports the 2008 file format.

> 3. Pray like hell that S&T 2009 supports the 2008 file format.

Future versions of Streets & Trips will most likely always be able to read files saved in earlier versions, but I would always recommend to keep contacts/destinations/pushpin_locations saved in either a text file or an Excel file. It is so easy to import pushpins from Excel, and you will always be able to import from Excel to any S&T version.

__________________
Marvin Hlavac

Laptop GPS software reviews | Stores offering discounts to our members: Semsons & Co. Inc. and Deluo Electronics

You wouldn't happen to have any excel templates laying around would you ?
especially one that feeds off of Lat/Long so we wouldn't need street address all the time, some of us are waaaaaay in the sticks where there are no roads for addresses.

Yeah boy! A S&T DATA TEMPLATE would be great! I could dump my Blackberry's 759 crucial addresses into it, sort it, and plot them all out on a map.

One thing I have noticed is that my s&T 2008 tends to "Scramble" the addresses and push pin descriptions. The pins always show up in the right place, but for some reason, the database it uses seems to lose a comma or two, and the pins start to take on descriptions that bear no resemblance to the actual pin.

Is there a specific format for making the description?

Does it require two or three lines, or a phone number or ... or ...?

Perhaps the new version (2010?) could have a specific formatted data entry window for all push pins. If a field was left blank, it would simply store a null field.

Example:

Pin 1 - Mom's House,,,,,,

Pin 2 - House of Wheels,123 Main St.,Big City,CA,90210,760-345-5689

Pin 3 - Christmas Tree Lot, Opens 11/10,,,,555-345-2324

and like that!

Hey Ray

Here’s the way I would do it. Create a new data set and call it Shippers and Consignees in a new blank .est trip file and then make the changes permanent by saving your new .est trip file as a .stt template file.

As a matter of fact, anytime you want to make anything permanent in your template file, just save it as a .stt template file and it will remain permanently in your .stt template file. Likewise, you can also remove anything you previously saved permanently in your .stt template file by removing it first and then saving it as a .stt template file.

From now on, every time you go to a new shipper or consignee, create a GPS trail as you are entering or exiting the shipper or consignee so that you can go back at the end of your workday to place a pushpin at the precise exact location of your shipper and consignee.

To do this, at the end of your workday, without first closing your current working trip file, from the desktop double click your template file. A new blank .est trip file opens up. Using the working trip file that you used earlier to create the GPS trail of your shipper or consignee as a reference, carefully place a pushpin in the new blank .est trip file you just opened up at the precise exact location of your shipper or consignee.

Next, create a new data set after you place your first pushpin by right clicking the pushpin and choosing properties from the quick menu. When the properties dialogue box appears, click the New Data Set button. A New Data Set dialogue box appears. Type in Shippers & Consignees and then click OK. Click OK again in the properties dialogue box to exit out of there.

Next, right click the pushpin again and when the quick menu appears, choose properties one more time. At the top of the properties dialogue box in the Name Text Box, type in the name and address of your shipper or consignee, indicate whether it is a drop & hook, a live load, a live unload, or a combination there of, and if I were you, whether or not they allow overnight parking. Then click OK to exit out of the properties dialogue box.

Next, from the View menu at the top left side of the display, click Legend and Overview. The Legend and Overview pane appears on the left side of the display. Find and right click the new Shippers & Consignees data set. When the quick menu appears, choose properties. When the properties dialogue box appears, choose a pushpin symbol that you want to use to designate your shippers and consignees by clicking the down arrow below where it says Symbols and then select a new symbol to designate your shippers & consignees.

Next, make the changes permanent by saving your new .est trip file as a .stt template file. To do this, from the File Menu, choose Save As. When the Save As dialogue box comes up, change to the .stt (map template) file format in the “save as type” box by clicking the down arrow and choosing the .stt (map template) file.

Next, browse to the location on your file tree where your current .stt template file is being stored. Click the .stt template file and then click Save. The changes will now be made permanent and will be available the next time you open and use your template file.

From now on, when you add new Shippers & Consignees to your .stt template file, you will place pushpins per the referenced location on a new blank .est trip file as previously described. After the pushpin has carefully been placed in the correct location, right click the pushpin and choose properties from the quick menu. When the pushpin properties dialogue appears, instead of clicking the New Data Set button, click the down arrow on the Data Set Name text box, go through the list of data sets until you locate the new Shippers & Consignees data set to select it. Next, after the Shippers & Consignees data set has been selected, click OK to exit out of the properties dialogue box. Notice that the pushpin symbol will automatically change to the pushpin symbol you previously selected.

Right click the pushpin again, and choose properties from the quick menu. When the properties dialogue box appears, type in the name and address of your shipper or consignee and all relevant information in the Name Text Box as previously described, then click OK again to exit out of the properties dialogue box.

Next, either add more shippers and consignees or add new avoid area rectangles to force Streets & Trips to route as you need it to, then save the new .est trip file as a .stt template file to make the changes you added permanent, per the above already described instructions. The changes you added will be available the next time you open and use your template file.

Before long, you will have the majority your shippers & consignees catalogued. However, I wouldn’t just stop there. If I were you I would also add all your company terminals and drop lots and any low weight limit bridges, restricted routes, and low clearances you run into as well by setting up new data sets as required. Hope this helps!

PS: If I were you, I would save your trips using the assigned trip number in a folder called “trips designated by year” and then by month.

Seems simple enough.