Frequently Asked Questions

Answer: Constellation is a Transportation Management System (TMS, also commonly referred to as Transportation Management Software) that reduces the manual effort it takes for your shipping process, saving you time and money while increasing access to information across your organization and among your carriers and customers. A common misconception of a TMS is that it is either expensive and unwieldy, or free and not all that useful. But with Constellation, you get just what you need to manage your freight. No unnecessary bells and whistles you won’t use, but will be charged for. And no “free” service that doesn’t really work until you upgrade. It’s just a straightforward, easy to use, honest TMS.

Answer: Fill out the form to the right, and we will get right back to you to schedule a demo.

Answer: Click here for a video.

Answer: Absolutely. You can use your carriers with your rates. We believe in giving you the control over which carrier is moving your freight. They can be added into the system, allowing you to compare rates or employ automated tendering rules to ship quickly and for the best rate. One of our customers saved $400 per move in a lane that had over 100 moves annually as soon as they began using Constellation. Imagine that, $40,000 in savings in just one lane annually–and that was just one of many!

Answer: There are several ways to get your loads into Constellation. Most of our clients send us a digital file in one of these common formats: EDI, xml, csv, txt, etc. Basically, if you can get a file out of your system, we can get into Constellation. There is also the ability to manually enter a new load for situations in which you can’t get a file or you have a super hot load that needs to go out right away.

Answer: No! Since the system is cloud-based, our team handles all the heavy lifting. Once your load file is created, there will be very little needed from an I.T. perspective to get Constellation up and running.

Answer: You can learn the system in less than 24 hours, thanks to its user-friendly design. At that point, it’s just a matter of onboarding your carriers and away you go!

Answer: Absolutely. We can vary permissions for users in terms of what data they can see and can even have different displays based on rights. For example, it is not uncommon to have certain users able to see pricing while others do not.

Answer: Every location has a profile where you are able to enter in permanent notes for the carriers to have on the BOL.

Answer: Constellation has notifications and links that can be sent to the customer so they have visibility to their loads and when they will arrive.

Answer: Constellation has a separate Vendor Portal for your vendors to create loads. Either you can tender out the freight or allow them to choose one of your carriers.

Answer: There are two ways carriers update loads. Most LTL carriers and some larger truckload carriers send in status updates via EDI or API. Others use Constellation’s Carrier Portal.