# Navigation App Preference, Zone Drawing & Dashboard Polishes Spring 2026 A late spring maintenance and mini-update to help make the busy season just a little bit easier. **Navigation App Preference**\ From the beginning, BDP provided navigation linking that leveraged only Google Maps. With this release, drivers can choose between Google Maps, Apple Maps, and Waze Navigation when being directed to a delivery. In areas with newly created neighborhoods and ever-evolving satellite imagery, this is a game changer. Some platforms update faster than others; this makes it fast and easy to toggle between them when looking for an address. **Zone Drawing Library**\ Google deprecated their Drawing Library as of May 2026. We researched replacement options and decided to move this entire segment of BDP to Mapbox. Hopefully, the tools are so similar that you won't even notice the change! **Driver Dashboard Future Assign** \ Initially, we felt that allowing future orders to be assigned to drivers might be confusing or lead to early deliveries. However, feedback from dispatchers indicates this isn't a concern and that pre-assigning deliveries directly from the driver dashboard would be highly valuable. Done! **Additional Payment Methods**\ BDP is now configured to allow for self-managment of additional payment methods from within customer Stripe Dashboards. Want to accept BNPL options (like Klarna, Afterpay, or Affirm), light it up! The same is true for digital wallets (like Samsung Pay, Amazon Pay or Cash App Pay). **Stay Tuned**\ We have some exciting new features that we're working on with plans for release very soon! # Billing, Credits & Kiosk Mode Late Winter 2026 BulkDelivery PRO (BDP)'s transaction-based model captures a "platform fee" at the time of the (online) sale. This release offers all new customer & internal transaction options. **BDP CREDITS**\ Platform fees can be deducted from saved "credits" which can now be purchased separately. This makes it possible for non-credit-card based payments like cash or check. One can also offer deferred payment options for customers that have terms or business accounts. When these kinds sales are entered (via logged-in staff/admin) the platform fee is deducted from a saved credit balance that can be funded manually, or set to recharge automatically based on balance threshold. **BILLING** \ All billing information is stored via Stripe's customer billing portal. **INTERNAL ORDERS**\ Many BDP customers have businesses that offer retail deliveries alongside other "internal" orders. Examples include landscapers who deliver bulk products to customers as well as their own jobs. Other BDP users are manufacturers of bulk materials and have incoming transportation and logistics needs that overlap outgoing sales. These use cases don't match up with retail-focused (& pre-paid) sales of material. This release makes it possible to pay a fixed rate, via credits, to use BDP for internal order scheduling and logistics, regardless of the load's monetary value. This is also true for "zero dollar" orders that could be the result of a donation, customer service issue, or other instance where no funds changed hands. **PRICING MINIMUMS & CAPS**\ Prior to this release, BDP offered a BETA "Internal Ordering" solution that helped pave the way to the tools that are now being offered. We witnessed use cases that we didn't anticipate (sales of sandwiches?) and have tailored the BDP fees to include minimum and maximum transaction fees that better align with actual usage and needs.\ \ If a sale is internal or has no monetary value attached, only the minimum fee ($2.50) is charged. For larger and higher value sales, we've also capped the BDP fee ($25.00). This is true system wide for credits-based or pre-paid transactions. **KIOSK SCREEN**\ Based on conversations and in-person customer visits, we saw that many BDP customers could benefit from a way to capture faster in-person (pick up) sales. It's always been possible to enter these types of transactions via the BDP Admin, but there was a need to do so with fewer clicks and less friction. This release offers a new "Kiosk" screen that greatly speeds of how fast you can move customers through your line, regardless of how they choose to pay (cash, check, card or account). It is tightly integrated with our [point of sale card reader](/point-of-sale-v.1-beta) functionality and our [PRO Tools](/pro-tools-v.1-and-so-much-more) discounts and reporting. # Point of Sale (v.1) - BETA Early July 2025 Starting now, you can request to have your account added to the BETA list that unlocks the ability to begin taking "Card Present" payments! **CARD READERS & CARD-PRESENT TRANSACTIONS**\ It can be something of a challenge to manually key in a CC number for in-person customer orders, especially when you've got big, busy season, lines. With this release, you can use a compatible Stripe reader to swipe/insert/tap physical cards and process transactions at a bit of a discount (2.7% vs. 2.9%). {% hint style="info" %} [Read the Point Of Sale documentation to get started!](https://docs.bulkdelivery.pro/settings/payment-tax-and-disclaimers/point-of-sale) {% endhint %} # PRO Tools (v.1) & SO much more Early June 2025 This release has been a LONG time coming, and we're very pleased to have the first version of our suite of PRO Tools (aka "Contractor Tools") out in the wild. We'll talk more about this in a minute after covering some of the smaller updates and bug fixes. **DRIVER DASHBOARD TIME SLOTS ORGANIZATION**\ Since the first release of BDP, the Driver Dashboard has shown orders in chronological order, and the time is displayed as part of each card. However, especially as things get busy, it's easy to miss where you're at in the day and which orders are in which slots. We've carved this up now so that it is easy to see from a quick glance. **DRIVER DASHBOARD "QUICK LOOK"**\ We heard that sometimes (often) drivers and admins would like to see a bit more about an order (from the Driver Dashboard) without having to click all the way into the "Details" screen. Additionally, some of that information needed to be easier to copy and/or share. Done and Done. **ESTIMATES CUSTOMER SELECT BUG**\ When creating a new Estimate, there was a bug that prevented the customer selection dropdown from working correctly. If you came back to a previously created "Draft" Estimate, things were fine, but that's annoying as all he\*\*. This is now fixed. PRO TOOLS (v.1)\ So.....we've been noodling this for a very long time. The challenge here is/was that adding the functionality we envisioned would both touch both a ton of code and force a number of decisions for orders that don't necessarily originate online. This quickly blossomed into a much larger challenge that needed to be broken down into a few different parts, and today we release the first one. We started using the working title of "Contractor Tools" to describe these pieces. # Customer Accounts, Admin Notes, CAPTCHA and ... Early January 2025 *Oh so many big and little things to go over here....where to start!* **CUSTOMER ACCOUNTS**\ This release is a huge step towards our (much larger) goal of unlocking much-requested "contractor tools". While we continue to baby-step through the development there, this particular detail really helps sets the stage. With this release, anyone who has ordered from your BDP-powered site can now log in and see past orders, as well as easily re-order. If you squint your eyes, you'll see how this functionality is critically important to contractors being able to (soon) log in and manage their own orders alongside many other pro-level details. **PUBLIC NAVIGATION**\ Thanks to some great feedback, we realized that the (simple) volume calculator we provide for embedding should be able to be found as part of the published BDP (public) pages. Links to this, and your delivery zones, can now be found in the upper (hamburger) navigation on all public BDP pages.\ \ **REVENUE PENDING**\ One of our newest customers let us know that their controlling and accounting teams needed to know, at any moment the value of product sales that had not yet been fulfilled/delivered. We already provide "Pending" values for the units of measuer on these sales, so it made sense to weave in the actual monetary value as well. **ADMIN NOTES**\ BDP has always made it possible for customers to leave "Delivery Instructions" with their orders, and that information is pushed right to the hands of those a cna't wait ctually performing the deliveries. This works really well, but there's also a need for administrators to add their own notes albeit for a specific delivery, or attached to a customer. With this release, BDP staff can now leave these kinds of notes and know that they'll appear alongside the customer-provided instructions, but will not be viewable by customers. We can't wait to see how you all use this new functionality. # Dynamic Sales Units, Stripe Updates, Meat & Potatoes November 2024 It is update season! While it may seem like there wasn't much going on re: BDP updates this summer, well, you're right! That being said, this is not at all a reflection on the work that we've been doing behind the scenes. We're continuing to "set the stage" for what is likely to be one of our biggest updates/features since launching and we can't wait to share more details on this soon. In the meantime, we recently pushed out an update that cleans up lots of "things" and should make life a lot easier for those of you that mix and match units of measure on the products that you sell.\ \ **DYNAMIC SALES UNITS**\ BDP launched with support for only yards and pounds and this seemed fine because nobody\* sells wood/bark products by weight and these products are always\* sold by volume. Additionally, while aggregate products should also always\* be sold by volume, many bulk supply yards elect to sell these by weight. Oh, and if you're in another country (Oh, Canada) you should always\* convert your product volumes and weights to the superior\* US-based yard and ton. Hopefully you're picking up on some of our amateur sarcasm here. We've been somewhat sheepish thus far re: our limited support for anything other than yards and pounds.....until TODAY! Now, it is possible to mix and match how you sell products, by weight or volume, and using various global units.\ \ *\* Not verified, definitely not true. :)*\ \ *On the volume side, BDP now supports products that are measured in:*\ \ \- cubic yards\ \- cubic feet\ \- cords\ \ *Then, on the weight side, you can select from:*\ \ \- pounds\ \- tons\ \- kilograms\ \- tonnes\ \ On the development side, we had a lot of chasing these details around the codebase and are excited to see how you guys put this to use. It stands to reason that this will clear up a lot of confusion re: converting values on your own AND will make vehicle constraints much more reliable AND adds lots more value to tracking inventory details. **STRIPE UPDATES**\ Not much to report here, other than that Stripe regularly updates their tools and we follow suit. These updates also set things up to (soon) leverage new "usage based" features that will dovetail into our bigger updates that are in the direct pipeline. **MEAT & POTATOES**\ Wondering what this means? So are we. Basically, this covers a whole bunch of miscellaneous styling/layout/functionality/bug fixes that we've been quietly performing in recent weeks. In some cases we found little tweaks that we applied as "hotfixes" to the code (don't judge) that have now been properly merged in. As always, if you have have questions about how something works, please let us know by emailing "". One of us will get back to you as soon as possible. In the meantime, we're digging right back in while everyone else (at least those of us in northern climates) looks forward to a bit of a break during the "off-season". :) # Limit Time Slots by Zone, Formatting Fixes and "No Times" Notifications May 2024 This is a sneaky update that we're rolling out and one we're really excited about. It includes a feature we've considered for some time and finally decided to buckle down and build. It's something that could potentially benefit almost every BDP customer in one way or another. Let's dig in! **LIMIT TIME SLOTS BY ZONE**\ Opening up online ordering with BDP offers countless opportunities to increase revenue and decrease admin responsibilities. It can also create some potentially less-than-ideal orders in locations that you might not want to travel to at specific times of the day. Dealing with traffic is just part of the game, but now we can make things MUCH better. *This release makes it possible to prevent orders from being placed in certain zones, at certain times.* The trick is to look at your existing delivery time slots and decide if you want to limit some of them to only certain (closer) zones. Regardless of their location, customers won't know anything is different because they'll continue to only see delivery time options that are available to them, based on their address. This offers an opportunity to safely extend your delivery area (maybe just on a mid-morning slot?) and then, perhaps, push your "base zone" delivery times to the afternoons? Your drivers (and bottom line) are going to love how you can now optimize the where and when of your operation! **"NO TIMES" NOTIFICATIONS**\ Closely related to the feature noted above, there are situations where combined settings can result in a situation where no times are available for delivery. Let's say you enter a large capacity vehicle, and then build your volumes around that rig. Then, that truck has to go in for maintenance and you mark it as "inactive" leaving all of your higher volume order options stranded with no truck that can accommodate. In this case, BPD won't allow for an order to be placed (until you re-activate that rig) and the customer will now see a new "No Times Exist" alert for just those high volume orders where only that one truck could accommodate. Note that we will continue to build out internal checks for this to avoid ever seeing this issue, but some scenarios may continue to slip between the cracks. In these cases, a purchasing customer will see a new alert asking them to "Call" to place their order. **FORMATTING FIXES**\ We found a few places where some of our "pill" elements were looking a little shabby, mostly when people get into triple digits of orders/deliveries/etc. This is fixed. # Big Maintenance, Nano IDs, Product List Cleanup & Hidden Categories There's been a big (BIG) under-the-hood update that has been hanging out in the corner, reminding us of its presence every so often. Unfortunately, in this world of software dev, there's often another small something that prevents the big something from getting done. We finally decided to refactor the small something, so we could do the big something and get back to the fun somethings. **BIG MAINTENANCE**\ Pretty much just what the title says. There was a major version (11) that was released last month with lots of new goodies. We got the house in order and made the push. Feels good!\ \ **NANO IDs**\ A new feature that we're building out will benefit from each BDP account having a unique ID that isn't tied to something that could potentially be changed, intentionally or accidentally. These unique IDs help beef up BDP's security and, frankly, who doesn't love looking at a random string of characters as part of your URLs? **PRODUCT LIST CLEANUP**\ This has been on the "we should fix that" list for awhile. While some additional functionality will be coming to this page sometime soon, at least now each Product's status is clearly noted, and that info can be accessed on a phone as well. Plus, we lit up a new icon that appears if a product uses our new "Published (Hidden)" status. **HIDDEN CATEGORIES**\ Like last release's "Hidden Products", we realized that "Hidden Categories" might actually be even MORE valuable. You can now run a promotion on a group of products (accessed by a QR code or other custom URL) and know that what you're sharing on those pages can't be discovered without access to your private link. # Cleanup, Maintenance & "Hidden" Products Heyo....we pushed out an update today that includes some maintenance-related adjustments needed for the BIG STUFF we're working on. We also found/fixed some layout-related bugs that occur as customers fill out details (footer, we're looking at you) in ways we didn't originally anticipate. Finally, we cleaned up some details around a Product's "status" and introduced a new heavily requested feature along the way. **HIDDEN PRODUCTS**\ As noted above, we zoomed out a bit when thinking about what options exist for a Product's "status", and how we could improve on them. We used to have both an "Active" and a "Published" toggle, both of which largely did the same thing and was a bit confusing. Starting today, we've cleaned this up AND added a new "HIDDEN" status that makes it possible to solve some issues that we were hearing about. \ \ *For instance, one of our customers wanted to be able to offer special promotion pricing that didn't require the use of a promo coupon. They wanted to offer $2/off every yard of one specific material that they also wanted to continue selling at full retail. The discounted version needed to be available to only those customers that were part of the promotion, and they wanted to track that promotion's effectiveness. This new feature made that scenario possible with a few clicks to "Duplicate" the original product, mark as "Hidden", changed the pricing and then included the NEW product link as part of the promotion. Done!* # Sandbox Environments, Delivery Lead Times, and "Available On" Settings When you're building something big, it takes a lot of planning to get the foundation right. While we continue to get closer to pulling the cover off of some big new features, we'll continue to weave in some new settings that stand to make lots of customer's lives easier. **SANDBOX ENVIRONMENTS**\ Available now, any BDP customer can create a perfect clone of their existing site, for use in testing, training or demoing. Building out this infrastructure allows the platform to separate away all testing details and silo LIVE and TEST data. Plus, one can rebuild a new "Sandbox" copy at any time, including the option to obfuscate any personally identifiable information. **DELIVERY LEAD TIMES**\ Imagine that you sell something from a vendor that requires a bit longer drive, or maybe the vendor needs a couple days "heads up". Some unique products (we're looking at you sod) aren't really possible to stock yourself and trying to coordinate (on short notice) with vendors can be a pain. Now, on a per-product basis, you can set custom lead times so that online orders can be captured & scheduled, but you still have time to coordinate details for unique products. We've talked about adding something like this for awhile now and the stars finally aligned to bring this to life. "**AVAILABLE ON"**\ Let's say that you have a large stock of some product and sales are coming in at a normal pace. Without notice, you get a spike in sales (awesome) and when you go to reorder, you find that it's going to take a week longer than you thought to get refilled (not awesome). Previously, you're only choice was to mark the product out-of-stock and add a note to your customers to check back in and then remember to mark it back in-stock in the future. Now, you can continue to take orders by setting the "Available On" setting to a future date when you know you'l have your bins refilled. **SEARCH BUGS**\ We fixed an issue with our Advanced Search not recognizing new searches as well as refactored the "Quick Search" so that our Algolia-based indexing better recognized pieces of phone numbers. This is especially helpful when and admin or driver needs to move quickly and the handiest piece of information is the customer's phone number. Now you can enter just a few digits and start to see order results that you can select from! # Plumbing, Promo Codes as Links, Vendor URLs & Internal Orders (BETA) Well hello! We're back with another round of updates here. There's a lot of work going on behind the scenes, prepping for some larger updates. We'll have more details to share on those front soon and have some fun smaller updates to share today! **PROMO CODES VIA URL PARAMETER**\ This is a cool one that is the direct result of a customer suggestion, so please....keep those coming! In this case, it was requested that a promo code could be added to a specific website button, or QR code, or custom link so that it would be automatically applied on the checkout screen. We see the value in this for spring promotions and put the pedal down to implement it quickly. [Read the full documentation here ยป](https://docs.bulkdelivery.pro/bulkdelivery-pro/settings/payment-tax-and-disclaimers/stripe-coupons#applying-a-promo-code-via-url-parameter) *Another nice feature is that we've now exposed valid (Stripe) Promo Codes inside your BDP Account so you may not have to separately fish them out of your Stripe account.* **VENDOR URLS**\ This is another one that came straight from a customer suggestion. Now you can offer a clean URL/link to showcase a specific subset of products that all come from a single vendor without other links that might take them away to other categories/etc. This subtle difference makes it possible to provide your trusted vendors with a clean link (maybe available by QR code) that they would be interested in sharing with their customer base, using you as the delivery provider. **INTERNAL ORDERS (BETA)**\ This is the tip of the iceberg for a BIG one....something we've been noodling for a long time. We're taking the first steps towards enabling this feature by offering it to BETA customers who have expressed interest. If you're a customer and would like to be considered for BETA access, [please reach out](mailto:support@bulkdelivery.pro)! \ \ *\*\* Note that this will be a new subscription-only feature and we're still performing customer needs assessments before we build out what the exact subscription tiers look like.* # Docs, SSO, Onboarding & Customer Accounts (Beta) We've been stacking things up for a few releases this winter and we're extra pleased to have this one out-the-door. Lots of behind-the-scenes updates included, setting the stage for everything else we have in the pipeline for 2024. **SSO/SOCIAL LOGIN**\ Tired of managing new unique accounts for everything in your digital life? We've recently made things a bit easier by enabling the ability for users of BDP to now log in via Google or Facebook. **CUSTOMER ACCOUNTS**\ This is a little bit premature, but we've set the stage for customer accounts to be "lit up" soon. This will make it simple for end user customers to see what orders they've placed in the past, and easily re-order the same products or reference past order volumes. **ONBOARDING TOOLS**\ We've cleaned up a number of screens to prevent errors/issues with accounts that weren't quite ready for "prime time" as they finish filling out their details. We've also provided some new screens/UI that clearly outlines what content is missing. **DOCUMENTATION**\ While not really a "app" release, we have not published comprehensive documentation of BulkDelivery PRO here: [https://docs.bulkdelivery.pro](https://docs.bulkdelivery.pro/) This has been in the works for a long time and we'll continue to be fleshing out all of the details over time. **FIXES**\ It's always been a little annoying that each user had to pick their own time zone when the main account's zone had already been set. Rarely would these ever need to be different. So, that's fixed. # So Searchable! Summer is drawing to a close and with it, our lull on BDP updates. **POWERED BY ALGOLIA SEARCH**\ Over the summer, we revamped some code and chipped away at integrating Algolia into each and every corner of BDP. Today, we're pleased to be able to push this update out. Now, everyone can search on any little bit of information to retrieve matching Products, Vehicles, Orders, & Estimates. This makes finding something a breeze and shaves off valuable time, especially if you're on the phone with a customer or need to "finish this one quick thing" from your phone. Give it a shot and let us know what you think! **ASSIGN DELIVERY**\ When we build BDP, we didn't think about how it might be valuable for an office staff member or dispatcher would want a fast way to assign deliveries to drivers. Duh. We built the tools to make it easy for drivers to assign themselves first-and-foremost. In any case, that's been remedied and it's wicked easy for an Admin to now assign deliveries (from the driver dashboard) to whomever they please. **BUG FIXES**\ We found a little snag with how partial refunds are managed as it relates to applied sales tax. This has been fixed and we'll add some additional polish to upcoming releases. There was also a bug related to logging in and the appearance of a redirect loop that a user couldn't escape from. This should be fixed now as well. **JAVASCRIPT**\ We've repackaged how our JavaScript code is bundled up, making things much better on the dev side. It shouldn't change anything for end users. This is something akin to getting a new sewer main installed...not sexy but really important and invisible to one's daily life. # User Accounts Update, Catalog Toggle & Misc. Cleanups **USER ACCOUNTS**\ We recently updated the way team member accounts are organized, and cleaned up who-can-do-what. Now, there's a much more clearly defined hierarchy along with some nice polishes that pertain to assigning "Driver" and "Loader" capabilities. **FRONT-END CATALOG TOGGLE**\ When a customer offers both delivery and pick up services, we created a nice way to showcase each fulfillment type from a unique URL, but it wasn't easy for customers to toggle between each type. Problem solved! **PICK UP ONLY PRODUCTS**\ We implemented some new logic that makes it possible to now sell products for pick-up only, with no delivery options. In unique cases this is a really really valuable addition. **MISC. CLEANUPS**\ Largely administrative, these cleanups make it even easier for admins to stay on top of orders, deliveries, drivers and revenue over time. # Messaging Settings + A Couple-O Tweaks **CUSTOM MESSAGING**\ There are a few places around BDP that where it would be ideal to open up the doors for custom messaging, per client. With this release, we've started that process and look forward to organizing (and re-organizing) some of our settings screens to better expose these places. For now, one can customize the product display info-box text that appears on both the "Delivery" and "Pick Up" (if enabled) tabs. **HOME PAGE POLLING**\ We have plans to add more options to the "Home" page inside BDP. This is where various stats are stored and where of the places where you can see new orders come in. Some clients are displaying screens like this one on their office TV's (or other large monitors) and we needed a way to keep everyone in the loop regarding the "freshness" of the information being displayed. **BACK END UPDATES**\ It isn't as much fun as adding new features, but maintaining the plumbing is about as important as things gets around here. This release includes an infrastructure update that keeps us on the up-and-up. # Vehicle-specific Blocked Slots & Bug Fixes We recently pushed out some vehicle-specific functionality that makes it much easier to manage a fleet of delivery trucks that all have different weight & volume capacities. We had one more detail that didn't make the cut an it has been added now! **VEHICLE-SPECIFIC BLOCKED SLOTS**\ Let's say that you have a bigger capacity truck that you use to run all of your larger deliveries, but maybe you also use that truck to help stock your yard. You run a little low on a product that takes a few hours to restock and want to make sure you don't overbook that specific amount of time with customer orders. As of today, you can easily block the time you need to restock and keep the rest of the time open to make $$$. **PRODUCT DESCRIPTION PASTE BUG**\ When copying a description in from another source our system wasn't recognizing that change event (the paste) and wasn't properly providing the appropriate "Save" button. Fixed now! **ADDED WEBP IMAGE (UPLOAD) SUPPORT**\ We deliver images in all of the latest formats, but for actual uploads, we weren't supporting WEBP images, until now. **EMPTY STATES**\ On a few of our pages, we had screens that didn't show much when there wasn't and content yet added ("Empty State"). These are all cleaned up now! # Vehicle Constraints, Troubleshooting Tools, and pretty polishes Hooowhee, this is a big release that might not seem like it at first glance. The biggest news is that now (drumroll) one can very effectively control a very diverse fleet of delivery vehicles and dynamically route orders to the appropriate trucks, each with their own schedules. **VEHICLE CONSTRAINTS**\ Let's say that you have several smaller trucks that don't require a CDL to drive. Then, let's say you invest in a larger truck that does require a CDL and thus a more expensive delivery given the added truck & driver costs. Previously, if you just added this truck into the mix, it would be on the hook to take small loads. We have always included upper end weight constraints, so that the schedule of a larger truck would only appear for BIG loads, but we've never had LOWER END constraints in place, like we do now. This means that you can now enter in a truck and set a weight value that an order must exceed before that truck's schedule will be available. It will no longer get triggered for loads that don't weigh enough to warrant the larger truck. Similarly, we've included optional min/max constraints for volume as well. Just like weight, a larger truck won't be triggered unless the order volume warrants the bigger rig. This set of changes is arguably one of the biggest and most valuable updates to BDP so far this year, and makes your schedule and fleet infinitely customizable. **SLOT TROUBLESHOOTING**\ When adding products to BDP, you are given the option to add in as many "Product Prices" as you like. These are essentially "attributes" of the product that let you control the exact volumes that work for your business. You can enter as many or as few as you like. The challenge here is that it is possible to inadvertently enter a volume for sale that cannot be delivered with your currently active vehicles. If this happens, we now display messaging to alerts your admins so that they can fix things up tout suite. **CUSTOM ORDER CONFIRMATION**\ This allows BDP customers to both keep as much traffic on your own site as possible AND trigger any sort of ad conversion scripts, if you're into that sort of thing. Please contact BDP Support () for the nuts-and-bolts on how to bring this to life and start tracking your ROI! **DRIVER DASHBOARD "LOOK AHEAD"**\ A long-requested feature, drivers can now "look ahead" on the Driver Dashboard (both list and map views) to see what orders are scheduled for future days. This data has always been available via the calendar page, but it is WAY more convenient to take a peek at what's coming up (including dump locations via the map) with this new addition. **PRODUCT WEIGHT & COST FIELDS**\ There's long been a field on the Product page that captured the weight of a product in "tons per yard", which has always been...well, confusing. This is a somewhat common way to reference the weight of an aggregate/gravel product, but makes little to no sense for woody soft goods & soils. We've adjusted the weight value now such that we just capture the weight of a yard of the material and we apply our tonnage conversion behind the scenes. This should make things much easier to fill out and can be calculated (albeit a bit roughly) by measuring the weight of a 12" x 12" x 12" box of material (less the box weight) and then multiplying by 27. Reach out it that needs further explanation! \ \ Lastly, we're prepping for some new features related to "Product Cost" and have updated the field that stores this information to be either "Cost per Yard" or "Cost per Ton". This is all optional right now, but how cool would it be if you could see (in real time) the current value of material inventory? **ADMINS WHO DRIVE**\ We accidentally made it annoying for Admins who have Driving capability to use the Driver Dashboard. They'd click into the "Details" of a delivery and then the breadcrumb navigation would take them back to the "Orders" screen, not the Driver Dashboard. For the people that this affected, we're sorry...it is now possible to select which screen you want to return to with the addition of some new icons. Same is true for "Loaders" and the "Loader Dashboard". **TOOLTIPS**\ We're starting to weave in some little "?" icons throughout the app. Clicking/hovering on these will offer some additional info re: specific fields/tools and will link to more info in our BDP Documentation when needed. Speaking of....we're hustling to get V1 of our documentation out soon. Stay tuned there! **ORDER EXPORTING**\ It has always been possible to export (to and .XLS file) all of one's orders. But that's annoying when you only need a smaller subset (date range, product, customer, etc). Now, whatever filter you've put in place via the "Advanced Search" tools will also apply when you "Export Orders". **OTHER FIXES**\ We cleaned up the look/feel of the calendar view (more to come there) and fixed some layout bugs with the driver delivery map and about a dozen other little spots around the app where we're (hopefully/probably) the only ones who'll notice # Export Filtered Orders, Time Slot Customizations, Loader Search & More Here at BDP it feels like we had a bit of a party ("Pick Up" Release) and needed to do some cleaning up afterwards. This release covers a pile of odds/ends/fixes/polishes and squashed bugs. We also threw in a couple new delivery slot tools that will save a boatload of hassle for a handful of customers. **DELIVERY SLOT TOOLS**\ Depending on a lot of different variables (employee schedules, truck maintenance/availability, weather, holidays, etc.) one needs to make adjustments to an overall delivery schedule. Sure, you're delivering every day, but maybe you've got an additional truck/driver that you can run on Fridays...or over some weekends. There are a few ways to control your delivery "inventory" so to speak and one way has always been to add/delete delivery slots as needed. This works fine, but isn't ideal. With this release, you can now toggle any slot to be "Active" or "Inactive", keeping all of the slot settings intact. Additionally, you can now provide a custom name to each of your slots to help keep things better organized. So...not the MOST SEXY of updates, but it adds a nice polish. **VEHICLE VOLUME LIMITS**\ Inside BDP, we've always had a "Volume" field for each vehicle, but it was mostly there for reference, not actually used in the magic that controls order routing between rigs. Now, if that field is filled out for a specific vehicle, it will automatically control availability for trucks that can/cannot accommodate each order, based on volume. Stay tuned for similar functionality that we're working on to set "lower" limits for weight, allowing better routing for diverse fleets. **LOADER DASHBOARD SEARCH**\ For customers that have enabled "Pick Up" Ordering. We now have a simple search field to help "Loader" users find the right order for fulfillment based on any number of details (order number, name, phone, instructions, etc.) **EXPORT (FILTERED) ORDERS**\ BDP has long offered a simple order export tool and now it will respect any "Advanced Search" options that have been selected. This makes it possible to export just orders of certain products, date ranges, customers, etc. **CUSTOMER NOTE HIGHLIGHTS**\ For new users (drivers) it can take a minute to build the muscle memory needed to remember to always look to see if a customer left a specific delivery note. Even for veteran drivers, this can sometimes get overlooked if you're in the middle of a busy day. We've added some new callouts and shortcut links to help highlight this detail on orders where these instructions have been provided. **RICH TEXT FORMATTING**\ We realized that formatting of certain text items (like bulleted lists) were lost in BDP's admin area. The formatting appeared on the customer side, but that's hardly helpful when you're filling out the details. This is fixed now. **EMAIL SENDER SIGNATURE**\ This is a bit more valuable to new customers...but can definitely help anyone using BDP. When onboarding, an email address (that isn't from Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, etc.) is added to your account settings and used as the address that YOUR customers will see on the email receipts that they get after an order has been placed. In order to be able to do this, we must first get your permission to "send on your behalf". This authentication/confirmation process has now been automated. You can now change the address that you store with us and "confirm" it without needing to reach out to BDP support. # Pick Up Orders! (& some bonus additions/fixes) This is a big one. BulkDelivery PRO now supports "Pick Up" Orders....in addition to "Deliveries". This kicks the door wide open for landscape supply centers, nurseries, and any other businesses that stock bulk materials to use these tools for all of their material transactions. It also paves the way for accurate inventory management regardless of fulfillment type. Customers can both purchase material in advance (saving time when they arrive at the lot), or they can purchase material right from the cab of their truck when they've arrived. Pre-paid orders go straight into the hands of the loader, reducing touch points, dramatically shortening overall load times, and nearly eliminating transaction errors. This addition has been a long time coming and required a significant amount of effort to build out. We can't wait to see how everyone uses these new tools! We also found that (while under the hood) this was a good time for some other improvements to be made. These include: \- A new (embeddable) yardage calculator.\ \- Better error reporting when enabling Stripe Tax. # Progressive Web App Features + Favicon & App Icons Prior to very recently, BDP had limited options for the images/icons that were able to be customized with the Appearance Settings. Now, it is possible to: 1\) customize the logo you see when you or your other team members log in. 2\) customize your company icon that appears on all of your Admin pages. 3\) customize the "favicon" that appears alongside the tabs for your BDP admin & front-end catalog pages. 4\) customize the app icon that appears when BDP is saved to a mobile home screen as a progressive web application. # Facebook/Instagram Shopping Feed In an amongst a handful of other little polishes and layout/formatting/spelling fixes, we've now lit up the ability to publish a BDP catalog of products to Facebook/Instagram. This XML feed is generated for each BDP account and can now be integrated into a Facebook [Commerce Manager](https://facebook.com/commerce_manager) to enable your products to be displayed in a Facebook or Instagram Shop. Upon doing so, all of the "Active" products in your BDP account will be able to be displayed inside a new "Shop" tab both on your Facebook Page and your Instagram Profile, should one elect to enable it in both places. # Map Tools & Email Polishes We snuck in some bug fixes and new smaller features that have been on the list for a minute. There were lingering zone zoom & color picker bugs that are now a thing of the past! In addition, we were able to add in a few things that have been on the list for awhile: **MAP ZONE TOGGLE**\ When you have more than a few zones it used to be really tricky to determine how each one related to the others, since you could only see one at a time. Now, when you're editing a specific zone, you can toggle any/all of the others to see right where you're at. So slick. Now it is possible & easy to get corresponding zones perfectly aligned to each other. **MAP POINT (VERTEX) DELETE**\ When drawing map zones in BDP, it can be easy to get a bit carried away and accidentally create too many points in a zone/polygon. Now, with a simple double-click, you can quickly and easily delete points and simplify your zones. Whew\...finally. **CUSTOMER PRICE CHECK**\ Sometimes one of your customers will call and ask for a quick price check. They could just look on your BDP-generated pages to figure it out but as long as their on the phone you need an easy way to get them an answer. Go to your own BDP site (be sure your cart is empty) and pretend to place the material order that they are interested in. Enter in the customer-provided delivery address and then (on the time-picker screen) click on the material image/icon/button near the top of the screen. From there you'll be presented with the full cost, including any additional outer zone fees.\ \ **WEB APP ICONS**\ BulkDelivery PRO is a "web app", meaning that you'll be using your phone/desktop browser instead of a "native" app. This makes things exponentially easier to update/improve/iterate on from a development perspective. You can also still save a "shortcut" to the BDP system right onto your phone so that it appears like any other "app". We've recently added the ability to also customize the image that is used for your app icon. This is a great way to keep your branding throughout, and makes it much easier for your drivers to find the right icon on their phones. Lastly, we polished up some of the various email templates that get sent out with BDP so that the layout matches what you're used to seeing in the estimates and order receipts. Starting tomorrow, we're digging into something BIG. Stay tuned. # Mid-Winter Maintenance & More We pushed out our most recent update yesterday with a PILE of changes. Primarily, we decided to switch who we are using for images in an effort to prepare for more efficient scaling (as well as a brand new feature we're working on). We used this opportunity to upgrade a number of other packages and perform some admin page cleanups to the "Vehicles", "Products", and "Category" pages. Note that you can now rapidly add product pricing items with our smart "duplicate" feature. The logic behind this will look at the item you're duplicating and perform the same calculation on your next yardage increment. This is a MASSIVE time saver when populating products. We also found/fixed some inconsistencies around the app and updated how we label many of the "toggle" switches to read more clearly. Now that our garage is cleaned up, and plumbing fixed, the stage is set to build out some really exciting things we have planned for this upcoming season. Stay tuned! # Global Same-day Delivery Setting We created a new setting that, when set, globally prevents any same-day orders from being placed. While these last-minute orders are opportunities for additional revenue, we completely understand how they could be hard to accommodate for some operations. The good news is that it is now really easy to toggle on/off!