Manhattan Active Transportation Management Operations Training Course

Course overview

Transportation teams must turn shipment demand into cost-effective, service-compliant moves while managing carrier capacity, tender responses, exceptions, and freight charges. Manhattan Active Transportation Management provides the operational workspace for these decisions, but value depends on users who can interpret order and load data, apply the right planning controls, and act quickly when execution diverges from plan. This course prepares participants to use the platform as part of a disciplined daily transportation operating model.

Participants work through the end-to-end transportation lifecycle in Manhattan Active Transportation Management: shipment order intake, planning, consolidation, rate selection, carrier tendering, execution monitoring, appointment coordination, freight audit, and performance reporting. They learn to distinguish orders, shipments, loads, stops, and legs; evaluate service and cost trade-offs; use planning and exception queues; manage tender outcomes; and investigate operational data before escalating issues. The course also addresses master data dependencies, integration touchpoints, user roles, and controls that affect planning quality.

Instructor-led demonstrations are followed by guided work in realistic transportation scenarios, including multi-stop load building, carrier rejection, late-status investigation, and invoice discrepancy handling. Participants complete a capstone operating playbook containing process maps, decision rules, exception-resolution steps, KPI definitions, and a practical improvement action for their own network. This gives both the participant and their manager a usable reference for consistent adoption after the course.

The programme suits transportation planners, logistics operations staff, carrier-management teams, and supply chain analysts who need practical command of Manhattan Active Transportation Management from foundation through intermediate operating tasks.

Course objectives

By the end of this course, participants will be able to:

• Navigate Manhattan Active Transportation Management workspaces, queues, searches, and operational status views
• Interpret shipment orders, loads, stops, legs, equipment requirements, and service constraints
• Build and evaluate consolidated loads using cost, capacity, route, and delivery-window criteria
• Apply rate-shopping results to select carriers and services against defined transportation policies
• Execute tendering workflows and manage carrier acceptance, rejection, expiration, and re-tender actions
• Investigate transportation exceptions using shipment status, milestone events, and operational work queues
• Validate freight charges by comparing invoices, planned costs, accessorials, and supporting shipment data
• Produce a Manhattan Active TM operating playbook with KPIs, escalation rules, and improvement actions

Benefits of attending

Target competencies

Who should attend

• Transportation Planners — who create, consolidate, tender, and monitor daily shipment loads
• Logistics Operations Coordinators — who resolve carrier, shipment-status, and delivery exceptions
• Transportation Managers — who need consistent planning controls and measurable carrier performance
• Carrier Management Specialists — who administer tender workflows, service commitments, and carrier follow-up
• Freight Audit Analysts — who investigate planned-versus-invoiced transportation cost discrepancies
• Supply Chain Systems Analysts — who support Manhattan Active TM workflows, data quality, and integrations

Requirements and prerequisites

Participants should understand basic transportation operations, including shipment orders, carriers, modes, pickup and delivery appointments, freight rates, and common shipment statuses. Experience working in a TMS, ERP, WMS, carrier portal, or spreadsheet-based transport-planning process is helpful. Familiarity with the participant's own lanes, carrier contracts, service levels, and exception process will make exercises more relevant. No prior Manhattan Active Transportation Management certification, configuration experience, coding ability, API development knowledge, or EDI mapping experience is required. Complete beginners can attend, but should expect to learn core transportation terminology alongside the application workflow.

Training methodology

The course combines instructor-led explanation of Manhattan Active Transportation Management workflows with live system demonstrations and guided scenario exercises. Participants work individually and in small groups to plan loads, compare rating options, process tender responses, investigate late shipments, and validate freight charges using realistic operational data. Facilitated discussions connect system actions to service, cost, and carrier-management decisions. Each day closes with a practical output, and the final session uses an application-planning workshop to convert learning into a role-specific operating playbook for the participant's transportation network.

Course outline

Day 1: Transportation Management Foundations and Workspace Navigation

• Manhattan Active Transportation Management operating model and transportation lifecycle
• Core entities: shipment orders, shipments, loads, stops, legs, and equipment
• User roles, workspaces, saved searches, filters, and task queues
• Order source data, shipment attributes, and master-data dependencies
• Transportation modes, service levels, carrier capabilities, and lane definitions
• Shipment lifecycle statuses and operational milestone interpretation
• Data-quality checks that prevent downstream planning and execution failures

Workshop: Participants map a sample order-to-delivery workflow and create a triage view identifying incomplete, unplanned, and at-risk shipments.

Day 2: Planning, Consolidation, and Carrier Selection

• Planning objectives: cost, service, capacity, utilization, and delivery commitments
• Order release and planning readiness criteria
• Load building across compatible orders, routes, dates, and equipment constraints
• Multi-stop planning and stop-sequence considerations
• Capacity, weight, volume, pallet, and equipment compatibility checks
• Rate shopping and comparison of carrier-service alternatives
• Manual planning decisions, planning overrides, and approval controls

Workshop: Participants create and compare alternative multi-stop load plans, then document the selected option using cost and service decision criteria.

Day 3: Tendering, Carrier Collaboration, and Execution Control

• Tender strategy, routing-guide logic, and carrier allocation principles
• Primary tender, sequential tender, and re-tender workflow decisions
• Tender acceptance, rejection, expiration, and carrier-response monitoring
• Carrier communication, document exchange, and appointment coordination
• Pickup, in-transit, arrival, delivery, and proof-of-delivery milestones
• Execution work queues and prioritisation of operational alerts
• Escalation paths for capacity shortfalls, missed appointments, and late deliveries

Workshop: Participants manage a carrier rejection scenario from failed tender through re-tender, appointment update, and documented customer-service escalation.

Day 4: Exception Management, Freight Audit, and Performance Insight

• Exception categories, severity rules, ownership, and resolution service levels
• Investigating late or missing milestones through shipment and carrier status history
• Planned transportation cost, base rates, fuel, accessorials, and charge components
• Freight invoice matching against shipment, rate, and service data
• Dispute identification, supporting evidence, and approval workflow controls
• Carrier scorecards for tender acceptance, on-time performance, and cost variance
• Operational KPI definitions for planning quality, execution reliability, and spend control

Workshop: Participants investigate a late-delivery and invoice-variance case, producing an exception record, evidence trail, and carrier follow-up action.

Day 5: Integration Awareness and Operational Adoption

• TMS touchpoints with ERP, WMS, order management, carrier, and finance systems
• EDI X12 transportation messages and their operational significance
• API-based data exchange concepts for shipment, status, and invoice information
• Monitoring integration failures and distinguishing data issues from execution issues
• Role-based controls, auditability, and segregation of planning and approval activities
• Daily, weekly, and monthly transportation operating cadence
• Improvement prioritisation using KPI trends, recurring exceptions, and root-cause analysis

Workshop: Participants complete a Manhattan Active TM operating playbook for a case network, including process steps, KPIs, escalation rules, and a 30-day improvement plan.

Tools & standards covered

Manhattan Active Transportation Management, Manhattan Active Supply Chain, Postman, ANSI ASC X12

A typical training day

Live online deliveries follow the same structure in the East Africa Time zone, with shorter screen blocks and longer breaks.

What the fee includes

How you can take this course

Certification

Participants who complete the full five days receive the Skillset Development Certificate of Completion, stating the course title, course code, dates and delivery format — suitable for professional-development records and employer reimbursement.

Frequently asked questions