Set Up Dock Appointment Settings

Dock appointment settings control how carriers book pickup and delivery appointments at your facility. You’ll configure things like operating hours, appointment length, how far in advance someone can book, and whether appointments need your approval. Each facility has separate settings for Pickup and Dropoff traffic, so you can run different rules for inbound and outbound freight.

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Open your facility’s settings

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Configure your appointment settings

Work through each section on the form. The settings you see depend on the appointment type you choose.

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Appointment type

Pick how carriers book time at your dock:

• By Appointment — Carriers pick a specific timeslot. You control the slot length and operating hours.
• First Come First Served (FCFS) — No timeslots. Carriers book a day, and you set a daily cap on how many appointments are allowed.

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Operating hours and days open

Set which days your facility accepts appointments and the hours for each day. Each day can be toggled open or closed individually. If your facility runs overnight shifts, check Closes next day (after midnight) so the closing time rolls past midnight correctly.

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Appointment length

By Appointment mode only. Choose how long each timeslot is — options range from 15 minutes to 3 hours. Owlery uses this plus your operating hours to calculate how many slots are available each day.

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Daily max appointments

FCFS mode only. Set the maximum number of appointments allowed per day. If you don’t want a cap, choose No Max Limit.

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Concurrent appointment capacity

Cap how many appointments can run in parallel at your facility, regardless of how many timeslots are technically open. The cap applies across pickup and dropoff combined — so if you set it to 3, only 3 trucks total (inbound + outbound) can be on-site at the same time. Use this when your team or dock space is the bottleneck rather than the number of doors. Leave it unset to let every available slot book independently.

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Drop trailer docks

If you have docks reserved for carriers that leave a trailer parked overnight (for example, parcel carriers like UPS or FedEx), mark them as drop trailer on the facility profile. Drop trailer docks are excluded from normal live-load scheduling so the trailer’s slot isn’t double-booked.

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Direct booking capacity

This controls whether appointments are auto-confirmed or need your approval:

• All — Every appointment is confirmed automatically. Good for low-traffic docks where you don’t need to gatekeep.
• None — Every appointment request goes to your facility for approval before it’s confirmed. Use this for high-demand docks where you need full control.
• Some — Set a specific number of appointments that auto-confirm per day. Once that limit is hit, additional requests require your approval.

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Appointment scheduling restrictions

Prevent last-minute bookings by blocking appointments that are too close to today:

• Allow Appointments Any Time — No restrictions.
• Disable Same Day Appointments — Carriers can’t book for today.
• Disable Same & Next Day Appointments — Carriers need at least two days’ lead time.

You can also set a custom number of days if you need a longer buffer.

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Email notifications

Choose which appointment statuses trigger an email to your facility contacts. Check the statuses you want notifications for — for example, Arrived, Departed, or Loaded/Unloaded. Appointment confirmation emails also pull content directly from your facility profile:

• Facility notes — check-in instructions, paperwork requirements, and the facility address are included on every confirmation.
• Facility contacts — anyone listed as a contact on the facility is automatically included on the email.

Keep your facility profile up to date so carriers always get the right instructions and the right people are looped in.

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Driver info collection

For inbound (dropoff) appointments, you can require carriers to provide freight details at booking time when the WMS doesn’t already have them. When enabled, the Add Appointment form prompts the scheduler for:

• Temperature range — the temperature zone the freight needs (for example, frozen, refrigerated, ambient).
• Pallet count — the total number of pallets on the load.

This is configured per facility and only applies to inbound traffic. Use it when your WMS often has incomplete order data and you want the carrier to fill the gaps before they arrive.