Skip to main content
Where to find it: Dashboard → RFPs → Create RFP Lanes are the shipping routes you want carriers to bid on. The Create RFP page gives you three tabs for adding them, and you can use all three in the same RFP — start with a batch of suggestions, then hand-add the two new lanes that aren’t in your history yet. Switching tabs never removes lanes you’ve already added. Every lane needs at least two stops, whichever tab you used.

​
Upload a CSV File

Start with Download CSV Template instead of building your own headers. The template comes out already matching your account’s units (miles or kilometres, lbs or kgs). Before it downloads, you’ll answer three questions:
  • Max # of stops: how many stops your longest lane has. A 2-stop template is much easier to read than a 5-stop one, so don’t go higher than you need.
  • Location detail: Full Address, City/State/Zip, or Zip Only. Pick the least detail that still identifies the lane.
  • Prefill with contract rates: fills the file with the lanes on your current contracts, including their rates, so you can re-bid your book by editing a file instead of typing it.
Then fill it in and upload it. A few things to know:
  • One row is one lane: a file can mix 2-stop and 3-stop lanes, since Owlery reads the stop count from the columns you filled in.
  • Zip code is the only stop detail you have to provide, plus city and state on the full-address and city/state/zip templates. If you filled in a facility’s lookup code, you can leave that stop’s address columns blank.
  • Everything else is optional: equipment type (dry van unless you say otherwise), distances, volume, weight, and target rate.
  • Distances are worth filling in: they’re what let you see a rate per mile and apply per-mile fuel surcharges.
  • Volume is all or nothing: if you give a minimum, give a maximum too.
If any row in the file has a problem, nothing is imported. Owlery tells you which rows to fix — correct the file and upload it again.
Uploading a second file, or removing the file, deletes the lanes that came from the first one. Owlery asks you to confirm first. Lanes you added by hand or from suggestions aren’t touched.

​
Equipment and Driver Options

Once your lanes are in the table, a strip above it lets you tick Shipment Mode (Truck or Rail) and Driver Mode (Solo or Team). These add lanes rather than filter them. Every combination you tick creates its own copy of every row in your file, so carriers bid on each one separately. Tick Solo and Team on a 24-row file and you get 48 lanes. Owlery shows you the count as you go. The default is Truck plus Solo, which is one lane per row.

​
Let Owlery Suggest Lanes

This tab builds a lane list out of what Owlery already knows about your freight, so you can re-bid your network without assembling a file. Suggestions come from two places:
  • Your contracts: lanes you already have rates on file for. The contract rate carries over as the starting target rate, and the lane shows a handshake icon.
  • Your load history: lanes you actually moved, grouped together. These show a sparkle icon.
Set the filters, then press Filter. The list only refreshes when you press it.
  • Include existing contracts: on by default. Turn it off to bid only lanes you’ve physically run.
  • Use historical lanes from the last…: on by default at 6 months. Turn it off to work only from contracts.
  • With at least N loads: drops lanes that ran fewer than that many times. This is the main dial for keeping one-off spot moves out of a contract bid — raising it to 5 or 10 leaves you with lanes that have real, repeatable volume.
Changing a filter clears whatever you had selected, so you can’t accidentally add lanes from an old list.
A few things Owlery does for you: it groups matching loads into one lane even when the same address was typed three different ways, it shows the contract version when a lane is both contracted and in your history, and it estimates a weekly volume range from how often the lane ran. Volume, weight, target rate, and rate per mile are all editable right in the suggestion table before you add anything. Editing a suggestion doesn’t change the underlying contract or your load history.
Nothing suggested? Your filters are probably too tight — widen the lookback window or lower the minimum load count. If you have no contracts and no recent loads on file yet, upload a CSV file or enter lanes by hand this time. Once you award this RFP, those lanes become suggestions for your next one.

​
Options Multiply Your Selection

Above the suggestion table, Shipment Mode, Equipment, and Truck Driver Mode set which versions of each lane carriers should bid on. Each lane you select is added once per combination, and the button tells you the total before you commit — 12 lanes bid for both dry van and reefer becomes Add 24 Lanes. Pick at least one shipment mode and one equipment type, or nothing can be selected.

​
Enter Lanes by Hand

A simple form, one lane at a time: pick equipment, solo or team, truck or rail, then add your stops. Stops autocomplete against your saved facilities, and you can add as many as the lane needs. Per stop, you can record transit time and the distance to the next stop. Then set the lane’s volume range, total weight, and a target rate — enter it as a total or per mile and Owlery works out the other one, as long as the lane has all its distances. Add Lane drops it into the table and keeps your settings for the next one, including the first stop. That makes a run of lanes out of the same origin quick to enter.

​
Next Step

Running Your RFP

Once your lanes, carriers, and dates are set, send the RFP and start comparing bids.