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Technology

System architecture is extremely important for ensuring the stability and reliability of the systems that support revenue-generating processes within your business. Investing in transportation technology that uses proprietary development tools promotes a high cost of ownership because it encourages financial dependency on the software vendor for any change to your business, your technology, or even something as minor as a service patch to your operating system. RateLinx solutions operate on a Windows® platform - utilizing non-proprietary Microsoft® development tools and database utilities - to fit well within your company’s technical infrastructure, promoting ease of use, familiarity, and a low cost of ownership.

Database

Companies can ship hundreds to thousands of shipments per day, and over the course of a year can accumulate a massive amount of data. Transportation solutions, running on anything other than a true relational database, will become a “maintenance nightmare” due to the instability of their table indexes, and more importantly, affect system performance. RateLinx solutions operate with Microsoft SQL Server® as the database, incorporating a technologically-advanced database schema, so as your activity increases, it is self-sufficient - and every day is as fast as the first day it was installed.

Application Program Interface (API)

The API employs a COM object, or, an XML schema that is the heart and core of the RateLinx solution, controlling all the functions and properties of the system. It promotes a thin client environment, enabling user connectivity via RateLinx user interfaces and tools, as well as remote access via other critical business systems supporting their operation. Transportation solutions that do not employ an API require multiple instances of their software and integration tools to support users and multiple facilities, thus increasing your costs for licensing, implementation, and support.

User Interfaces

Licensing, ease of use, and maintenance are key factors that often determine how the RateLinx solution is deployed and utilized by your user community. Most transportation software vendors primarily utilize a single user interface - and this lack of flexibility can increase your costs through conflict with internal systems, licensing, implementation, and support.

What sets RateLinx apart is that we provide you with options, in order to find the right combination that best fits your organization and your budget.

Integration Components

Other transportation software manufacturers utilize integration technology that require workstation installations and license keys for each user within your enterprise, increasing your costs for licensing, maintenance, and implementation, thus increasing your risk for performance issues with different versions existing within your network. The RateLinx integration component is compiled to a DLL and is not a proprietary component that is interpreted at runtime. This increases the speed of the solution, facilitates deployment, and is capable of utilizing any integration protocol or methodology available in Windows, such as TCP/IP, ODBC, Web Services, XML, File Transfer, Terminal Emulation (screen scrape), etc. Because of our integration technology, RateLinx is able to utilize a single DLL to support the integration for your entire enterprise. For those companies requiring unattended transaction processing, RateLinx also provides an extensible API, with Integration Tools that reside “in the background,” and transfer information between the RateLinx API and a company’s critical business systems. The Integration Tools are available for each of the integration protocols supported under Windows®.

Alert Service

The RateLinx Alert Service technology is a unique tool that cannot be found in any other transportation solution. The Alert Service is an application that runs as a service in Windows®, so once it is installed, it operates without user intervention. Alert Service allows RateLinx to configure and schedule custom programs, or better known as threads, to run automated processes to interact with the RateLinx API, databases, and even customer business systems for functions such as email notifications, queries, and shipment tracking. Other software programs employ executable programs, stored procedures, and separate modules to perform these types of functions, thus increasing your costs and requiring more hardware resources and support.

Automatic Updates

Every transportation management solution on the market today require vendor and customer intervention when applying updates, patches, fuel surcharge, and rate changes - which increases the burden on the internal staff of a company, and increases the cost of ownership. RateLinx is the first and only transportation technology company to implement an automated process for updating all of its solutions whether it is installed on a local workstation or running off a shared network drive without human intervention, thus continuing to support the culture of our business by promoting low cost of ownership.

Hardware Requirements

Client

Pentium II 400Mhz or faster

20 GB HD

256 MB RAM (if other applications will be used on these workstations, additional RAM is recommended)

CDROM Drive

17” SVGA Monitor (1024 x 768 resolution)

100 MB NIC

Windows 2000 and above

Minimum one serial port for scale interface

Minimum one parallel port for thermal label printer

Server

Pentium IV 2.0 Ghz or faster (Dual processors suggested for larger volume transactions > 15,000 per day)

1 Gig RAM (additional RAM will improve performance)

30 GB HD for OS and application install

120 GB HD for data storage (actual size may very depending on how much historical data is retained)

Windows 2000, 2003 or XP Professional

100 MB NIC

Peripheral Devices Recommendation

Scale – NCI Weigh-Tronix 7800 Series, Detecto AS400 Series.

Thermal Printers – Zebra 105SL (203 DPI)

Scanners – PSC Quickscan (keyboard wedge)

Report Printers – HP (laser)

 

BREAKING NEWS

Free Multi-Carrier Shipping Software - Really!

RateLinx provides several opportunities for clients to acquire Parcel and LTL shipping solutions at no cost through internal programs and strategic partnerships. For companies that qualify, these programs compensate up to 100% of all costs associated with a RateLinx Shipping System from parcel and LTL freight negotiation programs. This means that Carriers are no longer the only option for free shipping technology, allowing companies to remove the inherent bias associated with carrier technology programs linked to contract milestones.

Our "free shipping technology" programs are delivered as a complete bundled solution, providing software, support, rate updates, installation, and systems integration (ERP, WMS, etc.). As a result of these programs, our Clients have benefited from rate savings and a shipping system with absolutely no out of pocket expense. RateLinx software products are carrier-certified with Parcel (UPS, FedEx, etc.) and LTL carriers with processing speeds up to 40 transactions per second and brings a "zero" cost of ownership by providing automated fuel pricing updates, time-in-transit data, and rate changes. No other technology program, carrier or third party, comes close to this complete value proposition. So, if you feel you need better shipping system performance, please contact us at sales@ratelinx.com to learn more about these programs.

LTL Technology Goes Parcel

All-Inclusive LTL Software to Accurately Rate, Ship, and Audit

RateLinx introduces a technology breakthrough for LTL. Twenty years ago, Parcel manifest systems were introduced to facilitate processing shipments with contract rates while providing a shipment record to reconcile against carrier freight bills. Today, every Shipper has one and cannot live without it.
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