How it Works - ezPOD.app

Overview

ezPOD Proof of Delivery Overview

ezPOD is on a mission to make the best darn proof of delivery documentation system for contractors and material providers. In this brief video, I’m going to give you an overview of our platform and the general structure for organizing PODs as a material provider. PODs are first organized by Zone and second by Project. Also, although you can select anything for your Zone name, the easiest way to think about Zones is that these are the communities or subdivisions that materials are shipped to. Once you have your first Zone created, you can create Projects within that Zone. Each Project will have its own unique delivery address. You can think of Projects as individual lots within a community or subdivision. Once you have your first Zone created and your first Project created, you can create as many PODs for that Project as you’d like. For example, if you have a first floor lumber package, a second floor lumber package, a truss package and an odds-and-ends delivery, each of those PODs can be created for the same Project. Creating Zones and Projects can also be done right from the POD creation workflow. You can manually enter products one at a time or take a picture of your own paper POD and analyze it with our AI tool. That’s all it takes to create a Proof of Delivery.

Zones

Zones are the highest level of organization for PODs. Think of Zones like a community or subdivision You can create multiple Projects within a Zone and multiple PODs per Project. To add a new Zone. Click the Add Zone button and give it a name. That’s all there is to it. You can easily edit a Zone by clicking the edit button if you fat fingered the Zone name or need to change it for some reason. Once you add Projects to a Zone, you can look at the associated Projects by clicking the View Projects button.

If you no longer expect to use the Zone actively, you can click the Archive button to remove it and any associated Projects and clean up your Zones list.

And that’s all there is to Zones.

Projects

Projects are the second layer of organization. Each Project must be associated with a Zone and each Zone may have multiple Projects. Think of Projects like the individual lots within a community or subdivision. To create a new Project, simply click the Add Project button. Enter the name of the Project, the delivery address, the email address of your customer who will receive the delivery and select or add a Zone to assign the Project to. You can easily view the associated PODs by clicking the view PODs button or archive a Project by clicking the Archive button.

If you would like to grant Project view or edit access to another member of your team, you can assign permissions with the Permissions button. Simply enter the email address of the user you would like to assign permissions to. Then select the access type, which is either View Only or Edit.

If you only want to grant permissions until a specific date, enter that date in the Access Expiry field. If you want the permissions to last forever, leave that field empty. When permissions are granted to another user, the Project will appear in the Shared With Me tab of the menu. From there a user can view any associated PODs by clicking the View PODs button. You can also add Stakeholders to a Project to receive delivery notifications.

I’ll explain how Stakeholders work in another video. For now you should have everything you need to know to get started creating and managing Projects.

Proof of Delivery Documentation (PODs)

Proof of Deliveries (PODs)

When you’re ready to create a POD, simply click the Create POD button. Either select a Project you’ve already created or add a Project and Zone in the workflow. Enter the POD description and PO number. The customer name and email should auto populate based on the Project selected.

This customer email is important because it will tie the POD to the Contractor’s ezPOD Account so they can access the POD directly. The shipping address will also autoload based on the Project selected, but it’s wise to verify the address just in case.

Finally you can either manually add products one by one or take a picture of your paper POD and analyze it using our AI tool to auto load the items and quantities.

Once you verify the materials, click the Create POD button to create your POD. When the POD is created, it is immediately downloadable as a PDF which can be printed and physically attached to your materials if desired. You can assign the POD to a driver and the driver can update the status of the POD to Out for Delivery or Delivered. The driver should then request a signature from the person receiving the materials at the job site and upload photos of the materials which will be added to the POD when shared or downloaded.

Finally you can manually share the POD with any assigned Stakeholders, such as the Contractor’s finance representatives, by clicking the Share button.

If you would like more information on Stakeholders, I’ll cover that in another video. But for now you should know all the basics needed to create and manage PODs.

Stakeholders

Stakeholders are interested parties who are not the direct recipient of the materials or an internal team member of yours. For example the lender providing the finances to the contractor may be a key Stakeholder who wants to know when materials are delivered. Or they might be a member of a third party auditing company who would like to verify materials delivered, or perhaps a regional representative for the builder you’re shipping materials to. In each of these cases, these Stakeholders may want delivery updates and copies of the PODs, but may not have an account with ezPOD. For this scenario you can add a Stakeholder in the Stakeholders tab. Stakeholders can then be assigned at the Project level and specific PODs may be granted or restricted at your discretion. Once Stakeholders are assigned, you can share a POD via email to any or all of the Stakeholders assigned to the Project. This will send an email with the POD attached for their records.