Container Depot is the module for a container yard. It records every container that arrives (an inward) and leaves (an outward), keeps the stock position of the yard up to date, manages surveys and repair estimates, holds bookings for containers that shipping lines want released, bills the Main Line Operators (MLOs) for handling, storage and repairs, issues cashier receipts, and reports on all of it.
What you can do
- Register a container's arrival with its condition, yard, depot and stack location, and see it join the yard's stock. See Inwards.
- Survey a container on arrival and turn the survey into a repair estimate, approve estimate items, and release approved items to the workshop as a work order. See Repair Estimates.
- Release a container to a transporter against a release order, print the gate pass, and see the container leave stock. See Outwards and Gate Passes.
- Reserve containers for a shipping line ahead of release, with seal numbers. See Reservations.
- Load a vessel's discharge list from Excel so arrivals can be registered against it. See Discharge Lists.
- Look up any container's registry record, condition and stock history. See Containers.
- Invoice an MLO for a billing period using its price master, preview the storage, handling and free-days breakdown, and print the supporting statements. See Invoices.
- Record cashier receipts for over-the-counter payments. See Cashier.
- Maintain the yard's master data: Yards, MLOs, Vessels, Voyages and Transporters.
- Configure the module and its reference data as a team admin. See Module settings.
- Run the depot's stock, movement, aging, estimate, reservation and cashier reports. See Reports.
Access and permissions
You need a signed-in OCTO Ops account with a verified email address, an active membership in the selected organization, and the Container Depot module enabled for that organization.
Team owners and admins can use every Container Depot screen. Every other member is governed by the organization's permission groups. Each submodule listed in the left navigation has its own set of permissions:
| Permission | What it allows |
|---|---|
| View (all records) or View (own records) | Open the submodule's list and its records. With own records you only see records you created yourself. |
| Create | Register new records, including through the Excel imports. |
| Edit (all) or Edit (own) | Change existing records. Adding, changing or removing a line of a record (for example an estimate item, or a container on a reservation) counts as editing the record. |
| Delete (all) or Delete (own) | Delete a record from its profile page. Only Inwards, Outwards and Repair Estimates can be deleted — see below. |
Two permissions on Repair Estimates are special and are granted separately: Approve repair estimate items and Release approved estimates to the workshop. Neither is included in Edit, and neither includes the other.
Some actions borrow another submodule's permission because of what they create: starting a survey from an inward needs the Create permission for Repair Estimates, and printing a gate pass needs the View permission for Gate Passes. Each page says which permission it needs.
The screens under Settings > Module settings > Containers are for team owners and admins only and are not covered by permission groups.
Depot-wide reports are not filtered to "own records". A member with only own records permissions on a submodule sees the whole yard's totals on the reports they are allowed to open, because a stock figure filtered to one person's entries would be misleading.
Deleting records
Inward records, outward records and repair estimates can be deleted by a user holding the matching Delete permission, from the red Delete entry at the bottom of the toolbar Actions menu on the record's profile page. Team owners and admins can always delete.
A record with dependent documents cannot be deleted; the page refuses with a message that names what is in the way (for example, an inward with a survey or a later outward, or an estimate already released to the workshop). Deleting reverses the record's effect on stock: deleting an inward takes the container out of stock, and deleting an outward puts it back. The individual pages list the exact rules.
Every deletion is recorded, and the team's owners and admins receive an email digest at 7:00 each morning (in the organization's timezone) listing the previous day's deletions.
Recommended setup sequence
For a new organization, set things up in this order so that later screens have the choices they need:
- Create your Yards, with their depots and stack locations.
- Check the reference data under Module settings: ISO types, ports, cargo types, conditions and surveyors.
- Add the liable parties you bill repairs to, under Module settings.
- Add the MLOs you handle containers for, and set each one's price master under Module settings so invoices can be calculated.
- Add Vessels, Voyages and Transporters as you meet them; they are also needed as pick-lists when registering arrivals and releases.
- Decide the repair-estimate limit per container under Module settings.
- Give your users the permissions they need, then start with Inwards.
A container's journey
- Optionally, the shipping line's discharge list is imported, or a reservation is booked.
- The container arrives and is registered as an inward. It is now in stock, at a yard, depot and stack location, with a condition.
- If it needs repair, it is surveyed and a repair estimate is raised, approved, and released to the workshop.
- The container is released as an outward against a release order, with a printed gate pass. It leaves stock.
- At the end of the billing period the MLO is invoiced for handling, storage and repairs; over-the-counter payments are receipted at the cashier.
- Reports show the stock position, movements, aging, estimate pipeline and receipts at any point.
Current limitations
- Jobs appears in the navigation but is not available in this version; arrivals are tracked on the Inwards list. See Jobs.
- Notification emails to shipping lines (EDI messages) on arrival and release are not sent by OCTO Ops.
- A yard utilization report is not available; the reports page lists what is.
- Only inwards, outwards and repair estimates can be deleted. Other records, including containers, reservations and master data, cannot be deleted from the application.