Create a long-term berth plan

In PrePlanner mode, you can preplan your berth schedule long-term and offline. You can experiment with rearranging the berthings, then make changes when you're finished, or revert back to the original plan. When you save changes, XPS updates the N4 system with your changes. In contrast, in LiveUpdate mode, any changes you make become immediately visible to users looking at the berth schedule in other XPS clients.

It is helpful to roughly align the vessel visit in time and space in the Berth Scheduler window (on page 1) and fine-tune the exact time and berth positions in the N4 client (N4 client Operations Vessel Vessel Visits Vessel Visits view Vessel Inspector Berthings tab Berthings form).

You can also use PrePlanner mode for short-term planning to juggle berth assignments when ships arrive later or earlier than expected.

To preplan the berth schedule:

  1. Open the Berth Scheduler window (on page 1) in the PrePlanner mode, with the required berth range and time range selected.

  1. Select the berthings you want to change.

  2. In the Berth Scheduler window, from the Actions list, select Unlock Berthings.

If you have multiple Berth Scheduler windows open, you see that XPS unlocks the visits only in PrePlanner mode.

  1. Move your vessel visits to the desired locations.

If the berth's ETA/ETD is outside the range of the vessel visit's ETA/ETD, the new ETA/ETD values get assigned to the vessel visit's ETA/ETD to keep berth records in line with the vessel visit's ETA/ETA. This applies to both single and multiple berthings.

In XPS, you can see where there is a discrepancy between the vessel visit and the berthing times by a patterned fill in the berthing rectangle. The patterned fill indicates which portion is out of range of the vessel visit ETA/ETD.  

  1. Lock all the berthings to prevent inadvertent changes.

  2. From the Actions drop-down list, select one of the following to update the N4 system with your changes: