GXT Customer Spotlight: Odyssey Logistics

Odyssey Logistics & Technology (Odyssey) is a global logistics solutions provider with a freight network of over $2 billion. The company developed WIN® (Web Integrated Network), a Transportation Management System (TMS), which simplifies day-to-day tasks related to moving freight across North America. WIN is available at no cost to shippers.

This leading-edge technology offers shippers carrier choice, savings opportunities, and freight spend visibility. From one place, shippers can select carriers, book and track shipments, and generate required documentation. Customers don’t have to deal with multiple phone calls, website visits, and emails to manage transportation – it can all be done through WIN. Not only can shippers save money on their freight spend, they can also save time in finding carriers and processing shipments. Because WIN supports multiple transportation modes (less-than-truckload, truckload, bulk, flatbed, intermodal, refrigerated, etc.), virtually any shipper that moves freight in North America can use the system.

Why We Chose GXT

While working on the selection of UI technology for our brand new WIN platform, we piloted numerous UI solutions. The goal was to create a simple, intuitive, easy-to-use UI that our customers would love and our competitors would envy. The idea was to deliver a “desktop-like” user experience via a browser. We wanted usability to be one of the key competitive advantages of the new platform.

We settled on GWT and very soon realized that we needed a wider selection of UI components. The “build vs buy” decision was easy – we decided to go with Sencha GXT rather than spending time on building our own components.

We chose GXT because of the wide selection of well-designed components, nice “look and feel”, easy customization for our needs, and a lot of great “out of the box” features including sorting within a column in a grid and efficient drag-and-drop functionality.

We used numerous GXT components including grids, charts, and more.

This is the main screen used to manage Transportation Orders. Users can create, edit, tender, and spot quote orders.

his is the dashboard/widgets screen where users can configure widget composition and layout.

Business Value of Using GXT

Choosing GXT was instrumental in addressing the challenge of implementing very complex business logic in a way that was simple, easy, and enjoyable to use. By using GXT components, we were able to shorten time to market while building a brand new platform from scratch. We saved roughly 30% of development time using high performance, customizable GXT components.

We met our goal of building the WIN Platform as a simple, easy-to-use system to manage transportation needs. The key to delivering that experience was having an intuitive UI, which is why we selected GXT. Using features built with GXT, shippers are able to quickly and easily navigate the system to manage their shipping needs. Tasks which could have taken hours for shippers to complete can now be done in minutes.

Our Advice to New Developers

We definitely recommend GXT as the most comprehensive Java framework, which allows developers to speed up building “desktop-like”, rich internet applications. Use the solid library of UI components to increase productivity, improve usability, and decrease time to market.

Final Thoughts

WIN enables shippers to more quickly and cost-effectively manage their transportation needs. As the features and functions of WIN evolve, GXT will enable us to continue to provide a best-in-class user experience.