ZF SCALAR integration
ZF's cloud fleet platform: trips to the SCALAR driver app, subcontracted Trips through SCALAR Spot, and positions, activities and driving times back.
What is ZF SCALAR?
SCALAR is ZF’s cloud platform for connected fleets. It covers vehicle and trailer tracking, driving and resting times, the SCALAR driver app for scheduled trips, messaging and documents, and Spot Subcontracting: a web page per trip for a subcontractor’s driver who does not use SCALAR. Transportial connects to the SCALAR APIs with integrator credentials issued by your own SCALAR organisation.
What syncs between ZF SCALAR and Transportial
- To ZF SCALAR
Confirmed trips to the SCALAR driver app
A confirmed trip becomes a SCALAR scheduled trip on the vehicle, the driver or both. Stops become missions with address, coordinates and planned time; loading, unloading, coupling and other work become actions with the activity definition you choose per action type, and consignments and goods go along as orders and load carriers with barcodes.
- To ZF SCALAR
Updates and cancellations
Changes to a confirmed or running trip update the SCALAR trip; cancelling the trip deletes it in SCALAR.
- To ZF SCALAR
Subcontracted Trips through Spot
A forwarded trip is created as a SCALAR Spot trip. The subcontractor’s driver gets a web link, sent by your own message automation, and needs no app or account.
- Into Transportial
Stop execution and ETAs
When the driver starts and finishes work in the app, the stops in Transportial follow with the actual times. SCALAR’s ETA per stop and the driver’s workflow answers arrive on the stop.
- Into Transportial
Spot feedback
Arrival and departure per stop, comments, weight, swapped pallets, photos, documents and signatures from the subcontracted driver land on the trip, together with the truck and trailer plates. The trip finishes when the last stop is done.
- Into Transportial
Positions, activities and driving times
Positions with speed and heading, driving and standstill activities, tachograph states and every driver’s remaining driving and rest times.
- Both ways
Messages and documents
Chat messages and their attachments go to the driver in SCALAR; replies, read receipts and documents the driver uploads come back into Transportial.
- Into Transportial
Vehicles, trailers and drivers
Vehicles and trailers with licence plate, VIN and mileage, and drivers with their tachograph card, are imported. Vehicles and drivers you already have, for example from Transics, are matched instead of duplicated.
How to connect ZF SCALAR
Ask an administrator of your SCALAR organisation to create an integrator for Transportial and assign it the teams whose vehicles, drivers and places it may see. You receive a client ID and secret.
Add the ZF SCALAR integration in Transportial, enter the client ID and secret and choose your datacenter (Europe and the Americas, or Asia-Pacific). Vehicles, trailers and drivers are imported on the first sync.
Optionally link each action type to a SCALAR activity definition. Left empty, the definition with the matching name, such as Loading or Unloading, is used.
For Spot, choose which forwarded trips go to SCALAR and set up a message automation that sends the driver link to your subcontractor.
Sync frequency and limits
- With webhooks, SCALAR pushes positions, activities, trip progress, Spot feedback and messages as they happen; Transportial registers the subscription itself.
- Without webhooks: messages every 30 seconds, positions and trip updates every minute, activities and Spot updates every 2 minutes, driving times and documents every 5 minutes, vehicles every 3 hours and drivers every 6 hours.
- The number of requests per run is configurable, so the integration stays within the per-minute limits of your SCALAR plan.
Typical use case
A haulier runs its own trucks on SCALAR and hands overflow work to subcontractors. Its own trips reach the SCALAR driver app when they are confirmed and report progress and ETAs back. A forwarded trip is created in SCALAR Spot, its link goes to the subcontractor automatically, and the subcontractor’s driver registers arrival and departure in the browser and uploads the signed CMR, so planners and customers see subcontracted stops progress just like their own.
Frequently asked questions
Does the subcontracted driver need SCALAR or an app?
No. Spot works with a web link that opens in any phone browser, without an account. The link is sent through a message automation you set up, for example by e-mail or WhatsApp.
Can I use SCALAR and Transics side by side?
Yes. They are separate integrations, and vehicles and drivers that exist in both are matched rather than duplicated.
What happens when I cancel a subcontracted Trip?
SCALAR Spot cannot cancel a trip, so Transportial removes the driver link from the trip and warns the planner to inform the subcontractor.
Connect ZF SCALAR to your TMS
Transportial’s integration framework links your operation to ZF SCALAR and any other system you run.