Freight Brokerage Operations

Business Problem

Freight brokers must coordinate shippers, carriers, lanes, loads, dispatch, tracking, accessorials, claims, and finance events. The work is real-time, exception-heavy, and margin-sensitive.

Four-Step Application

This scenario works best as a four-step, human-in-the-loop application. The required object model already gives this scenario a strong delivery backbone for a four-step operating experience.

• Mission metric focus: better on-time performance, lower exception costs, and higher operator productivity.
• Human + AI pattern: Each step combines structured workflow data with chat assistance, background generation, document understanding, and accessible interaction patterns when they improve the experience.

Step 1. Capture demand and context

• Goal: Make it easy for the user to start the Freight Brokerage Operations journey with complete, trusted context.
• Required data: Shipper (shipping customer), Carrier (motor carrier), Lane (origin-destination lane), QuoteRequest (quote request), and LoadTender (accepted load).
• AI support: Use chat to guide intake, generate clearer prompts, create accessible summaries, and assist with voice or vision-led capture when a form alone is not the best experience. EAI can support structured intake, chat workflows, and document-centred capture today; richer native multimodal capture may still need workflow extensions or connected services.
• Business impact: Improve completion rate, reduce first-touch effort, and raise customer or staff confidence in the UX from the very first interaction.
• EAI delivery: Model the intake as tenant-isolated object types and resources, then use actions, chat workflows, and document indexing or classification to keep the initial record complete and usable.

Step 2. Prepare the decision

• Goal: Turn the captured context into the next best action for Freight Brokerage Operations without forcing the human reviewer to assemble the case manually.
• Required data: RateConfirmation (confirmed rate), Driver (driver record), Vehicle (tractor or trailer), DispatchPlan (dispatch plan), and PickupStop (pickup event).
• AI support: Run background summarisation, extraction, classification, recommendation drafting, and answer generation so a reviewer sees a prepared case instead of raw fragments. EAI delivers the structured records and AI workflow hooks for this today; specialised scoring engines, external rules, or advanced reasoning controls may still need integration work.
• Business impact: Reduce cycle time, improve quality and consistency, and protect the mission-critical metric before the case moves into execution.
• EAI delivery: Link records across the scenario, persist decision state as resources, and use workflow actions plus chat assistance to keep humans in control while AI prepares the work.

Step 3. Execute and collaborate

• Goal: Coordinate the actual work, handoffs, approvals, and user updates needed to deliver the service or outcome.
• Required data: DeliveryStop (delivery event), TrackingEvent (tracking update), PODDocument (proof-of-delivery document), AccessorialCharge (accessorial charge), and DetentionEvent (detention or delay event).
• AI support: Draft replies, produce work packets, monitor exceptions in the background, and surface the next action for each operator. EAI can orchestrate tenant-isolated records, actions, chats, and document workflows today; deeper system-to-system automation may require additional connectors or workflow capability.
• Business impact: Increase operator productivity, reduce rework across handoffs, and improve service consistency across the application journey.
• EAI delivery: Use linked object types, actions, resource updates, and workflow-triggered AI assistance so the team can execute in one model instead of splitting work across disconnected tools.

Step 4. Resolve, explain, and improve

• Goal: Close the loop with a clear outcome, an understandable explanation, and feedback that improves the next case.
• Required data: Invoice (broker invoice), PaymentRun (carrier payment cycle), CapacitySignal (market capacity signal), ComplianceDocument (carrier compliance document), and ExceptionCase (service exception).
• AI support: Generate outcome summaries, customer-friendly answers, compliance-ready notes, management insights, and accessible follow-up content. EAI can store outcome records and support answer generation today, while richer proactive agents, advanced analytics, or channel-specific accessibility features may need additional product capability.
• Business impact: Increase trust, quality, and measurable business value through better on-time performance, lower exception costs, and higher operator productivity.
• EAI delivery: Keep the full audit trail in structured resources, use AI workflows to explain outcomes, and feed the resulting signals into future product, service, and operational improvement work.

EAI Platform Support By Step

EAI provides the safe service boundary for Freight Brokerage Operations through Object Types, tenant-scoped resources, document processing, chat workflows, and CLI verification. For this scenario, the main records are Shipper, Carrier, Lane, QuoteRequest, LoadTender, and 18 more Object Types.

Process step	What EAI provides	Calling pattern
Step 1. Capture demand and context	Tenant-scoped intake resources for Shipper (shipping customer), Carrier (motor carrier), Lane (origin-destination lane), QuoteRequest (quote request), and LoadTender (accepted load). Object Type validation, starter forms, optional document intake, and chat-guided capture keep the first record complete.	Define fields in src/eai.config/object-types.ts, run eai types validate and eai types seed, create initial Shipper records with useResources('Shipper') or eai resources create Shipper, and keep browser calls behind /api/eai/....
Step 2. Prepare the decision	Linked resource queries over RateConfirmation (confirmed rate), Driver (driver record), Vehicle (tractor or trailer), DispatchPlan (dispatch plan), and PickupStop (pickup event). Search, schema checks, document classification or RAG indexing, and chat summaries turn raw context into a prepared decision.	Use useResources('Shipper') list/query/search patterns, verify shape with eai resources schema, use useDocuments().upload/classify/ragIndex, eai docs upload, eai docs classify, and eai docs index where supporting material exists, and send decision-support prompts through useChat(workflowId, 'chat') or eai chat send.
Step 3. Execute and collaborate	Resource updates and actions for DeliveryStop (delivery event), TrackingEvent (tracking update), PODDocument (proof-of-delivery document), AccessorialCharge (accessorial charge), and DetentionEvent (detention or delay event). Status changes, assignments, notes, generated work packets, and chat support keep humans in control during execution.	Model actions in the Object Type code, call client.resources.executeAction(type, id, action) or the app hook equivalent, update records through the app service layer, and verify with eai resources get/list/query.
Step 4. Resolve, explain, and improve	Outcome resources for Invoice (broker invoice), PaymentRun (carrier payment cycle), CapacitySignal (market capacity signal), ComplianceDocument (carrier compliance document), and ExceptionCase (service exception). Audit-friendly links, indexed final documents, reporting snapshots, and answer generation make the result explainable and reusable.	Persist outcomes as resources, index final material with eai docs index or useDocuments().ragIndex, send explanation prompts with useChat or eai chat stream, and use eai resources aggregate/search for reporting checks.

Prompt, Code, And Service Pattern Mapping

When this scenario is turned into code, eai-gofer should generate Object Type definitions and app calls from the process model instead of inventing direct backend calls.

Use this prompt shape when asking eai-gofer or another coding agent to implement the scenario:

Use the EAI App Template. Model Freight Brokerage Operations with Object Types for Shipper, Carrier, Lane, QuoteRequest, LoadTender. Use useResources for records and actions, useDocuments for uploads/classification/RAG where documents appear, useChat for workflow assistance, and verify with eai types/resources/docs/chat commands. Use eai publicapi only when no named command covers the required platform call.

Scenario artifact	How it maps to EAI service calls
Four-step process	Step 1 becomes resource creation, Step 2 becomes resource query/search plus optional document or chat preparation, Step 3 becomes resource update/action calls, and Step 4 becomes outcome persistence plus explanation/reporting calls.
Object Type definitions	eai types validate, eai types seed, and eai resources schema make the model available and checkable before UI work starts.
Properties and indexes	Fields become useResources payloads, filters, list views, and eai resources create/list/query/search checks. Indexed fields should support lookup and triage, not duplicate canonical records.
Links between Object Types	Relationships become linked-resource UI, timeline context, and audit trails that app code loads through resource queries rather than separate bespoke stores.
Actions and status fields	Workflow buttons and operator transitions call resource action/update helpers, then verify state with eai resources get/list/query.
Document and chat prompts	Prompts should call the platform documents and chat patterns: useDocuments().upload/classify/ragIndex, eai docs upload, eai docs classify, and eai docs index for documents, and useChat, eai chat send, or eai chat stream for conversational assistance.

Required Object Model (23 object types)

This scenario needs more than 20 object types because it spans intake, delivery, exceptions, governance, and reporting.

Commercial and Dispatch Setup

• Shipper — shipping customer
• Carrier — motor carrier
• Lane — origin-destination lane
• QuoteRequest — quote request
• LoadTender — accepted load
• RateConfirmation — confirmed rate
• Driver — driver record
• Vehicle — tractor or trailer

Execution and Tracking

• DispatchPlan — dispatch plan
• PickupStop — pickup event
• DeliveryStop — delivery event
• TrackingEvent — tracking update
• PODDocument — proof-of-delivery document
• AccessorialCharge — accessorial charge
• DetentionEvent — detention or delay event
• ClaimCase — cargo or service claim

Finance and Oversight

• Invoice — broker invoice
• PaymentRun — carrier payment cycle
• CapacitySignal — market capacity signal
• ComplianceDocument — carrier compliance document
• ExceptionCase — service exception
• CustomerUpdate — customer communication
• MarginReport — load-level margin report

Delivery Workflow

1. Authenticate and choose the tenant you want to work in.

   eai login
   eai tenant select

2. Pull environment values, validate the type definitions, and seed the model.

   eai env pull --include-secrets
   eai types validate
   eai types seed

3. Verify that the full model is available for the active tenant before building UI and workflows.

   eai resources schema --format json
   eai verify calls --format json

4. Load pilot data and exercise the operational workflows for the scenario.

AI and Document Opportunities

• Classify PODs, carrier documents, and exception messages into the right load record.
• Summarise load health across detention, claims, and service exceptions before customer updates.
• Generate margin and carrier-performance insight from accessorials, claims, and lane history.

Why This Scenario Is High-Value

Brokerage operations depend on visibility across many parties moving quickly. This scenario gives brokers a structured way to manage both real-time execution and commercial control.