One tap from the cab: driver status updates in LiteTMS

Update, 28 September 2026: An earlier version of this article said a status tap works offline and updates the order in the office the moment it happens. Without signal, the status is saved on the phone and reaches the office only after the connection returns. We have corrected the article, clarified the costs, and now use the app's current name, LiteTMS Mobile.

In LiteTMS, a driver reports every step of a stop with one tap in LiteTMS Mobile: on the way, on site, loading started, loaded, departure. With a connection, the status is recorded on the order in the office as soon as the phone sends it. Without one, it waits on the phone and goes out after the signal returns. Either way, the dispatcher gets the update without a phone call.

The call everyone in transport knows by heart

"Where are you? Loaded yet?" If you dispatch trucks, you make that call. If you drive one, you get it. Ten times a day, on a good day.

Every one of those calls interrupts two people at once. The dispatcher stops working the board to dial. The driver answers behind the wheel, or at a ramp with a forklift beeping next to him, and gives an answer from memory. Then the dispatcher types what she heard into a spreadsheet, a chat, or nowhere at all. A week later, when a client asks what time the truck actually left the loading site, the honest answer is: whatever somebody remembers.

The information was never the problem. The driver always knew where he was. The problem was the transport of that information: a phone call, a human ear, and manual retyping.

What the driver sees at a stop

The driver opens the order in LiteTMS Mobile and goes to the Points tab. Each stop shows its address, its date, and a grid of large status tiles. On a loading stop the tiles say things like on the way, on site, loading started, loaded, departure. An unloading stop offers the unloading set. The app shows only the statuses that fit that stop, so there is nothing to scroll through and nothing to pick wrong.

One tap on a tile submits the status. Statuses that carry a value, like a mileage reading, open a short form instead, and the tile says so with a small arrow.

Reports live in their own section above the workflow tiles: traffic jam, problem or delay. They are deliberately separated, because a report is something that happens to the driver, not a step he is expected to complete. He never has to wonder whether "problem" was part of the plan.

What lands in the office

Every status that reaches the office lands on the order as a timestamped event: which stop, which status, what time. The dispatcher watches the order move through its stops without touching the phone. Loading started at 8:12, loaded at 8:47, departed at 8:55. When the client calls, the answer is on the screen, not in someone's memory.

And because the status is data rather than a sentence spoken on a bad connection, there is nothing to mishear and nothing to retype. The order is its own record.

Dead zone? The status waits on the phone

Ramps love basements and forests love dead zones, so the app does not make the driver wait for signal. A status tapped without a connection is saved on the phone. The tile shows it as queued and locks, so the same status cannot be sent twice by accident while the phone waits for bars, and the stop shows how many updates are still waiting to be sent.

When the connection returns, the app tries to send what is waiting on its own. A queued status keeps the time the driver tapped it, not the time it finally went out. Until it has been sent, though, it exists only on the phone: the office cannot see it, and the order there still shows the last status that arrived. A missing status in the office can simply mean the driver's phone has no signal yet. If an update cannot be sent at all, the app tells the driver instead of dropping it quietly.

Location: a snapshot is not tracking

When a driver sends a status, the app adds a one-time position fix to that event, if location is allowed on the phone and a fix is available at that moment. Tapping statuses never switches on any tracking by itself.

Fleet tracking exists in LiteTMS too, as a separate feature. You can connect the GPS or telematics your trucks already carry, or use the optional position sharing in LiteTMS Mobile, and check the latest available vehicle positions on one map in the office. The difference matters: position sharing is something the company allows and the driver knowingly turns on, with a vehicle selected. It never rides along silently with a status tap.

What it costs

A status has no charge of its own. LiteTMS Mobile has no separate app fee, statuses are part of the orders workspace, and orders in LiteTMS are free and unlimited. Your drivers can tap statuses on every stop of every load without adding a charge per status. Your drivers' employee accounts and any paid services you use follow the pricing shown in the panel.

If your stops also need proof, not only progress, see point tasks: photo and signature tasks attached to a specific stop.