Carriers, Carrier Teams, and Carrier Users

A Carrier is the transport company that carries out deliveries for you. In Orbit MissionControl you set up each carrier, the teams and people inside it, and the capabilities it offers — and each carrier sees only its own work, through Orbit Connect and Orbit Cockpit.

Overview

In Orbit, carriers are organised in a hierarchical structure consisting of Carriers (companies), CarrierTeams (organisational units), and CarrierUsers (individual users). This structure enables efficient organisation and precise control over access rights and operational capabilities.

Carriers

A Carrier represents a company that provides vehicles and drivers to transport goods from one place to another. Carriers are the top-level entity and contain core company information such as:

• Company name and legal information (tax ID, VAT ID)

• Primary business address

• etc.

CarrierTeams

CarrierTeams are organisational units within a Carrier entity. Teams help organise users and manage access within the Carrier's organisation. Common uses for teams include:

• Regional divisions

• Dispatch teams

• Administrative groups

CarrierUsers

CarrierUsers are individual users who belong to a Carrier organisation and can be assigned to specific CarrierTeams. It's important to note that drivers are not a separate user type but rather CarrierUsers with a specific role assignment. Each user has:

• Personal information (name, contact details)

• Individual access rights and permissions

• Specific roles defining their capabilities within the system

• Personal notification preferences

A Note About Drivers

In Orbit, drivers are CarrierUsers with a specific role assignment. This unified approach simplifies user management while maintaining all necessary driver-specific functionalities through role-based permissions and access controls.

What a Carrier Can See

A carrier works on the delivery side of the platform, so it sees a deliberately focused view. A carrier sees the Tours assigned to it and any Callouts (offers of work) sent its way, together with its own agreed rate — the price it is paid, or the bid it placed.

A carrier does not see the customer's Order, who the customer is, or the price the customer paid. That commercial detail stays on the operator's side in Orbit MissionControl. This keeps each carrier focused on the job it needs to run, and is the view working as intended rather than a gap. For a fuller picture of who sees what across Orbit, see What can each role see in Orbit?

Roles Inside a Carrier

Every CarrierUser is given a role, and the role decides what that person sees — whether they work in Orbit Connect or Orbit Cockpit. Three standard roles are available:

• Carrier Administrator — everything a member can do, plus managing the carrier's settings and inviting other team members.

• Carrier Member — reads tours, starts them, and updates their status, and can see offers and pricing details. A member cannot change settings or invite others.

• Driver — runs the assigned Tour in Orbit Cockpit, seeing its stops and loads. A driver sees no offers and no pricing at all — not even the carrier's own rate.

So within one carrier, a dispatcher and a driver looking at the same tour see different things by design: the dispatcher sees the rate and the offers, while the driver sees only what is needed to complete the stops.

Carrier Capabilities (Extras)

Each carrier — and each individual driver — can be marked with the capabilities it offers, shown in Orbit as Extras. These describe what a carrier or driver is certified or equipped to handle, for example ADR (dangerous goods), HACCP, or a driver's forklift licence. Vehicles carry their own extras too, such as a taillift or refrigerated transport.

Orbit uses these capabilities to work out which carriers are eligible for a given job. When a shipment needs a particular capability, only carriers that provide it are put forward — an ADR load is offered only to ADR-certified carriers. Recording each carrier's extras accurately means the right work reaches the right carriers automatically.

Carrier Terms

Carrier Terms are the conditions you attach to carrier work — a short Terms Hint and a longer terms text. When enabled for your organisation, the terms travel with the Callout, so a carrier sees and accepts them at the moment it takes the offer. Carrier Terms are conditions of the work, not the price — the rate remains the agreed tour price or the carrier's bid. Where the terms are available in more than one language, each carrier user sees the version that matches their language preference.

Active and Inactive Carriers

A carrier, a carrier team, and each carrier user carry a simple Active or Inactive status. This is an administrative on/off switch that controls whether they can currently be given work — it is not a step in the delivery process. Setting a carrier to Inactive does not remove it or its history; it simply takes it out of the pool for new assignments, and you can set it back to Active at any time.

Partial Data Inheritance

Orbit implements a partial data inheritance concept between these entities, similar to the Shipper side of the platform. This means that certain data automatically flows from parent entities to their children, while allowing for customisation at each level.

How Inheritance Works

• CarrierTeams inherit base company information from their parent Carrier, such as company address and general settings

• Teams can override certain inherited settings with team-specific configurations

• CarrierUsers inherit settings from both their Carrier and assigned CarrierTeam

• Properties and configurations can be set at any level, allowing for flexible customisation

Benefits of Partial Inheritance

• Reduces redundant data entry

• Maintains consistency across the organisation

• Enables local customisation when needed

• Simplifies management of shared settings and documents

API Access

All these entities can be managed through Orbit's REST API, which provides endpoints for:

• Creating and updating Carriers, Teams, and Users

• Managing relationships between entities

• Configuring settings and properties at each level

• Retrieving entity information and hierarchical relationships

FAQ

Can a carrier see what the customer paid?
No. A carrier sees only its own assigned tours and callouts, and its own agreed rate. The customer's order and the price the customer paid stay on the operator's side and are never shown to a carrier.

Why can't our driver see the tour price?
Drivers are given a focused view for running the tour — its stops and loads — and never see pricing or offers, not even the carrier's own rate. That is the Driver role working as designed. Dispatchers in the Carrier Member or Carrier Administrator role can see the rate.

What are Extras used for?
Extras record what a carrier, driver, or vehicle is certified or equipped to handle — such as ADR or refrigerated transport. Orbit uses them to offer each job only to carriers that can actually take it.

What happens if I set a carrier to Inactive?
It stays in Orbit with its full history, but is no longer offered new work. You can set it back to Active whenever you need to.