SONAR has been in the wild since May 22, 2018, and is now being used by over 300 market participants across the freight market. We continue to develop additional features and datasets that can help participants understand the real-time conditions of the freight market.
On June 28, we released SONAR 1.1 that included enhanced tender rejection indices and employment data related to the freight markets. If you missed the release, check it out.
Based on additional feedback from users regarding the user interface and requests for additional data, we have decided to make another major release: SONAR 1.1a.
What’s new in SONAR 1.1a
Volatility tickers (Deltas)
We have also created time-series look backs (or as we call them, deltas) to help users identify patterns on the indices over specific time intervals. This is very useful on the map, as it can help the user visualize changes during the time periods in question by studying the geo heat maps (darker blue represents higher increases in rejections over the time period). The lighter shading represents a lesser percent of rejections that have taken place during the time scope.
Currently, we have broken the data up on the following time series:
Week (a look back at the same day of the week, one week ago)
Fortnight (a look back at the same day of the week, two weeks ago)
Month (a look back 28 days prior)
An example of this:
A user wants to know how outbound tender rejections looked across the US 28 days prior, they would enter: OTRIM.USA
Delta tickers are available for the following tender rejection tickers:
OTRI — OTRIW, OTRIF, OTRIM
ITRI — ITRIW, ITRIF, ITRIM
RTRI — RTRIW, RTRIF, RTRIM
FTRI — FTRIW, FTRIF, FTRIM
VTRI — VTRIW, VTRIF, VTRIM
TLT — TLTW, TLTF, TLTM
A second example is a user wants to know tender rejections out of Dallas for reefers last week, they would enter: RTRIW.DAL
The best part of the delta tickers is that they show how the freight market is changing over time on the maps. SONAR users can visualize the changes throughout the U.S. on a weekly, bi-monthly, and monthly basis.
In the map section, users are able to visualize changes in tender rejections using the delta indices. The deeper the blue, the higher the rejections.
In the above map, Amarillo (AMA) has had one of the highest increases of rejections across the US. In the past 28 days, AMA experienced an increase of 11.61% in outbound rejections (the current OTRI.AMA is 34.01%).
All of the delta indices that are available can be visualized on the watchlist, map, or chart.
Employment data from the BLS
Also, after our 1.1 release, we had a few companies reach out requesting broader employment data. There was significant interest around retail employment and drawing comparisons to trucking and warehouse employment. These have now been added.
Enhanced employment data was also added from the BLS that include retail employment by type of retail establishment. This in addition of the transportation and warehousing employment data that was added on the SONAR 1.1 update. Check out the list of retail employment data tickers by clicking here.
Functional enhancements to the user interface
We also made a number of changes to improve the experience. These changes were based on feedback from SONAR users. If you have feedback or issues, let us know. We are focused on delivering a great and rewarding experience in using the first freight market dashboard.
First off, you will notice that the font-size has been increased in Charts. This should make it far easier to see and put into presentations (clients or management).
Charting
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y-axis – now shows the unit value of symbols when compared (instead of a percentage). Note that the list of symbols still shows when comparing symbols
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Chart settings (Views, Display, Studies) are now being saved.
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Intraday data now loads for equity symbols (1D, 5D, and 1M chart ranges use minute data, so these chart ranges now work for equity symbols)
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The charted symbol is now the title of the tab
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The name of the charted symbol no longer covers up any charted data
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When a symbol is charted for the first time in a chart widget, the actual chart now takes up the entire chart widget (instead of just the rightmost ~25% to 50% of the chart widget)
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Fixed issue where, when comparing daily data and weekly data (such as DOE.USA), the weekly data would show up as unconnected dots instead of a line
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Charts are being loaded immediately. The user should not have to click a time-series. It should automatically paint the screen.
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Created dark-theme and light-theme scrollbars for the chart. Previously, a light-theme scrollbar would show regardless of the color mode; this scrollbar did not look good when in dark mode.
Widgets
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Widgets now resize if the main menu is collapsed.
Watchlist
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% change is now red when negative, green when positive
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A newly created watchlist widget opens to the edit menu
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By default, “Name” and “Value” are now the only columns that show. But other columns can still be added by clicking the three dots in the top right corner of the watchlist.
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Fixed a bug where two edit icons would show when two watchlists were in the same window.
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An empty scrollbar no longer shows to the right of the watchlist widget, which was a problem in certain cases (e.g. it was a problem on my desktop monitor, but not my laptop)
Maps
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An empty scrollbar no longer shows to the right of the map widget, which was a problem in certain cases
News
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A newly created news widget opens to the edit menu
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A timestamp has been added to each article listing
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The following descriptive text was added to the edit menu: “Please select the categories of news you would like to limit your feed to. Selecting none will deliver all news items for all categories, including newly added categories.”
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Created dark-theme and light-theme scrollbars for the news widget. Previously, a light-theme scrollbar would show regardless of the color mode; this scrollbar did not look good when in dark mode.
Login
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Fixed “Too many redirects” error that would sometimes happen when trying to login
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Fixed login layout issues on Chrome and Firefox which resulted in overlapping copy at the bottom and incorrect spacing all around and was inconsistent between browsers.
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New Password Screen: Now showing an error message in top-right corner such as if a user clicks “Update” and not all of the criteria have been met.
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New Password Screen: Password criteria and iconography/colorization have been updated to be accurate with entered character types accurately showing the user if they have met (or not) the various criteria.
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Password Reset: “Email address” is no longer labeled as optional.
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Login is now conformed more closely to visual design. Specifically: 1) “Welcome back” font color should be white; 2) Remove the space between “information” and the “?”; and 3) Add a line break between “Don’t have an account…” and “Sign up here”.
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Login: Error messaging also now conforms to visual design, instead of the popup, for UN/PW based error messages.
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Login error popup is used for additional messages, like onboarding incomplete or organization our of licenses, etc.
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Login: If a user tries to login with a blank password there is an error message (as opposed to none)
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Front-end shows error message when a disabled user tries to login or reset their password.
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Login/Password Reset/New Password: Spelling error corrected in the footer, “registrated” should say “registered”.
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Profile color theme choice persisted for users, even after login/logout.
New Password / Password Reset Form
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When a user creates a password for the first time or resets their password, the “eyeball” icon that shows/hides the typed in password is now working
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When a user resets their password, they no longer are required to check the “I accept FreightWaves SONAR User Agreement” checkbox
Pages Menu
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Users and Org Admins can no longer attempt to edit or delete Default Pages via the pages menu, as we have removed the “Update” button and trash can icon that a user used to see after clicking on a Default Page in edit mode. Users still see the “copy” icon when clicking on a Default Page in edit mode; the ability to copy a Default Page will be implemented as part of a future release.
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When any user clicks “+ Add Page” to add a new page, the “Page name” is now immediately “focused”. This allows a user to immediately begin typing into the Page name box, without clicking into the Page name box to “focus” on it.
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The area of the Default Pages and My Pages “rectangles” can now be resized by dragging the line between Default Pages and My Pages (e.g. if you move the line down the size of the Default Pages area increases, while the size of the My Pages area decreases)
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The lists of Default Pages and My Pages now uses all available space in the “rectangle” before scrolling takes place. Specifically, the “cutoff” number of pages before scrolling takes place now dynamically changes based on the size of the browser. For example, a large browser window may require there to be 10 pages before scrolling takes place, while a small browser window may require only 5 pages before scrolling takes place.
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When scrolling isn’t required in either Default Pages or My Pages list, an empty scrollbar is no longer visible (this was a problem in certain cases)
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Created dark-theme and light-theme scrollbars for the pages menu. Previously, a light-theme scrollbar would show regardless of the color mode; this scrollbar did not look good when in dark mode.
Default Pages
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Users can no longer click the “X” icon to close widgets on Default Pages. Previously, Users could close widgets on Default Pages this way, but it didn’t make sense to allow them to do this, as any User changes to Default Pages aren’t saved.
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“Default Page” has been renamed to “Default Pages”
Edit Profile
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Edits to a user’s profile are now immediately shown to a user. Previously, a user would have to logout and re-login to see their updated profile information.
Cross-Browser
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Firefox had rendering issues on login and in main navigation with spacing and layout which have been fixed.
Navigation
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Scrolling issues have been addressed so users can scroll down to see additional pages.
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Default pages which have been marked as not ‘Active’ will not show in the menu to Users (non-admins).
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