Navigating your dashboard

Welcome to CitizenShipper! Your first step in becoming a successful driver on this platform is learning how to navigate your dashboard.

From your dashboard, you can:

• Find new shipments
• Message potential customers
• Place bids on shipments 
• Filter shipments by category and geography
• Set up your preferred routes
• Manage all other settings

When you first log in to the site, your dashboard should look like this:

We'll go through each of these elements in turn. First, let's look at the four tabs on the left:

The Recommended tab shows shipments listed on the site that match the categories you've selected (pets, boats, vehicles, etc) and the preferred routes you've set (see below). 

The Active tab shows all the shipments that you are currently bidding on. 

The Won tab shows all shipments that you've already won

The All tab shows every shipment listed on the site, regardless of whether or not they match your selected categories or preferred routes. 

Clicking these tabs changes the shipment listings displayed in the center of the page. You can browse through these shipments at your convenience. For example:

The basic information shown in this overview tells you what the type of shipment you're looking at (furniture), its starting point (Austin TX), its destination (Somerville MA), and the total distance covered (1956 miles).

You can also see the preferred pick-up/drop-off dates for the shipment (Sep 18 - Sep 25), when it was listed on the site (6 minutes ago), and how much money we estimate could be earned from it based on the site's historic trends (about $900). 

From here, you can directly Message the customer, or click Details and Stack to pull up additional information on the shipment. 

Near the top left corner, you should see this search box:

Simply type in a city, state, or zip code to filter out the shipments and only show those that appear in the selected locations.

Central at the top of the page, you'll see the following three buttons:

Clicking Home brings you to the main dashboard. 

Clicking Messages allows you to send and receive messages to customers. 

Clicking Routes allows you to specify the areas you're interested in covering. Updating your preferred routes here affects the shipments shown in the Recommended tab. It also determines whether you'll receive notifications about a particular shipment. 

Near the top right corner of the page, you should see a gear icon  (⚙️) next to your username. Clicking it brings up the following menu:

The options in the gear menu allow you to modify your profile and notification settings, upload photos to your profile, pause or cancel your account, and more. 

What to read next

For more advice on getting your bearings, see the articles on Talking to customers (2-min read) and Tips, tricks, & perseverance (2-min read).

For advice on managing your CitizenShipper profile, see Setting up your account.

For advice on winning shipments, see Bidding and payments.