The Cortex sync

Amazon gives DSPs no data connection. There is no API to call, and the pages that hold your routes sign every request, so no server can fetch them. But the pages work perfectly well inside a browser that is already signed in — so the sync is a small Chrome extension that rides along in your dispatcher’s own Cortex session and copies what Amazon has already shown them.

Installing it

1. 1

   Open the Chrome Web Store link we send you and add the extension.

   It is published unlisted — not searchable, reachable only by that link. Installing from the store is what makes updates arrive on their own.

2. 2

   In the same Chrome, sign in to your portal and to Amazon Logistics.

   Both in ordinary tabs, as you normally would. The extension reads the Cortex session that is already there.

3. 3

   Open the extension’s popup and type your portal’s address once.

   The field says Your company’s portal address — the address your portal opens at. Press Connect to the portal. Chrome asks once for permission to let the sync reach that address; that is the grant, and it is per address.

4. 4

   Check the icon says Connected.

   If it does not, the popup says why in a sentence rather than a code.

5. 5

   Leave a Cortex tab open on the machine that runs it.

   Each kind of data has its own pace — routes through the day, the roster and the fleet daily, the scorecard weekly. The popup lists every stream and when each was last read, so a stream that has gone quiet is visible rather than assumed.

What it brings in

Routes and the itinerary

Which routes are confirmed, who Amazon has against each one, planned departures and the wave each belongs to.

Route demand

From Cortex Scheduling, so you can see what next week needs a week out rather than on the morning.

The roster

Active, inactive and offboarded drivers, with transporter ids — which is what lets a name match survive a middle name Amazon does not print.

The fleet

Every van Amazon has against your DSP, its status and which yard it serves.

Vehicle checks

Each DVIC with its start and end, so you can see the ones that were finished too fast to be real.

Clocked hours

Real punch times and breaks from Amazon’s compliance dashboard — not an estimate, and not from your payroll provider.

The scorecard

The weekly scorecard and the deep dives behind it, including customer feedback and the deliveries marked not received.

Birthdays and awards

So the milestone is on a screen before somebody has to remember it.

All of it is an overlay. Your portal is the system of record and the sync only ever adds Amazon’s view beside yours — it never overwrites a van’s name, its yard, a driver’s employment status or anything else you have decided. Where the two disagree, the screen shows both and offers you the press. If the sync breaks, your operation keeps running.

The two buttons in the popup

Routes now

Today’s routes onto the board and nothing else. The one to press when a dispatcher is waiting on a change Amazon has just made.

Sync now — every stream

Everything, ignoring each stream’s usual pace. Useful on the first run and after a long gap.

When something looks stale

Read the popup first — it lists each stream with the time it was last read, so the question is usually already answered there. The three ordinary causes, in the order they are worth checking:

• Amazon’s session has expired. Open Cortex in that Chrome and sign in. The extension picks up again on its own.
• The machine is asleep or Chrome is closed. The sync only runs while that browser is running. If the dispatcher’s laptop goes home at six, so does the sync.
• Amazon has not published it yet. Route demand for next week appears when Amazon confirms it, not when you look. A day with nothing to read is recorded as “we asked and there was nothing”, which is deliberately not the same as never having asked — and a count you typed by hand is never overwritten by silence.