Buyers hear about the typhoon from her first

The challenge

When a typhoon comes, ships wait at anchor, and her buyers in Europe hear about it a week late. Lin spends her mornings phoning forwarders to find out where the vessel is. Angry buyers call her before she can call them.

How the flow works

With xMap Flows, Lin built Navigator. Navigator is an AI employee: a flow of 7 blocks.

1. Every hour,

   Every hour (Schedule)

2. around Yantian port,

   Yantian port (Area of interest)

3. Navigator listens for the container ships,

   Container ships (Ships (AIS))

4. keeps the ones carrying her containers,

   Ships with her boxes (Match with my table)

5. checks the wind for the next three days,

   Wind at the port (Weather forecast)

6. judges whether each one will sail on time,

   Will it sail on time? (xMap LLM)

7. and tells her buyers before they ask.

   Tell the buyers (Email)

What it solves

• Where is the ship?: solved by Ships (AIS) and Match with my table
• Mornings on the phone: solved by Schedule and Weather forecast and xMap LLM
• Buyers call first: solved by Email

The result

On Monday, Navigator sees typhoon winds reaching the port on Wednesday, with her vessel still at anchor. Twelve buyers get a new date that morning, five days before they would have asked. Two thank her and move their launch.

Lin still can’t stop a typhoon. Her buyers just hear about it from her first.

An illustrative scenario: the figures are modelled to show what the flow produces, not a customer's results.

The flow, block by block

1. 1

   Every hour

   Schedule

   Starts the flow on a timetable.

2. 2

   Yantian port

   Area of interest

   Sets where the flow looks: countries, cities or specific places, or areas you draw on a map.

3. 3

   Container ships

   Ships (AIS)

   Ships at sea or in port right now, from AIS (the signal ships send with their position, speed and heading; live from AISStream): every vessel heard in the Area of interest before this block, or around a point.

4. 4

   Ships with her boxes

   Match with my table

   Looks each incoming item up in one of your tables or saved lists (My data), for example your customers.

5. 5

   Wind at the port

   Weather forecast

   The weather forecast (Open-Meteo, from national weather services) for up to 16 days: temperature, rain, wind and UV.

6. 6

   Will it sail on time?

   xMap LLM

   Tell the AI what to do in plain words.

7. 7

   Tell the buyers

   Email

   Sends one email per run with all the items, or one email per item.

Templates to build it

Ready-made flows with the same blocks. Open one, change the city and the kind of place, and run it.

• Harbour master’s morning briefShips, weather and roads in one morning brief for the harbour master.
• Weekly fisheries briefWeather, boats at sea and new buyers in one weekly brief.
• Plan tomorrow's outdoor classesTomorrow's outdoor classes planned around heat, rain and UV.
• Ferry weather notice for passengersA passenger notice each morning from the weather at the terminals.
• Match day weather for the pitch decisionHourly weather at the ground, with a pitch and kick-off note.
• Pest season by city, every weekWhere warm, wet weather will bring pests this week, with an ad plan.

Industries

Learn how it works

• How to build a B2B lead list from the mapEvery business of a type in your territory, with contacts, scored, in a sheet or CRM.
• Location intelligenceUsing where things are, and what is around them, to make business decisions.
• GeofencingA virtual boundary that triggers something when an item enters or leaves it.
• Build your first flow in ten minutesFrom a blank page to a flow that emails you a ranked list every morning.
• Enrich a list onceA CSV of addresses or companies back with phone, website, rating and an AI score.
• Zone alerts: know when something enters an areaShips, vehicles or any moving item crossing your zone.

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