Day plan concepts

The day plan shows one day of deliveries on one page.

In short

  • The workload is what you need to deliver today.
  • The planned routes are how you'll deliver it.
  • The day plan shows both side by side, so you can see what's still missing from a route.

The rest of this page explains each idea in a little more detail. The day plan's how-to guides use the same words.

The day

There is one day plan per date. Use the date at the top of the page to switch days.

The page has three parts:

  • Left: the workload and the planned routes.
  • Middle: a map of the same routes and customers.
  • Right: details of whatever you click on.

Workload: what you need to deliver

The workload is made up of lists. A list is a named group of deliveries for the day. You get lists in three ways:

  • Your order sync adds the day's orders as they come in.
  • You upload a sheet (Excel or CSV).
  • You click New list and fill it in yourself, for example for redeliveries.

Each delivery on a list is a job. A job is one customer for that day. If a customer has three orders, that's still one job, with all three order numbers on it.

The day plan knows which customer a job is for from its address or its customer code. A job with neither can't go on a route. It's marked No address or customer code.

Planned routes: how you'll deliver it

A planned route is one vehicle's trip for the day. It starts at your depot and then visits its stops in order. Each stop is one customer.

The workload and the routes are kept separate. Changing one never changes the other by itself.

On a route or not

A job is on a route when one of the day's routes has a stop for that customer.

The line at the top of the left panel, such as "6 of 8 jobs on a route", tells you how much of the day is planned.

Sometimes the two sides don't match:

  • A stop that isn't on the workload. Someone put a customer on a route that no list asked for. Its circle is dotted instead of solid. The planned stops not on the workload button under the lists shows all of them.
  • Needs attention. A customer's orders changed after their route was planned. Maybe an order was added or removed, or the weight changed. That job doesn't count as on a route until you fix it. Optimise the day with that route to update the stop, or click Remove to take it off.

Route stages

Every route has a stage. The stage tells everyone how far along the route is, and stops changes that would mess up a truck that's already being packed.

  • Planning. Nothing is on the truck yet. You can change anything.
  • Loading. The truck is being packed. You can still change the order of the stops. Adding or removing a stop asks you to confirm first.
  • Dispatched. The truck has left. Any change asks you to type the route's name first, to make sure you mean it.

Change a route's stage with the stage button on its card, for example Planning ▾.

A few rules:

  • To start loading, the route needs a vehicle. The day plan asks you to pick one if it doesn't have one.
  • As soon as a driver delivers to any customer on a route, the route is Dispatched and stays that way.
  • A stop that's been delivered to can't be removed.

Select

Click Select to choose what to work on. Then tick jobs, groups of jobs or whole routes, in the left panel or on the map. Click Select again to stop. That also clears your ticks.

Tip: hold Shift and click to tick something straight away.

Optimise the day

Optimise, at the top of the left panel, sends work to the planner to build routes.

  • Nothing ticked: it plans the whole day. That's every job not on a route yet, plus every route still at Planning.
  • Something ticked: it plans only what you ticked. Jobs you ticked on their own go on vehicles that are free.

Routes that are Loading or Dispatched are never changed. When you save in the planner, the new routes show up on the day plan.

The line under the buttons always tells you what Optimise will do. If it can't run, the line tells you why.

Change one route

These only touch one route:

  • Optimise on a route's card puts its stops in the shortest order that still keeps every customer's delivery times. The route has to return to the depot, have at least two stops and not be dispatched yet.
  • Reverse, in the same menu, drives the same stops the other way round.
  • Move to moves the stops you ticked to another route. You can also drag a stop from one route to another.

After each of these, a message in the bottom right corner tells you what happened. Click Undo in it to put things back.