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Our Route Logistics Calendar is a powerful tool for managing and optimizing recurring jobs. It combines calendar functionality with map-based visualization and offers grouping, filtering, and detailed route optimization. The Route Logistics Calendar is located near the top of your screen.
You will also need to have appointments with service addresses entered to make use of this feature. If you have a single, or multiple locations that you are going to route from, make sure those locations have addresses on file. If you are going to route your jobs starting at your field tech's address, make sure each field tech has an address listed on their employee profile.
The Route Logistics Calendar displays a monthly view of all of your jobs. For demonstration purposes, we'll use an example from a document shredding company called "ExShred".
Zooming into a specific day of the month, you'll notice that 'ExShred' has North, South, and West routes, each represented by a corresponding color. Within the 'North Route,' you’ll see three jobs scheduled for December 1st at three different bank locations.
You will see the daily total of all routes, followed by the total revenue for the day, as well as the number of booked hours.
Also, you will see the amount of revenue for each individual route.
You can hover over a job to view more details or double-click to make edits.
Let’s go over the functions located near the top of your screen. We will cover each one individually.
You can select the month you’d like to view. The number displayed next to the month (235) indicates the total number of jobs scheduled for that month. You’ll also find a refresh button to update the page as needed.
Under “Group,” you’ll find a few grouping options, as well as some other items that you can show or hide. FYI, we recommend that you group "By Route" as this offers you more flexibility. However, we will cover each option.
When grouping by "Employee", this means that you wish to create routes based on employees as opposed to the North, South, & West Routes example previously discussed. You will see the routes are labeled and color-coded by employee.
If you choose to group by "Crews" this works the same way.
When grouping "By Route" you will see each route color-coded and each job within that route.
Any jobs that have a grey color code indicates that they are not routed yet, and are labeled as "N/A".
Again, grouping By Route is recommended.
You can show or hide the Appointment Details for the routes. You can also do this by clicking on the collapse icon next to each route.
Also, you can choose to show or hide the revenue for each route.
You will also have the option of showing or hiding the capacity and the revenue goal for each route. We will discuss those options later.
Under the “Show” tab, you can choose to show or hide the Summary Column on the left of your screen, as well as the Group Column.
We will explore the Summary Column shortly.
The Route Pane provides a visual of each route for the selected day. Here, you can see the North, South, and West Route for December 1st. Within each route, you can see all of the stops along each route, represented by map pins and text. Within each map pin is a number indicating the order of the stops within each route.
You will also see a "Calculate" and "Optimize" button. As you can see, these stops are all scheduled for noon, as they haven't been optimized yet. More on that later.
You can also zoom in or out.
The Map Pane gives you a broader view of your routes. You can see the North, West, and South Routes. The number within each map pin indicates the number of stops at each location within the selected time period. In this case, the month.
You can select all, or no options. That way, you can then view select routes.
The “Display” tab allows you to display details of each job in any order you choose.
For example, you can select “Customer Full Name”, Appointment Description” and “Customer Type”. Each job in the calendar will display those details in your chosen order.
You can reset the options at the bottom.
With the "Filter" tab you can filter specific information. For example, you can filter for Appointment Descriptions.
In this case, we can look at our daily or weekly shred jobs.
Or maybe you want to view jobs that require a pre-notification, such as a call ahead.
Under the “Days” tab, you can show or hide specific days within the calendar.
In this example, if we select Saturday and Sunday only, we will only see those appointments.
The "Color" tab allows you to add a secondary color to each job.
For instance, if you select employee, you will see the route color as well as the color of the employee that is assigned to that route.
If you select "Customer Type," you'll see a color distinction between commercial and residential jobs.
The Change Log tab is basically your “undo” function. If you make any changes, they will show up here for you to review before finalizing.
For example, if you were to click and drag a job from the the East Route, and place it into the North Route, the Change Log will report the number of changes you have made so far.
Also, you will see the the text for the job (Jose Sanchez) is now italicized, indicating that this change is pending review.
When you click on "Change Log" a window will appear on the right of your screen with a list of all of the changes pending review, along with details about the changes that were made.
If you don't like any of the changes, there is an undo icon next to each change that you can click on to delete it.
If you are satisfied with the changes that you have made, click on "Apply Changes".
Also, you will see the text for the job (Jose Sanchez) is no longer italicized.
Let’s focus on the Summary Column on the left side of your screen. Here, you’ll see the month of December divided into weeks.
For each week, you can view the total number of jobs scheduled, the total amount of hours that are booked for the week, as well as the revenue.
You will also see the number of jobs, hours booked, the revenue, and the average revenue if you have applied any filtering.
Then, you will see the number of jobs, hours booked, and revenue, and the average revenue for the entire month that you have selected.
If you click on one of the weeks within the Summary Column, only the jobs for that week will be displayed both in the Calendar and the Map Pane. To view the entire month again, click on “December Jobs" at the bottom of the Summary Column.
As you can see in this example, EXSHRED has a North, South, and West Route. Let's create a new route called "East Route".
Go to the Administration Center at the top of your screen and scroll down to "Routes". Here, you can see the three routes that have already been created. Click on the plus symbol to create a new one.
We will call it "East Route". Give the new route a unique color. We will discuss the Daily Hour Goal, and the Daily Revenue goal shortly.
Let’s assign this new route to Tim. Since Tim starts his day at 8:00 AM, we will start his Route at that time. You could have Tim start his day from home if he has his own work van, but in this case, let’s start his route from the office.
We will end his workday at 4:30 PM, with the route concluding back at the office.
Keep in mind that these locations and times are important because when you optimize the routes, drive times and locations will be factored in.
Be sure to hit save when you are done.
When you create a new appointment you will have the option of adding it to a route, or creating a new route.
We will add this appointment to the East Route that we just created.
In this example, we will be visiting this customer on a daily basis, so be sure to create the recurrences as well.
You will see the new shredding job, along with the new route, in the Calendar, the Route Pane, and in the Map Pane.
If a job gets scheduled without being added to a route, it will show up in the calendar colored gray, and labeled N/A. Also, you can see this job as a gray map pin in the Routing Pane and the Map Pane.
In the next section, we will learn how to add jobs to a route.
Let's go through some scenarios to further understand the functionality of The Route Logistics Calender.
When a job is scheduled without being added to a route, it will be colored grey and labeled as N/A.
In this example, this job is a one-time job, and has no recurrences.
There are a few ways to add it to a route.
In the Map Pane, click on "Begin Drawing". Then draw a circle around the desired Map Pins.
In the calendar click on the route that you want to add it to, on the day that you want to schedule it. In this case, we will add it to the East Route on December 12.
Or you can "Select Pushpins" and click on the job. Then, in the calendar, select the day and the route that you want to add it to.
You can always zoom in if need be. Also, you can hover over a Map Pin for more details.
As always, review your changes using the Change Log to ensure everything looks correct before finalizing.
In the event that the job has recurrences, you will want to click on the desired route within the Group Column, as opposed to clicking on the route within a specific day.
For another example, we visit Voet Tax Services each Monday. However, they have requested that we visit them on Tuesday next week instead of Monday.
Simply click on the desired job and drag it to the new day, in this case, Tuesday.
Maybe the employee that is scheduled for the North route has to leave early and won’t be able to make the last stop on his route.
You can click on that stop and drag it into another route.
There may be instances where you want to combine two routes on a specific day.
So we will grab the East Route and drag it onto the North Route to combine them.
Or maybe you want to combine routes for an entire week. To do this, go to the summary column and click on the desired week.
In the Map Pane, you will only see the jobs for the selected week. Click on "Begin Drawing," then draw around the desired route.
You can always use the "Select Pushpin" option if you would prefer.
Afterward, go to the Group Column on the left of your screen and click on the desired route.
As always, review your changes in the Change Log before applying them.
If an employee is going on vacation for a week, select that week in the summary column.
Draw around their route.
In the Group Column, click on the employee that will be taking over.
As always, be sure to review your changes in the Change Log, and if everything looks good, click "Apply Changes" to confirm.
Let’s say you decided that it makes geographic sense to move this stop, which is in the West Route, to the South Route indefinitely.
Hover over the map pin to see that this is your ProCare Health customer.
Go to the Appointments Center near the top of your screen. Search for Procare Health. You will be presented with all future appointments for this customer.
Click on the circle within the Description Column. This will select all of them.
Find “Batch Edit” on the left of your screen.
Select the Route option, and click on South Route.
Be sure to click on “Update Selection” at the bottom of the window.
You can make other batch edits from here if you would like.
In the event that a customer wants to suspend service for a specific period, you can select those appointments and delete them from here.
Now that you have all of your jobs routed, let’s learn how to optimize your routes.
In the calendar, click on the day that you would like to optimize. Let's optimize the routes for December 1st.
The Map Pane will reveal all routes for that day.
As you recall, we set up our routes to start at the “office”. When you click on "Optimize," Smart Service Cloud will take into account the locations of each stop and the drive times between them, offering you the most efficient schedule.
Within each route, you will see each job represented by map pins. Each map pin has a number indicating the order in which they will be visited. Below that, you will see the time that each visit is scheduled.
Click on Optimize and you will have the option to optimize by employee home address.
If you have multiple locations, such as an ExShred East office, you can choose to route from that address.
In this example, we will route by our main EXSHRED Address.
You will see the time changes here with the stops now ordered in the most efficient way.
If you need to change the order for any reason, you can click on one of the stops and drag it to reorder it.
However, in doing so, this will override the optimization.
So now, you will need to click on “Calculate” to optimize this route with your order preference.
As always, review your changes in the change log and apply the changes.
Some businesses don’t need strict time-based scheduling—they just need to ensure enough work is assigned for the day. Capacity & Revenue Goals helps you visualize both workload and revenue distribution so you can make route adjustments accordingly.
Under the group tab click on show capacity and show revenue goals to make them visible.
You will see a bar for capacity and revenue within each route.
Capacity refers to the total amount of work an employee, crew, or route is expected to complete in a day, measured in production hours rather than scheduled time slots.
Revenue represents the financial goal for a given employee, crew, or route, indicating the total dollar amount of work that should be completed in a day.
Before we can make adjustments to our routes based on capacity and revenue, we will need to set our goals.
So let’s set our goals for employees, crews, and routes. You can open up an employee profile by going to The Human Resources Center and selecting "Employees". Open up an employee profile by clicking on it. Hit edit at the bottom of the screen and then click on the Security and Roles tab. You will find the goals near the bottom.
By default, the daily hours goal is set to 8 hours, and the daily revenue goal is set to a thousand.
Maybe this employee is a highly skilled technician who may complete more work in less time, so their capacity could be set higher, as well as their revenue goal.
Let’s set our goals for Crews. Go to the Human Resources Center and select "Crews". Open up a crew profile.
A crew’s daily goal is the combined total of each individual member’s goal.
For example, if a crew has three members, including the crew leader, the crew’s total goal would be the sum of their individual goals, reflecting the increased capacity of a larger team.
Now let’s set our goals for Routes. Go to the Administration Center, and select “Routes”. Open up a Route.
You might adjust the goals for each route based on factors like expected drive time and employee efficiency.
Now that you have your goals established you can start adjusting your routes accordingly.
Going back to the Route Logistics Calendar, you will see that the bars for capacity and revenue are color coded.
Red indicates that the route is between 0 and 25 percent of the daily goal.
Orange is 26 to 50 percent, yellow is 51 to 75 percent, and green is 76 to 100 percent.
If a route capacity goal goes over 100 percent, as seen near the bottom, it will go back to red, indicating that it needs attention.
You can easily see which routes are under or over capacity, then redistribute jobs to ensure a balanced workload.
You can review the goal by hovering over a goal bar.
So let’s make some scheduling adjustments based on these goals.
Clearly, the East Route on Monday is well below the goals. Looking at Tuesday, we can see that it is over capacity. So, we can hover over a few jobs on Tuesday and look at their revenue. Then we can simply drag those jobs over to Monday.
Or you can simply combine the East route with the North route.
In the West route, you can see that it is over capacity. So we can move one of those jobs to the South Route.
When everything looks good, optimize your routes. Be sure to review the change log and apply the changes when you are done.