In this article, you will learn about Onfleet's Route Plans functionality and how to use this feature in your organization's operations.
"Route Plan" is a feature that allows you to plan routes with tasks ahead of time without assigning them to a driver or team. A driver can be assigned to a Route Plan any time before the route is started, and a driver can also be changed before the route is started. Route Plans also allow the flexibility of naming and assigning a color to the route.
Note: Currently, Route Optimization still requires drivers to be assigned. However, we will be updating Route Optimization to support routing by driver or by vehicle in late 2024.
This article will cover:
- Route Plan Video
- Enabling Route Plans
- Route Plan Features
- Route Plan States
- Manually Creating a Route Plan
- Automatically Creating a Route Plan
- Driver Apps & Route Plans
Route Plan Video
Enabling Route Plans
Tasks are assigned to a route manually or through the Route Optimization process when a user ‘Accepts’ the Route Optimization results. Once "Route Plans" have been enabled for your organization you can immediately create Manual Route Plans.
You can enable the Route Plan feature under the "Add-Ons" section on the "Settings" Page:
Route Plans will not be automatically generated through Route Optimization until you enable the setting for your organization. This setting was created to give you the flexibility of testing Routes, without impacting your day-to-day Route Planning operations:
Note: It is a best practice recommendation that once you enable route plans to be auto-created after route optimization, Onfleet recommends using Route Plans to assign all tasks to a driver.
Route Plan Features
As a new feature, the Route Plan has planned features that will be rolled out over time; please take a look at this feature matrix for more information.
The primary features available in the Route Plans are:
- Display Route Plans and Task pins in different colors
- Display Route Plan State and Task Count per Route
- Create Route Plans across different time zones
- Multiple ways to create and update Route Plans
- Track Planned Mileage and Planned Time vs. Actual Milage and Time via API integration
Route Plan States
Route Plans have 3 states, which will display in the sidebar:
Pending: A Route Plan that has been created, has not been started, and may or may not have assigned Tasks.
In Progress: The Route Plan has been started. This Route Plan state will automatically change once the first Task is started.
Completed: The Route Plan and all assigned Tasks have been completed has been completed by the Driver.
Tasks may be dragged and dropped into a Route Plan and this can be done no matter how a Route Plan was created. In the sidebar, select one Task and drag and drop into a Route Plan or use Shift and click multiple tasks to drag and drop into a Route Plan.
Manually Create a Route Plan
Tasks are added to a Route Plans, you can add or upload tasks to Onfleet, as usual. To manually create a route plan, select the "+" symbol on the upper right corner of the dashboard, then select "Create Route".
In the ‘Create new route’ modal, enter the required fields, then click ‘Create route’.
The route will now display in the sidebar based on the ‘Assigned team’ or ‘Assigned driver’. All Tasks assigned to a Route Plan will display in the sidebar, even when a Task is marked Successful or Failed by the Driver.
You can also view the planned route on the map, and the driver's route line to the in-progress task will appear as a dashed line from the driver's current location to the next task in the route.
Automatically Creating a Route Plan
You can automatically create Route Plans by using the Onfleet Route Optimization tool by selecting the check mark for "Automatically create route plan after route optimization" under your organization's settings.
If you are using the legacy Route Optimization tool, you can follow the Route Optimization process found in this article.
If you are using the Advanced Routing tool, you can follow the steps in this article.
Regardless of which method you use to optimize your tasks, once they have been optimized and assigned to a driver, the task pins on the Map will display with the auto-assigned Route color and
the Route Plan, including color, name, and any other setting can be edited by double-clicking the Route Plan header.
Driver Apps & Route Plans
The Route Plans can be used in the Onfleet Driver App with no changes needed to the driver app settings. In its current format, the tasks on a driver's route will display as usual; however, in future iterations of Route Plans the driver app will include Route Plan information such as Route Name, planned time and distance, etc.