Route planner with multiple stops: how to plan a workable day for your technicians
The planner puts tomorrow’s addresses into a route planner and gets a neat loop across the map. At ten o’clock the technician is still at the first customer, because the boiler needed more work than expected. The customer who was promised a morning visit is right at the end of the loop.
Published by Abdelhay Rahou (opens in a new window)5 November 20269 min read
Why a route planner with multiple stops is not enough for technicians
A route planner with multiple stops looks for a smooth way past a series of stops. For a delivery round, that is a large part of the planning: each stop is short, and the order decides the day. For a technician, the drive only decides part of the day. The rest depends on the work on site.
| Delivery round | Technician’s round | |
|---|---|---|
| Time per stop | short and predictable | from a quarter of an hour to half a day, sometimes only clear on site |
| Appointment with the customer | usually a broad delivery day | often a time window you have promised |
| Who can go | any driver | whoever has the skill and the parts |
| Changes during the day | limited | urgent calls, work that overruns, a customer who is not at home |
| Starting point | the depot | the warehouse, or home with the van |
A route built on distance alone looks good on the map. It just does not hold up against the first piece of work that overruns.
What a free route planner does and does not do
A free route planner calculates a route past the addresses you enter. In Google Maps on a computer, you can add up to nine stops, including the final destination (Google help page, in Dutch), and you change the order by dragging a destination. For a technician with four maintenance visits in the same area, that is often enough to check the drive.
What the route planner does not know, you have to add yourself:
- how long each piece of work takes, and which might overrun;
- which time window you have promised each customer;
- which technician has the skill, the certificate or the part;
- that an urgent call will come in tomorrow at half past nine.
So use the route planner for the order of a single day. Which work belongs to which technician and on which day, you decide beforehand.
How to plan a route with multiple stops for technicians
- Divide your service area into regions. Group municipalities or postcodes into regions that a technician can cover in one day without long drives back and forth.
- Give each region fixed days. For example, maintenance in the north on Tuesday and in the south on Thursday. Whoever schedules a maintenance visit then first chooses the region’s day, and then a time.
- Cluster first, optimise afterwards. Decide which interventions belong to which technician and which day. Only once the day’s list is fixed do you look for the best order. If you do it the other way round, you get a short drive with the wrong technician.
- Estimate the time on site for each type of work. An annual maintenance visit, a repair, an inspection: note how long they usually take at your company, and plan with that duration instead of the one you hope for.
- Fix the time windows first. Put the customers with a promised time window in their place first and build the rest of the route around them. A morning or an afternoon is easier to keep than a fixed time.
- Keep a free block for urgent work. An hour around midday, or one technician who handles the urgent calls. How to build that into the week is explained in scheduling technicians.
- Choose the start and end point. If the technician leaves from home with their van, put the first appointment in the direction of their region. If they first have to collect parts from the warehouse, that is the first stop.
- Make sure the addresses are correct. House number and box number, the right entrance to a business park, the plant room on a campus. An address that sends the navigation to the wrong place costs time again at every visit. For such places, keep the coordinates and short directions with the address.
A day schedule per region: template
One day for one technician in one region. The times are an illustration, not a standard.
| Time | What | Note |
|---|---|---|
| 07:45 | Departure with the van | Parts for the day are ready |
| 08:30–10:00 | Boiler maintenance, municipality A | Morning time window promised |
| 10:15–11:30 | Boiler maintenance, municipality A | Access via the caretaker |
| 11:30–13:00 | Free block | Urgent work in the region, otherwise break and admin |
| 13:15–15:00 | Repair, municipality B | Part ordered and in the van |
| 15:15–16:30 | Maintenance, municipality B | Afternoon time window promised |
Always fill in the “Note” column. That is where you put what the technician needs to know before setting off.
An example: a maintenance round in one region
A heat pump installer schedules its maintenance visits by region. On Tuesday, one technician drives around the municipalities near the city. Five customers are on the list, and one of them is only available in the afternoon. The planner first puts that customer in the afternoon, spreads the other four over the morning and the start of the afternoon, and keeps the hour before midday free.
At nine o’clock, a customer from the same region calls: his heat pump has broken down. The planner puts the repair in the free block and calls the technician. The technician finds the intervention in their app between their other visits, and the afternoon customer does not wait longer than promised.
Short video · 0:30
Een dringende interventie, maar wie kan er nog naartoe?
U ziet de dag van elke technieker, zet de dringende interventie op een vrij moment en de technieker vindt ze terug in zijn app.
Video in Dutch, with Dutch captions
All short videos (in Dutch)How it works in Digitalnatie Service Suite
The planning and service orders module shows the work by day, by week, on the map and by route. In the default roles, the planner, the manager and the administrator can optimise a route and manage the fixed routes.
The order of a day
- Optimising a route: in the day view, click the icon next to a technician, or open the optimisation from the map. The proposal shows the order of the visits, the distance (as the crow flies), an estimated duration (travel time plus a fixed time per stop) and the number of stops.
- Applying the proposal saves that order on the interventions and in the day’s route; closing the window changes nothing. The scheduled times stay as they are: you adjust them yourself on the schedule.
- In the technician app, the day screen lists the technician’s interventions for the day, numbered in chronological order. So bring the times into line with the order you applied.
- The map shows the day’s interventions: all of them, scheduled or unscheduled. The panel also lists the interventions without a known site, with an action to complete the site. From a marker, you schedule, assign or open the optimisation.
Fixed routes, regions and time windows
- A fixed route has a name, a technician, weekdays, a maximum per day and sites. Interventions at the sites of a route get that route’s technician. The routes view shows, for each day, the technician, the number of interventions against the maximum, whether the route is full and the order of the visits.
- In the site settings, you manage the regions, the routes and the work areas (postcodes and lead technician). An intervention belongs to the region of its site.
- In the planning settings, you set the time windows that a route offers, and the blocked days, optionally per group or per route. If a date falls outside a route’s time slots, the scheduling window shows it as a warning.
Addresses and navigation
- A site can be given coordinates, for example copied from a map service, and directions. A site without coordinates does not appear on the map, and navigation is then not offered.
- In the app, the technician opens navigation from the intervention, with Google Maps, Waze or Apple Maps. The administrator switches on Google Maps and Waze in the integrations; no login details are needed for that.
Good to know: the distance in the proposal is as the crow flies, and the optimisation sets the order without changing the times. After applying it, check that the order fits the time windows you promised. The map can show, for today only, a technician’s last known position: the position of their last action in the app, such as setting off or arriving. That is not live GPS tracking. You cannot drag interventions from the map. The app fetches changes when it is opened and then every minute, so call the technician if you overhaul their route during the day.
What to do when a customer on the route does not answer the door is explained in customer not at home. How much room you keep free for urgent work depends on what you promise: see SLA and response time. What to ask when a breakdown is reported is covered in taking a breakdown call.
Frequently asked questions
Can I use a free route planner with multiple stops for technicians?
Yes, to check the order of a day. Google Maps on a computer allows up to nine stops, including the final destination. The route planner does not know how long the work takes, which time windows you promised or what your technicians can do: you make those choices beforehand.
What is the difference between route planning and route optimisation?
Route planning decides which work belongs to which technician and on which day, for example by region and with the customers’ time windows. Route optimisation then looks for the best order of one day’s visits. If you optimise before you have planned, you get a short drive with the wrong technician.
How much room do you keep free for urgent calls?
There is no fixed rule. Look at how often urgent work comes in for each region, and keep a free block each day or let one technician handle the urgent calls. If no call comes in, fill the block with short work nearby.
Does Service Suite show live where your technicians are driving?
No. The map shows, for today only, the last known position of each technician: the position of their last action in the app, such as setting off or arriving. There is no live GPS tracking.
Does the route optimisation in Service Suite also adjust the times?
No. The proposal shows the order, the distance as the crow flies, an estimated duration and the number of stops. Applying the order saves it; you then adjust the scheduled times yourself on the schedule.