Worksheet Route Popup
How the Route popup shows the stops still to do on a map with arrival times, and how to put them in a better order with Optimise Order, by dragging them, and by locking stops in place.
The Route button on a worksheet opens a map of the stops still to do, numbered in the order the worksheet visits them. It is there to check the day makes sense on the road before you set off, and to put the stops in a better order when it does not.
Which Plans Include It
The Route popup is part of route optimisation, which is included on the Pro and Team plans. On Essential you can add it with the Route Optimisation bolt-on. Without it, the popup explains how to get it. The Navigate button on each job works on every plan.
What the Popup Shows
- Summary: Under the title, how many stops are still to do and, once the route has been worked out, roughly how long the driving takes.
- Starting from: The route starts from your phone's location when Work Planner is allowed to use it. Otherwise it starts from the business address saved in Organisation Information, and failing that from the first stop. The route ends at the last stop.
- Leaving at: When you set off. It starts at the current time. Before your working day starts it uses the start of the day, and after it ends it uses the start of your next working day, so you can plan the evening before. Change it and the arrival times follow.
- Map: Each stop still to do is a numbered circle in visiting order, with the driving route drawn between them. Tap a stop to open it. Fainter circles are approximate locations, placed from the street, postcode, or village or town rather than an exact saved location. Stops too close together to read share one pin listing their numbers, such as 3, 4 or 11–15, which splits up as you zoom in. Tap a shared pin to zoom in on its stops, or to open the first of them when they are at the same address.
- Stop list: The same stops in the same order, each with the time the route gets there. Tap one to open it. The route catches up when you save it. When you can change the worksheet order, each stop also has a handle to drag it, a padlock to keep it in place and arrows to move it, covered in Moving Stops Yourself and Locking Stops in Place below.
- Navigate: Each stop has its own Navigate button, which opens directions to it in your navigation app, just like the button in the stop's popup. See Navigating to Worksheet Jobs.
Arrival Times and Jobs With a Set Time
Arrival times allow the Route time per job set in Organisation Information at each job (25 minutes unless you change it), or the job's own Duration when it has one, plus the drive between stops. Optimise Order allows the same time when it checks jobs with a set time can be reached. A job with a Due Time is treated as an appointment: the list shows it as the set time, and if the route would get there after it, the stop is marked late with roughly how late. Arriving early for an appointment waits until its time.
Optimise Order
Optimise Order works out a better order for the stops still to do and shows it on the map and in the list before anything changes. It only appears when you can change the worksheet order and at least two stops are on the map.
- How it orders: From where the route starts, it goes to the stop that is quickest to drive to each time, then untangles any stretch that doubles back on itself and moves any stop that is out of place to where it fits best.
- Jobs with a set time: A nearer stop is only taken first if the job with the next set time can still be reached on time afterwards, allowing for the length of each job.
- Locked stops: A stop you have locked keeps its number, and the rest are ordered around it. See Locking Stops in Place below.
- Driving times: The order is worked out from driving times on the roads, so two houses that back onto each other but are a drive apart are treated as the drive they really are. If driving times are not available at that moment, it uses straight-line distances instead and says so above the new order, so check that one suits your roads. Either way, the drive time shown with the new order comes from the real roads, so you can compare it with the current order before you apply it.
- Adjusting it: If a stop suits your roads better somewhere else, drag it there before you apply. The popup then calls it a new order rather than the optimised one.
- Apply: Saves the new order to this worksheet as a manual order. Stops already completed or missed move to the top, and stops that could not be placed on the map go to the end. Your rounds keep their own order, so a worksheet made from a round later still follows the round.
- Cancel: Puts the current order back without changing anything.
- Already in order: If the stops are already in the best order it can find, the popup says so and nothing changes.
Moving Stops Yourself
You can also put the stops in your own order, before or after using Optimise Order. Drag a stop by the dotted handle on its left, or use the up and down arrows on its right to move it one place at a time. The map renumbers the stops, redraws the route and updates the arrival times as you go. Like Optimise Order, this is only there when you can change the worksheet order and at least two stops are on the map.
- New order: As soon as a stop moves, the popup shows the drive time for your order and how it compares with the current one. Nothing changes on the worksheet until you choose Apply, which saves it just like an optimised order. Cancel puts the current order back.
- Moving it back: If the stops end up back in their current order, there is nothing to apply, so Apply and Cancel go away.
- On a phone: Drag by the handle. Swiping anywhere else on the list scrolls it as normal, and dragging a stop to the top or bottom of the popup scrolls it for you.
Locking Stops in Place
Each stop has a padlock under its handle. Tap it to lock the stop at its number: the padlock closes, and the stop can no longer be dragged or moved with its arrows. Tap it again to unlock it. Locks are saved on the worksheet straight away, so they are still there when you come back to it, on any device, until you unlock them.
- With Optimise Order: Locked stops keep their numbers and everything else is optimised around them. To start the day at a particular stop, drag it to the top, lock it, then choose Optimise Order. Optimise Order is offered again as soon as you move a stop yourself.
- When moving stops yourself: Other stops move past a locked stop rather than pushing it along, so it keeps its number.
- Jobs that start locked: A job with Default Locked for Route Optimisation ticked starts locked each time it joins a worksheet. Moving a stop to another worksheet starts it afresh: unlocked, unless its job is set to start locked.
- Jobs with a set time: A locked job stays where you put it even if that makes it late for its set time. The list shows roughly how late.
Stops Not on the Map
Stops still to do that cannot be placed are listed under stops aren't on the map with the reason, such as No address. They are left out of the route and the optimised order. Fix the address, or use Address Lookup on the job or customer to save an exact location.
Completed and missed stops are not shown, and a quote counts as done once it has been sent.
Related articles
- Navigating to Worksheet Jobs: Getting directions to each stop, then coming back to complete it.
- Route Optimisation and Ordering: The other ways to order a worksheet, including dragging items into order yourself.
- Worksheet Detail Screen: Where the Route button lives.
- Organisation Information Screen: Where the business address the route can start from is saved.
- Address Lookup Popup: Saving an exact location for a job or customer.