All Collections
Routing & field agent management
Routing
Routing: Planning routes for other multiple users and/or multiple days. Viewing, (re-)assigning, (mass-)deleting routes. Copying route session.
Routing: Planning routes for other multiple users and/or multiple days. Viewing, (re-)assigning, (mass-)deleting routes. Copying route session.

Learn how to plan routes for other Mapsly users and re-assign existing routes to users, one by one or in multiple routes at once

Sergey Shurygin avatar
Written by Sergey Shurygin
Updated over a week ago

Important update! On March 25th, 2023 we released a major upgrade to our routing engine and updated the interface of the Route panel to accommodate the new capabilities.

This article covers the following topics:

  1. planning routes for other users, including for multiple users at once, and/or multiple days at once; (re-)planning today's routes for other users based on their current location;

  2. re-designing published routes; cloning route sessions;

  3. browsing routes using Table view, including those assigned to other users;

  4. re-assigning published routes to other users, one by one or multiple routes at once,

  5. (bulk-)deleting published routes.

The following topics are covered in other articles:

1- Building routes for multiple users and/or days

This section requires an understanding of Mapsly's routing terminology, objects and user interface — please take a look at these links before proceeding.

NOTE: It is possible to build one route for another user on the Essential plan, but to plan routes for multiple users, and/or multiple days, or to use job constraints and vehicle parameters you'll need a Pro or Enterprise plan.

1.1- Selecting target users

A target user is a Mapsly user for whom you're planning route(s).

A dispatcher is a Mapsly user who plans route(s) and works in Mapsly's Route panel. A dispatcher may be one of the target users.

Target users are selected at the routing session's design stage, by editing the For parameter on the routing parameters panel:

You may add target users one by one, or all users with a particular user profile at once:

1.2- Selecting a planning period

You may adjust your planning period by editing the Period routing parameter at the design stage:

When Period is 1 day, your planning period will include only the departure date. Increasing the value of Period will add days that immediately follow the the departure date, for example, a Period of 3 days would include the departure date and the two days after it.

NOTE: When planning routes for users with defined lunch breaks, bear in mind that since lunch breaks are implicitly added to the input jobs as "services" for each day of the planning period, the maximum number of jobs you may have in a routing session is actually lower by the number of such target users multiplied by the length of the planning period. For example, if you're planning for 5 such users for 14 days, you may have up to (500 – 5 * 14) = 430 jobs in your routing session.

1.3- Routing for multiple users and/or days is always optimized

If you select multiple target users and/or a Period or more than one day, Mapsly will always be re-shuffling route activities to find their most optimal sequence (the Optimize box will be disabled in the checked state).

1.4- How a user's starting time and location are determined

When planning for one user only:

  • the start/finish location blocks will be visible,

  • the start/finish locations the dispatcher selects in the start/finish location blocks will apply only the departure date,

  • if the planning period is longer than one day, for all days other than the departure date Mapsly will use the default start/finish locations from the target user's preferences, unless their Always return to finish location box is unchecked, in which case one of the route activities will become the user's finish location.

When planning for multiple target users:

  • the start/finish location blocks will be hidden,

  • if the departure date is today, the dispatcher may indicate the start time/location for every target user by clicking this Cog (see Today's start time/location modal below):


    NOTE: To open this modal, the dispatcher should have both the Browse users permission AND access to the User system object (and its latitude/langitude fields), since this modal will display users' start locations as well as display their real-time locations.

  • if the planning period includes any dates other than today, for all such dates Mapsly will use the default start/finish locations from the target user's preferences, unless their Always return to finish location box is unchecked, in which case one of the route activities will become the user's finish location.

1.5- Viewing multiple draft routes

When multiple draft routes were created after the dispatcher pressed Build, Mapsly will show their list in the Route panel, and the Route viewer will show the draft routes on the map:

For each route in the list Mapsly will show the assigned user, date, name, route completion time, total distance and the number of activities.

Clicking on a route in the list will open the route's activities:

The draft route being currently viewed will be automatically highlighted on the map:

1.6- Working with draft routes

Similar to working with one route, in case of multiple routes the dispatcher may:

  • edit draft routes by clicking the Pen icon-button in the Route panel's header:


    When editing routes, apart from editing activities in a particular routes, the dispatcher may remove entire routes and move activities between draft routes, if needed.

  • discard the draft routes and return to the design stage by clicking the back-arrow ("Re-design") icon-button in the Route panel's header or Discard all at the bottom;

  • view unassigned jobs and for each of them the reason why they could not be planned;

  • change the date, name and assigned user for any draft route by clicking on the respective field in the route's header:


    NOTE #1: Since Mapsly does not check for possible violations of any job constraints or vehicle parameters when a route's date is changed, the dispatcher should be careful not to create routes that cannot be fulfllled.

    NOTE #2: In order to change the assigned user for a route, the dispatcher must have the Browse users permissions.

1.7- Publishing resulting routes

Similar to publishing one route, once the dispatcher is done working with draft routes, they need to publish the routes by clicking Save all at the bottom of the Route panel. Once published, the routes will become visible to the target users and they'll be able to load them into their Route panel and follow them using Mapsly's Trip mode.

2- Re-designing published route sessions. Copying a route session.

A dispatcher may load an existing published routing session back into the Route panel (in the design stage), make necessary changes and re-build the routes with the updated input. This process is called a re-design.

The rebuilt routes may be published within the same [redesigned] routing session replacing all the routes previously published within this routing session, or as a new routing session without replacing the previously published routes.

Publishing routes as a routing session allows a dispatcher to plan routes based on a copy of any of the previous routing sessions.

3- Viewing all routes including those assigned to other users

3.1- View all routes

NOTE #1: To view routes assigned to other users in the Table view, you need to have access to the Route system object.

To view all routes, open the Table view and select the Route object:

3.2- Load an existing route to Route panel

To load a published route into the Route panel, click Load in the route's context menu:

Note: Your own routes you can also load by clicking Load route in the route's context menu, but a route currently assigned to another user can only be loaded from the Table view.

3.4- Re-assigning existing routes to other users

To re-assign an existing route, you need to change its owner by editing the route's properties. There are 3 ways to do it:

Option #1: in the Table view with the Route object selected, in the route's context menu click Edit route properties and select the new owner:

Option #2: in the Table view with the Route object selected, select one or multiple routes that you'd like to re-assign and in the Group actions menu click Edit:

then add Owner field and select the target user to whom you'd like to assign the route(s):

Option #3:

  • load a route into the Route panel,

  • press Edit route in the Route panel's menu:

  • select the target user and click Save.

4- (Mass-)deleting routes

There are 3 ways to delete a route:

Option #1: in the Table view, in the route's context menu click Delete.

Option #2: in the Table view, select one or multiple routes you'd like to delete and click Delete in the Group actions menu:

Option #3: in the list of published routes (by clicking Load route in the Route panel's menu) press Delete near the route you'd like to delete:

Did this answer your question?