The AntsRoute tool lets you ‘manually’ plan pickup and delivery operations on a fixed date. The pickup and delivery operation consists of loading and delivery or pickup and unloading.
💡 To access this function, you need to subscribe to a Pro offer and activate the option in the settings.
For example, you receive a call from a customer who wants to schedule a delivery that requires a loading stage beforehand. Here are the steps you need to follow:
💡 Here, we assume that your customer is already registered in your AntsRoute customer database. If this is not the case, you will need to start by adding a customer by clicking on “Plan” > “Schedule work orders” > “Add a customer”.
Step 1: Select a “Loading > Delivery” or “Pickup > Unloading” type
- Go to the “Plan” module.
- Click on the “Schedule deliveries” tab.
- Select the “Delivery” or “Pickup” type.
Step 2: Enter details of delivery or pickup
Let's take the example of the “Delivery” type:
- Indicate the “Delivery location” by entering the first few letters of your customer's name in the search bar and select your customer from the drop-down list.
- Choose the “Delivery to the customer's home” for location of the delivery
- Determine the “Duration” of this delivery in minutes.
- Select a “Forced driver” (optional).
- Add “Comments” (optional).
- Determine the “Capacities” to be delivered (if the option is activated).
- Add files (optional).
☝️Good to know: Depending on how your account is set up, you will need to fill in other fields. For example, custom fields, items, packages, skills and types of service.
☝️ Good to know: If your customer will not be at home on the date of the appointment, you can define a temporary address for “Location of delivery”.
Step 3: Enter details of loading or unloading
Let's take the example of the “Loading” type:
- Indicate the “Loading location” by entering the first few letters of your customer's name in the search bar and select your customer from the drop-down list.
- Determine the “Duration” of this loading in minutes.
- Select a “Time slot” for this loading.
- Add “Comments” (optional).
☝ Good to know: If your loadings or unloadings generally take place at the same address, at the same time of day and/or have the same duration, you can define default values from “Settings” > “Settings” > “Default values”. From this page, you can enter a “Default location for loading/unloading”, a “Default duration for loading/unloading” and a “Default time slot for loading/unloading”. This means that, when you plan operations, these three fields will already be filled in. If necessary, you can change them.
Step 4 : Choose a planning date
For example, if you want to plan the operation on a defined date:
- Choose the “Plan this delivery on” option and select a scheduling date.
- Select up to four availability “Time slots”.
- Click on the “Add” button.
☝️ Good to know: The “From” planning option displays availability over a given period.
☝️ Good to know: The “Define a recurrence” planning option is intended for scheduling regular operations, i.e. those that recur daily, weekly or monthly. To find out more about this function, see the dedicated article.