Routes in BigChange Schedule

This article explains Routes of the Scheduling section in BigChange, detailing its useful features and what you can achieve with it. A Route is a series of individual jobs to be undertaken in a single day by either an individual or a vehicle. This guide will cover how to create, optimise, and schedule Routes effectively.

Creating a Route and Adding Jobs

1. Navigate to Schedule.
2. Select Routes in the bottom-left hand menu.
3. Select Create a new route.

This opens the Add / edit route popup, explained below:

• Route name: A name for the route.
• Add stop: Add a new job, or “stop”, to the route (opens popup).

Adding Stops to a Route

Use the Add stop button to include all the jobs/stops you want in the route. The Add stop popup includes:

1. Contact: Name of the contact for this stop. Stops must be linked to a contact.
2. Job Type: Type of job which will be completed at this stop.
3. Job start time: Set a fixed start time for each stop, or leave blank for optimisation.
4. Job duration: Planned duration of the job for this stop. This can be overridden.
5. Description: Free text box for any relevant notes or information about the stop.

Continue the process described above, adding each site or stop for the route one by one until you have included all the stops planned for the day.

Optimising the Route

Once you have added all the stops, you can optimise the route by:

1. Select the Optimise icon on the Add / edit popup.
2. Select From - to select a start location. (This could be an office or resources home which will need to be in CRM)
3. Select To - to select a end location. (This could be an office or resources home which will need to be in CRM)
4. Select optimise to finish the process. (The stops will now be sorted into the most efficient order.)

Limitations of Optimisation

Bear in mind that optimisation has some limitations:

• It cannot optimise routes to be completed over multiple days.
• It cannot optimise routes that are impossible to complete within the resource’s working hours.
• It cannot optimise routes in the past.

If you need stops to be completed in a specific order, do not optimise the route. Instead, order them manually using the arrows provided.

Start Scheduling the Route

The route you have created will be listed under the “Routes” tab, including the name, number of stops, total duration, and total mileage for the route. You can use the search box to find the route more easily.

• Drag and drop the route onto the schedule.

• As you drag over the schedule, a blue dashed box will appear to show how much time the route will take. (The box includes the time from the first stop to the end of the last, excluding driving time from the start location to the first job and from the last job to the end location.)

Once you drop a Route onto the schedule, it will behave in the same way as jobs scheduled individually.

Additional Options

Drag and Drop Stops Within a Route

You can easily adjust a route by dragging and dropping stops to the desired position within the route.

Duplicate Stops Within a Route

To create a route quickly, you can duplicate an existing job/stop.

Assign via importer

This allows you to import a sequence of jobs against various contacts to create a route. Each job forms a "stop" along the route, and is designed to be given to a single resource.