Key concepts¶

Applies to v1.7+ · ~3 min read · Getting started

A quick reference to the terms used throughout Scheduled Routes and this documentation.

Core objects¶

Term	What it is
Job	One delivery or pickup assignment — the main unit of work you import each day. Each job has a pickup location, a delivery location, a time window, a service time (how long the driver spends on-site), and a capacity demand.
Task	The individual stops that make up a job. A job is made of a pickup task and a delivery task. The engine sequences tasks, not whole jobs.
Vehicle	An entry in your fleet. Each vehicle has a vehicle ID, shift (start and end time), capacity, skills, and a start location.
Depot / start location	Where a driver begins their shift. The engine uses this to calculate travel time to the first stop. Missing a depot is the most common cause of unassigned jobs.
Capacity	How much a vehicle can carry, expressed in the same unit as your job demands (for example, `packages: 100`). The engine will not assign more demand to a vehicle than its capacity allows.
Skills	Tags on a vehicle and a job that must match for the job to be assigned to that vehicle. Use skills to restrict certain jobs to qualified drivers or specific vehicle types. Skills can be set on both vehicles and jobs.
Time window	The earliest and latest time a job's stop can be serviced. Jobs with impossible time windows (for example, a window that has already passed, or that no vehicle can reach in time) come back unassigned.

Files and profiles¶

Term	What it is
Saved mapping	A remembered link between your file's columns and the app's fields. Create one for your vehicles file and one for your jobs file so future imports need no column review. The app stores vehicle mappings and job mappings separately.
Manifest	The output file drivers use — a list of stops in order, with ETAs. Exported as PDF, Excel, or CSV.

Planning outputs¶

Term	What it is
Route plan	The result of one optimization run for a given route date. Contains one route per vehicle that was used, each an ordered list of stops with estimated arrival times (ETAs).
Route	The ordered sequence of stops assigned to a single vehicle for the day.
Strategy	The optimization objective. Choose one per run: Minimize Travel Time (least total driving), Minimize Vehicles Used (fewest vehicles that still cover the work), or Balanced Workload Among Vehicles (time and jobs spread evenly).
Unassigned job	A job the engine could not place in any route. The app lists a reason for each unassigned job so you can fix the data and re-optimize.

Modes¶

Term	What it is
Planning mode	The default Route Planner mode. You can change the route date, import jobs, run optimization, and adjust the plan.
Dispatch mode	Locked to the current day's route. Use this mode when the plan is final and you're ready to hand off to drivers. Dispatch mode is not available for past or future dates.

Planning vs dispatch in practice

Build and adjust the plan in Planning mode. Switch to Dispatch mode only when you're done making changes — the restriction is intentional to avoid last-minute edits after drivers have left.