Note: This article covers the Dispatch Beta. If you’re using the original Dispatch Board, the steps here don’t apply.
A route is an ordered set of stops that one crew completes in a single day. This walkthrough takes you from picking stops to a saved route.
Before you start
You need Events & Calendar set to Complete, Invoice & Edit on your role.
Optimize requires a Growth or Enterprise plan.
You can have unlimited routes, but a single route can have up to 100 stops.
1. Pick the day
Open up Dispatch in Day view. If you’re in Week view or a multi-day range, routing is disabled. You can only route visits on the day view.
2. Select stops with a crew in mind
Pick the visits you want on one route. Think about what a single crew can realistically finish in a day.
You can select stops from:
Table rows (checkboxes)
Board cards
Map pins (click a pin, or use Lasso select to draw a loop around several)
Once you’ve selected stops, the bar shows Route X stops. Visits that aren’t on a saved route yet show a muted 00 in the Stop # column.
3. Start the route
Click Route X stops to create a route from your selection. The board switches to route ordering.
Toolbar. The top of the board shows ✕ (Exit order mode), the route title, Assign all (X), Optimize, Reverse, and Save order ▾.
Order list. The left pane lists your stops numbered 01, 02, and so on, with a 📍 start row above them and a 🏁 end row below.
Map pins. Pins show the same numbers as your order list.
You can keep adding or removing stops while ordering. Click a pin on the map to add or remove it, or right-click a pin for stop controls.
4. Set the start and end locations
Open the 📍 Start location and 🏁 End location pickers. The options are:
Company start / end location (the default)
Crew location
Employee location
Custom address: search for an address, or click a point on the map (press Esc to cancel a map pick)
No start location / No end location: the route is open-ended and starts or ends at its first or last stop
💡 Options that can’t be used stay visible but greyed out, with a reason. For example, Crew location is disabled if the stops belong to more than one crew.
Start time
Click the start time to change it. The end time is calculated for you: start time, plus drive time, plus the budgeted hours of the stops. If the route runs past midnight, you’ll see +1d.
New routes open on the last start and end picks and the last start time you used in this browser. Changes you make while editing a saved route stay with that route.
5. Order the stops
To arrange the order of your route's events, you can:
Drag a row by its grip.
Reverse to flip the whole order.
Nudge a stop up or down with Increase stop order or Decrease stop order in its ⋮ menu, or with the ＋ and − buttons when you right-click its pin on the map.
Pin a stop as first. Hover a row and click its pin icon. A pinned stop holds position 01, so it can’t be dragged and Reverse leaves it in place. Click the pin again, or choose Unpin as first stop, to release it.
Optimize
✨ Optimize orders the stops for you, based on drive time. It requires a Growth or Enterprise plan. On the Free plan, it shows a lock, and you can still order stops by hand.
When it finishes, you’ll see the drive time, distance, and number of stops, and the button changes to Optimized.
It becomes available again as soon as you change something, like dragging a stop, adding a pin, or changing the start.
A pinned first stop stays first, and stops with no location go last.
6. Check size and shape
Before you save, ask: can the crew do this in a day?
Drive time and miles
The route line and the drive time between each stop show on the map and in the list. The footer shows the total drive time.
Arrival times
The ETA column shows each stop’s estimated arrival. Use the picker in the 📍 row to show exact minutes or a window (15 min up to 4 hr, or AM/PM). When a stop is estimated to arrive after its scheduled start, a late warning appears under its ETA. In a window, the warning is approximate and shows a ~.
Hours vs. capacity
Compare the route’s budgeted hours with your crew’s capacity.
Stops without a location
stay on the route but don’t show on the map or add drive time.
7. Assign the crew
Click Assign all (X) to assign every stop to a crew or a set of employees.
8. Save the route
Open Save order ▾ and click Save for today.
You’ll see a toast, “Route order saved (X stops),” and route ordering closes.
The stops’ Stop # pills turn green and show their saved numbers.
To repeat a route in future weeks, use Save and apply to future weeks.
Leaving without saving. If you click ✕ with unsaved changes, a dialog asks “Discard route changes?” Choose Stay on this page to keep working, or Discard changes to leave without saving. If you haven’t changed anything, you can leave right away.
Splitting a day into multiple routes
If a day is too much for one crew, build it as several routes:
Select a group of stops and save them as one route.
Select the remaining unrouted stops (the ones still showing 00), click Route X stops again, and save.
Assign each route to its crew.
Each route numbers its own stops starting at 01.
If you select stops that are already on a saved route and click Route X stops, you start a new route with those stops, in their saved order first. When you save, they split off into their own route, and the stops left behind stay together as a route, renumbered from 01. To change an existing route itself, use Edit route instead.
Good to know
A route can have up to 100 stops. If you go over, the save is blocked with a message to split it into smaller routes.
If two dispatchers save the same route, the last save wins. If a stop was moved by someone else in the meantime, the save fails with a message.
Routes only cover a single day. To plan a week, build each day’s routes and save them into future weeks.
While you’re creating a route, date controls, search, Print, Quick dispatch, the Rows/Lanes switcher, and the filter bar are locked.