Routes¶

Draw the areas of town you serve, give each one a technician, and let the addresses inside it follow that person.

Routes are managed in the Routes view of the Dispatch tab in Lupa Dash and need an admin account. Technicians see routes as coloured labels on their work, and can claim an unstaffed route's work from the phone.

How routes work¶

A route has a Name, a Technician — or Open pool (any tech) for nobody in particular — a Color, and a fence: an area drawn on a map.

A route groups addresses, not visits. Every service location inside the fence becomes a member of the route.
Recurring work follows the route. Visits a recurring schedule proposes at a member address go to the route's technician, whoever the schedule names. On an Open pool (any tech) route they go to the open pool, where they can be claimed as one unit. Addresses on no route keep their schedule's technician.
One-off bookings don't. A visit made with Add Visit still starts in the open pool; see Booking and changing visits.
The route shows on the work. Cards on the board carry the route's coloured dot and name, and the map colours the route's stops in the same colour.

About 1 minute 40 seconds. Recorded on an earlier version of Lupa: the fences are already drawn, and it shows a whole route moved to a new technician and an unstaffed route claimed from the phone.

Draw a route¶

To create a route:

Open Dispatch and choose Routes in the view toggle.
Choose New route.
Enter a Name.
Pick a Technician, or Open pool (any tech).
Pick a Color.
Under Geofence (draw a polygon), use the drawing tools on the map to draw the area. Drag its corners to adjust it.
Choose Save route.

What you'll see. Route "name" created, and the route in the list with its colour, its technician, and how many members it has. Addresses inside the fence that are on no other route join it straight away. An address added or corrected later joins as soon as Lupa has found it on the map.

If you save without drawing. A route can be saved with no fence; it shows a no fence badge and has no members. Choose Edit to draw one later.

If an address you expected didn't join.

It hasn't been found on the map yet — its address is missing or wasn't recognised. Correct it on the service location; see Accounts and service locations.
It already belongs to another route. Drawing a fence over another route's members does not take them.
It sits inside two or more fences. It waits under Needs a route instead.
It was opted out of routing, or pinned to another route, from Needs a route. Fences never move those addresses.

Change a route¶

To change a route:

On the route's card, choose Edit.
Change the name, technician, colour or fence.
Choose Save route.

Saving a route that has a fence re-checks every address against all the fences, even when only the name or colour changed. Changing the Technician to a person also moves the route's booked work to them, exactly as Hand a whole route to someone else does. Changing it to Open pool (any tech) affects only visits recurring schedules propose from then on; work already on someone's day stays there.

Settle an address two routes both cover¶

Where fences overlap, an address inside both that is not already on a route belongs to neither until somebody decides. An address that was already on one of the routes stays on it. Undecided addresses are listed under Needs a route at the top of the Routes view, with a count of how many are contested.

To settle a contested address:

Open Dispatch → Routes.
Under Needs a route, find the address.
Choose one of the routes offered. Each button shows the route's colour, name and technician.

What you'll see. Client routed to the route's name, and the address leaves the list. The choice is pinned: redrawing or overlapping the fences later never changes it. The pin ends only if you Remove the address from the route, or archive the route.

If neither route is right. Choose Opt out on the row and confirm Opt this client out of geofence routing? They'll be assigned individually. The address belongs to no route from then on and the fences never consider it again. The dashboard has no way to undo an opt-out: the address leaves the list and appears on no route, so there is no row left to act on. Use it only for an address that should never be routed.

When the list is empty it reads Nothing contested — every located client resolves to zero or one route.

Handle a member outside its fence¶

Out of fence on a member means its address is now outside the route's fence — usually because the address was corrected, or the fence was redrawn. The address stays on the route: a fence edit never empties someone's day by itself.

To take an address off a route:

Open Dispatch → Routes and find the address in the route's member list.
Choose Remove and confirm Remove this client from the route?

What you'll see. Client removed from route. The address is on no route; its cards lose the route's colour and name.

Remove does not keep an address off a route for good. A removed address is checked against the fences again the next time a route with a fence is created or saved, any route is archived, or its address is found on the map again. If it still sits inside one fence, it rejoins that route then, without a warning. To keep an address that sits inside a single fence off that route, redraw the fence so the address falls outside it. Opt out is offered only for contested addresses.

Hand a whole route to someone else¶

To move a route to another person:

Open Dispatch → Routes.
On the route's card, pick a name under Reassign to….

What you'll see. Route "name" reassigned to the person — and how many visits moved. The route now names the new person, so the visits its recurring schedules propose go to them from now on. Booked visits move too, if they are:

at one of the route's addresses,
dated today or later,
Scheduled, Confirmed, On the way or In progress, and
still with the route's previous technician — or unassigned, if the route was Open pool (any tech).

Each affected day is laid out again. Visits somebody had given to a different person by hand stay where they are, and so does anything finished, cancelled or in the past.

Moved visits keep their status: a visit the previous technician had confirmed stays Confirmed. Tell both people about the change: the new technician finds the visits on their schedule, and the previous technician's schedule no longer shows them.

The change lasts until you reassign the route again. To hand a route over for one day only, see Cover for someone who is out today.

Reassign to… lists people only. To make a route unstaffed, choose Edit and set Technician to Open pool (any tech).

When someone is removed from the team, every route they held switches to Open pool (any tech). See Removing access.

Let a technician claim an unstaffed route¶

On the phone app's Open Pool tab, open-pool visits that share a route are grouped into one card with a Claim route button. Claiming takes every open-pool visit at that route's addresses for today, in one step.

A claim takes one day's work, not the route: the route stays Open pool (any tech), and the next day's visits come back to the pool. Claiming is for routes set to Open pool (any tech). When work at a staffed route's address lands in the open pool — a one-off booking, for example — place it on someone's day from the board; see Moving work between people. To give a route to someone for good, use Reassign to…. The technician's side is covered in Taking and handing back work.

Retire a route¶

To archive a route:

Open Dispatch → Routes.
On the route's card, choose Archive and confirm Archive this route? Its members are released back to live resolution.

What you'll see. Route archived. The route leaves the list. Nothing else is deleted: its members are checked against the remaining fences straight away. An address inside exactly one remaining fence joins that route; one inside two or more goes to Needs a route; one inside none is on no route.

Archiving drops the route's pins. Addresses you had pinned to it are decided by the remaining fences like every other member.

See which route a visit belongs to¶

To see routes on the day's work:

Open Dispatch on Chart or Map.

What you'll see. On the chart, a visit at a member address carries the route's coloured dot and name; a visit on no route carries none. The label follows the address's current route, not the person doing the visit. On the map, the route's stops are grouped and coloured as the route — see The map.