Using Route Planners to Schedule Field Visits
Route planners help you schedule field visits efficiently by automatically creating optimized routes for your resources based on lead locations, driving criteria, and availability constraints. The system suggests routes that you can review and accept before they are added to your calendar.
What is a route planner?
A route planner is an automation tool that analyzes your campaign leads and creates optimized daily routes for field visits. It considers:
- Lead locations – Geographic distribution of addresses
- Resource availability – Which team members are available and when
- Driving criteria – Maximum driving times, postal code restrictions, business hours
- Calendar capacity – Existing bookings and available time slots
The route planner generates suggested routes that you can review, modify, and accept. Once accepted, the system automatically creates calendar events for each visit.
How route planning works
The route planning process follows these steps:
Set criteria: Define which leads to include (campaign, filters), which resource calendars to plan into, and driving constraints
System calculates routes: The route planner analyzes lead addresses, calculates driving times, and creates optimized daily routes within your constraints
Review results: View suggested routes with details about visit times, driving distances, and any issues detected
Accept or reject: Accept routes to automatically create calendar events, or reject routes that don't work
Important
Routes must be manually accepted before any calendar events are created. This gives you full control over which visits are scheduled and when.
Creating a new route planner
Navigate to Calendar → Optimization tools → Route Planners and click + New route planner.
Step 1: Basic settings
Friendly planner name: Give your route planner a descriptive name (e.g., "Route planner 2026-02-06").
Step 2: Specify locations to visit
Plan leads from campaign: Select which campaign contains the leads you want to visit.
Filter: Optionally apply a filter to narrow down which leads to include (e.g., only leads without calendar events, specific status, specific postal codes).
Step 3: Calendar and resource settings
Plan into resource calendars: Select which resource(s) should receive the planned visits. You can choose one or multiple resources depending on your team structure.
Earliest possible date / Latest possible date: Define the date range for when visits can be scheduled. You can use:
- Fixed dates (e.g., 2026-02-10)
- Dynamic expressions using
<hh-date.format output="Y-m-d">next monday</hh-date.format>
Schedule time of day: Set the time window for visits (e.g., 08:00 to 16:00). Leave as "Auto" to use the resource's business hours.
Duration of visit (minutes): How long each visit should last (e.g., 60 minutes).
Round off event start time: Round event start times to the nearest interval (e.g., 15-minute intervals). Choose "No" for precise timing.
Buffer between events (minutes): Additional buffer time between visits beyond the calculated driving time. Useful for preparation or administrative tasks.
Resulting event type: Select which event type the created calendar events should use. Choose "None" if you want to use the resource's default event type.
Step 4: Driving criteria
Define the constraints for route planning to ensure realistic and efficient routes.
Bookable in postal codes: Restrict routes to specific postal codes. Use "Resource's operable postal codes only" to respect each resource's defined service area.
Max. driving from base: Maximum driving time allowed from the resource's base address to the first visit (e.g., 1 hour 30 minutes).
Max. driving in between events: Maximum driving time allowed between consecutive visits.
Important consideration
Setting "Max. driving in between events" too low can result in days with very few bookings, as the system cannot violate your constraints. If you want fully booked days, consider setting this value higher to allow more flexibility in route planning.
Max. driving before business hours: Maximum driving time allowed before the start of the resource's business hours (e.g., 0 minutes if resources should not travel before work starts).
Max. driving after business hours: Maximum driving time allowed after the end of business hours (e.g., 0 minutes if resources should return home immediately after their last visit).
Reviewing and accepting routes
After the route planner runs, you'll see a summary showing:
- Total routes: Number of suggested routes
- Total issues: Number of problems detected (if any)
- Earliest date / Latest date: Date range covered
- Average distance per day: Typical daily driving distance
- Max distance to a location: Longest single drive in the routes
Understanding route details
Each suggested route shows:
- Date: When the visits are scheduled
- Resource: Which team member will perform the visits
- Visits: Number of stops on the route
- Total distance (km): Total driving for the day
- Status: Pending acceptance, Accepted, or Rejected
Click on a route to expand and see:
- Lead details for each visit
- Transit time between stops
- Address for each visit
- Start and end times
Accepting routes
To accept a route and create calendar events:
Expand the route to review all visits
Verify the times, addresses, and driving times are acceptable
Click Accept route
The system will automatically create calendar events for each visit in the route. The events will appear in the selected resource's calendar with the specified duration and event type.
Rejecting routes
If a route doesn't work for your schedule or has issues, you can reject it. Rejected routes will not create any calendar events, and the leads remain available for future planning.
Troubleshooting route planner issues
The route planner may report issues if it encounters problems while creating routes. Common issues include:
Latest date is invalidly determined to be before earliest date: This occurs when your date range settings are incorrect. Check that your "Earliest possible date" is before your "Latest possible date". If using dynamic date expressions, verify the logic produces valid dates.
No available time slots found: The route planner couldn't find any availability within your constraints. Consider:
- Expanding the date range
- Increasing "Max. driving in between events"
- Reducing the number of leads or loosening postal code restrictions
Some locations cannot be reached: Certain lead addresses exceed your maximum driving criteria. Review the "Max. driving from base" setting or filter out leads that are too far away.
Best practices for route planning
Start with realistic driving constraints: Set "Max. driving in between events" high enough to allow flexible routing. If you want fully booked days, a higher value (e.g., 45-60 minutes) works better than a restrictive value (e.g., 15 minutes).
Use filters to target specific leads: Create filters to include only leads that need visits (e.g., leads without existing calendar events, leads with specific statuses).
Review before accepting: Always expand and review routes before accepting them. Check for realistic driving times and verify the order makes sense geographically.
Combine with calendar optimization: Use route planners alongside other calendar optimization tools like gap filling and packing to maximize your schedule efficiency.
Summary
Route planners automate the creation of optimized field visit schedules by analyzing lead locations, resource availability, and driving constraints. The system generates suggested routes that you review and accept before calendar events are created. Key settings include date range, driving criteria, and resource selection. Be mindful of setting realistic driving constraints to ensure fully booked days, and always review routes before accepting them to maintain schedule quality.
? Common searches
route planning • field visit scheduling • optimize routes • plan visits • schedule technicians
? Also known as
route optimization • visit planner • field scheduling • territory planning • service routing
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