Plannit allows you to create routes to simplify your daily operations.

Routes are flexible and meet a wide range of needs in various use cases. This article aims to help you create routes based on your needs and goals, while optimizing and streamlining your daily work.

Here are the topics covered in this article:

Understanding the basics
How to create a recurring route
How to create a daily route
How to work on and optimize your route
How to modify or add an address to a route or a run

The Basics

In Plannit, it is very important to understand the following three concepts:

Concept 1 – Route and Run

In short: a route is the definition of a template used to generate a run.

When you create a route, you're actually creating a template used to generate one or more runs. In this template, you define: the addresses and their order, the resource(s) to assign, the default service, geofencing settings for automation, and a few other options.

Now that you understand that a route acts as a template (or blueprint), note that each time you start a route, it generates a new run. This run is the actual execution of the route and is used to create Work Orders / Visits—one work order per address included in the run.

Employees will complete their visits through these runs, following the route shown in the mobile app. Once the run is completed, you can restart the route to generate a new run, as often as needed.

Concept 2 – Daily and Recurring Routes

In short: a daily route is executed only once, while a recurring route is executed multiple times.

Here are two simple examples to better understand the difference:

I have snow removal, cleaning, lawn care, or maintenance contracts that require repeating the same run for the same service. This is a recurring route.

I have an employee whose full workday has been planned. I’m sending them out to do service calls, take measurements for doors and windows, perform installation visits, etc., which will be done only once. This is a daily route.

The execution of daily and recurring routes remains the same for the resource completing the run. The only difference lies in how you prepare the route, depending on the need.

Concept 3 – Address Geolocation

In short: the civic addresses of service locations added to a route must be geolocated in order to work.

Just like with any GPS, if you don’t enter the full address of where you want to go, the GPS will ask you to confirm the address before giving directions. Plannit works the same way - we need the full address to guide you to the right place!

Plannit tries its best to geolocate your addresses automatically, but it also gives you the option to do it manually when entering an address.

💡 How to geolocate an address?
Use the address suggestion from Google Maps, and you're good to go!

IMPORTANT: An address marked with this symbol ⚠️ indicates a geolocation issue, which will prevent you from calculating and optimizing your routes!

📌 For more information, see 📘 Geolocate the address of a contact

In summary, the quality of your data - in this case, service addresses - is critical for using Plannit Routes effectively.