Routes in Pool Founder
A route is a technician's schedule of jobs for a specific day of the week. You build routes in two places: the Route Builder, a drag-and-drop board for assigning many jobs across days and technicians at once, and the Route Schedule, where individual routes are created and managed day by day.
Route optimization is based on location and drive time, and jobs can be scheduled anywhere from weekly to annually — including multiple visits per week for pools that need them.
The Route Builder
- 1Open the Route Builder.
- 2Drag jobs from the Unassigned Jobs panel into day slots — or click Auto-Assign to place everything automatically.
- 3Use Rebalance to redistribute jobs across your existing routes.
- 4Each day slot has an Optimize button that orders that day's stops with Google Maps.
Just finished creating jobs in bulk? Route Builder → Auto-Assign is the fastest way to get them all onto routes. See Add Service in Bulk for the full setup flow.
The builder lays out one column per technician, and it follows each technician's work schedule — days a tech doesn't work don't get day slots. Click the pencil icon next to a technician's name to open their Work Schedule dialog:
- Toggle each day of the week on or off and set start and end times per day — or apply the Mon-Fri 8-5 preset in one click.
- If you disable a day that has an active route with jobs on it, an "Active routes on removed days" warning appears with a "Transfer to..." picker — choose another technician (and one of their working days) to move the route to, or save without transferring, in which case the route remains but no longer shows in the builder.
- Quarterly, semiannual, and annual jobs are not laid out in the builder — day slots show a count of these hidden long-cycle jobs, which are managed from the job page instead (see below).
Create and manage individual routes
The Route Schedule page is where you plan and view routes by day and technician, and where individual routes are created with the Create Route button. Open a route to manage its jobs, and see transfer and move jobs for moving work between technicians and days.
Every schedule change — transfers, adds, removals, frequency changes, skips, reorders — is logged with who made it and why. History buttons on the Route Schedule, the Route Builder, and each route page open the audit log, and the office can also start, complete, or intervene in live routes. See admin route tools.
Single-day vs. recurring edits on a route page
Every route page has a two-button mode toggle at the top that controls what your edits affect — it's the most important control on the page:
| Mode | What edits affect |
|---|---|
| The dated day card ("Single day only") | Changes apply to that specific date only — one-time adds, skips, and reorders for the day. The recurring schedule is untouched. A prominent banner confirms: "Editing {date} Only." |
| Recurring Schedule ("All future weeks") | Changes apply to all future occurrences of the route — permanent adds, removals, and frequency changes. The banner reads "Editing Recurring Schedule." |
If a change you expected to stick disappeared the next week, it was probably made in single-day mode. Check the banner before you edit.
Add a job to a route — even one that doesn't exist yet
A route's Add button opens the Add Jobs to Route screen — a searchable list you can multi-select from like a cart. Click jobs to stage them, configure each one, then commit the batch with Add All to Route (or Clear Selection to start over). Each staged maintenance job gets its own controls:
- This Day vs. Recurring — when you opened the screen from a specific date, each maintenance job can be added as a one-time visit for just that day or onto the recurring schedule.
- Frequency — recurring adds pick from Weekly, Every 2 Wks, Every 4 Wks, Every 13 Wks, Every 26 Wks, or Every 52 Wks; non-weekly frequencies also ask you to select the first date.
- Work orders simply confirm the date they'll be scheduled for.
If no jobs are available to add, a Create a Job button opens a quick-create dialog: pick the service location, keep or edit the auto-filled name, and optionally set a rate. It also supports Quick add contact for brand-new customers. The new job is staged onto the route automatically.
If the only jobs available are archived, the empty state on the Add Job to Route screen warns you and links to restore them. See pause, skip, and archive jobs.
Scheduling frequencies
- Weekly — the standard cadence for pool service.
- Biweekly (every 2 weeks) and monthly (every 4 weeks) — for less frequent service.
- Quarterly (every 13 weeks), semiannually (every 26 weeks), and annually (every 52 weeks) — for filter cleans, salt cell service, and other long-cycle visits. These jobs aren't laid out in the Route Builder — schedule them from the job page (see the next section) or the Add Jobs to Route screen, and they drop onto the route only in the weeks they occur.
- Multiple visits per week — pools serviced more than once a week are supported; when applying a job template in bulk you can set visits per week (1–5×) per pool.
Schedule a single job from its page
Every job page has a Route & Schedule card. Its Add to Route button (labeled Schedule on work orders) opens the Job Schedule page — a calendar-based scheduler for that one job: pick a technician, pick days or dates on the calendar, and set the frequency (Weekly through Every 52 Weeks). Multi-visit jobs prompt you to select the right number of days per week, and suggestion chips propose the best route days (for work orders, the dates with the least impact on the technician's routes). The same page powers rescheduling, transfers (with a This visit / Permanently toggle), and reopening completed work orders.
The Route & Schedule card also shows Suggested Routes — candidate routes for the job, each showing the technician, day, the miles and minutes the stop would add, and the route's total time, with a one-click Add button that drops the job straight onto that route.
Watch routes on the map
The Route Map page plots every stop on a single map, color-coded by day. By default it shows the recurring weekly layout, filterable by day, technician, and route; the View Specific Date button switches to an exact calendar date instead, showing what actually runs that day. A stats sidebar summarizes Total Stops, Active Routes, Technicians, and Unassigned jobs, plus a per-day distribution of stops.
Field Operations is the real-time counterpart — a live map of active routes, technician locations, and job status while the day is running, with admin controls to skip stops or force-complete routes. See admin route tools. For what the technician sees on their phone, see run your route.
Frequently asked questions
How does route optimization order the stops?
Optimization is based on location and drive time, using Google Maps. Each day slot in the Route Builder has its own Optimize button.
Does optimization need the technician to have a home address?
No. Optimization anchors on the route's start and end location if you've set one, then the technician's address if their employee profile has one, and otherwise on the route's current first stop. Filling in a technician's address (or the route's start/end location) makes the ordering more accurate, because the drive from home and back is counted, but it is not required.
Is there a limit on how many stops a route can optimize?
No practical limit. Google optimizes 25 stops per request, so longer routes are optimized in chained segments — a 40-stop route is split into consecutive chunks that are each ordered for shortest drive time, with the linking stop shared between them.
Why are there no jobs to add to my route?
Either every job is already assigned, or the only remaining jobs are archived — the Add Job to Route screen warns you when that's the case and links to restore them. You can also create a new job on the spot with the Create a Job quick-create dialog.
Can a pool be serviced more than once a week?
Yes — multi-visit-per-week scheduling is supported, alongside weekly, biweekly, monthly, quarterly, semiannual, and annual frequencies.
Why don't my quarterly filter cleans show in the Route Builder?
The builder lays out weekly, biweekly, and monthly jobs; quarterly, semiannual, and annual jobs are hidden there (day slots show a count of them). Schedule those from the job page's Add to Route button or the Add Jobs to Route screen — they appear on the route only in the weeks they occur.
What decides whether a route edit is permanent?
The mode toggle at the top of the route page. The dated day card ("Single day only") makes edits that affect only that date; Recurring Schedule ("All future weeks") makes permanent changes. A banner always states which mode you're editing in.