Route Health and Optimize all

Read the Route Health page

1. 1Open Route Schedule → Route Health. Last checked under the title says when the numbers were made. They refresh every week on their own; Check again reruns the check now in the background, and Last checked updates when it finishes.
2. 2The green banner adds up the day changes: miles a week and driving time across the cards below. Each card names the customer, the days (for example Wed → Tue) and the technician. Apply moves the stop for good, keeping its visit count, spacing and technician. The X dismisses it.
3. 3The white panel under the banner covers the rest. Its first line is how many miles a week your routes drive in total. Stop order shows how many routes aren't optimized yet and about how many miles a week optimizing them saves, with an Optimize all button. Commute names any technician who spends a large share of their week getting to their first stop and back, and whether their routes start at their home address or at the route's own start location.

Day changes only move a stop between one technician's own days, and only when it saves at least 2 miles a week. They never move a stop to a different technician. Moving stops between technicians is what Rebalance and Auto-Assign in the Route Builder do (see build and optimize routes).

Day change cards stay after you optimize. Optimize all only changes the order of stops within each route, never which day a customer is on, so it can't answer a day change card: only Apply or the X does. After Optimize all changes any route, Route Health checks again on its own, and Last checked updates when that finishes; until then the numbers are from before. Optimize this week plans the coming dates, not your weekly routes, so it doesn't change Route Health's numbers or cards. If Last checked looks older than your last changes, click Check again.

A technician needs a home address, or their routes a start location, for Route Health to measure their driving. Without either, their routes are left out of the numbers.

Optimize every route at once

Optimize all is in the header of Route Schedule, in the Stop order row on Route Health, and in the Route Builder header (in the ⋯ menu on a narrow screen). All three open the same window and do the same thing. You need the Edit routes permission.

1. 1Click Optimize all. The Optimize every route window explains what happens: What changes is only the order of stops within each route, and it is permanent: every week from then on runs in the new order, not just this week. Quarterly, twice-yearly and yearly stops go at the end of the route. What stays the same is days, technicians and visit counts. Locked stops, timed stops, one-time work orders and unplanned stops keep their spots, and so does any date you reordered by hand in Single day only mode.
2. 2It lists the routes that get a new order, one row per technician with a chip per day. A green chip shows the estimated miles a week that day saves. An amber dot marks a route a technician is driving right now: they keep today's order, and the new order starts on that route's next run.
3. 3By default it does the routes that were never optimized, or changed since they were. Tick Also optimize the N routes already optimized to redo those too.
4. 4Click Optimize N routes. Google Maps orders each route for the shortest drive, which takes about a minute. The window then says how many routes got a new stop order and how many were already in the best order. Any route Google couldn't optimize is listed and keeps its order; try it again in a few minutes.
5. 5Route Health rechecks your routes right after, so its numbers reflect the new orders.

Optimize this week around appointments

Optimize all orders your weekly routes. Real days also have one-time jobs, parts runs and other unplanned stops, often at a promised time. Optimize this week (in the Route Schedule header, next to Optimize all) plans each route day of the next 7 days as it will actually run, with all of those stops together. It meets every promised time first, waiting if the technician would arrive early, then keeps driving to the least. A parts pickup always comes before the job it is for, and locked stops stay where they are.

1. 1Click Optimize this week. It plans the days first and shows each one under its date: the technician, the number of stops, about how many miles the new order saves, and N appointments on time. When the current order would be late for a visit, it says how many late visits the new order puts back on time.
2. 2If a promised time can't be met in any order, the day says so (Can't make the customer, their time, and about when the technician would get there). Move that stop to another day or technician, or change its time.
3. 3A date that already has its own order (from a booking or a hand reorder) says Replaces this date's own order. Tick Leave days that already have their own order to skip those.
4. 4Click Apply to N days. Only those dates change. Days a technician already started are left alone.

Ask George

Ask George "are my routes optimal?" or "how can my routes save miles?" He reads the same numbers and answers with all three: which routes would save the most from a better stop order, the Route Health day changes, and any technician whose commute is most of their week. He can run Optimize all for you after you approve his card, and apply or dismiss a Route Health card.

Frequently asked questions