Plan trips on the map

Map planning is a dashboard tab that shows the orders still to plan, the trips in a period and your vehicles on one map. You select orders on the map, combine them into a trip for a vehicle and save it. Transportial also has a simpler map overview on the dashboard; it is described at the end of this article.

Open map planning

1. Click the home icon (Dashboard) in the header.
2. Make sure the dashboard view is set to Planning.
3. Click the Map planning tab.

The tab only appears when your platform has the Map planning feature. Trips, vehicles and orders you open from the map appear in a side panel, and reloading the page keeps you on the tab. In Transportial Desktop, Go > Map planning opens the same page full-screen, without the dashboard around it.

The screen

• Header: the period (for example "Today"), counts of orders to plan, trips and free vehicles, arrows and a date picker for the period, a filter icon and a refresh icon.
• Sidebar: the tabs Orders, Trips and Vehicles, each with a search box. Tick Only what is in the map view to limit the list to the part of the map you see.
• Map: orders at their pickup location, trips as lines through their stops, and vehicles colored by availability.
• Panel on the right: details of what you selected, or the trip you are building.

Choose what the map shows

• In the Show box, switch Orders, Pickup → delivery lines, Trips and Vehicles on or off.
• Under Color orders by, choose Status, Customer or Pickup day (Overdue, Today, Tomorrow, Later). The legend explains the colors.
• Use the base map picker to switch maps, for example to satellite. See Map layers and overlays.

Select orders

1. Click an order on the map to select it. Hold Ctrl, Cmd or Shift while clicking to add or remove more orders.
2. To select an area, hold Shift and drag a rectangle, or choose Select an area (rectangle) or Select an area (lasso) in the map toolbar and draw.
3. Hold Alt when you release the mouse to remove the orders in the area from your selection instead.
4. Or tick orders in the Orders list, or click Select all.
5. Check the Selected orders panel: it shows the number of orders, the weight and the loading meters.

Press Esc to step back through your selection. Show everything zooms the map to all data.

Build a new trip

1. Optionally click a free vehicle on the map or in the Vehicles tab. The panel then shows capacity bars for weight and loading meters; they turn red above 100%.
2. Click Plan new trip (or Plan on followed by the vehicle name).
3. Check the stops under Stops in order. Transportial proposes an order by distance from the vehicle's start point and never puts a delivery before its pickup.
4. Drag stops to change the order, or click Re-sort by distance. Click × next to a stop to remove that order from the trip.
5. Under Vehicle, drivers & start, choose or change the Vehicle, the Drivers and the Start time. Optionally enter a Name (optional); otherwise one is generated.
6. If Route options appears, compare Fastest, Eco and Cheapest on drive time, distance, CO₂ and costs, and click the option you want.
7. Click Create trip. A message confirms it, with an Open trip button.

The road route is recalculated after every change. Click Discard to throw the draft away. Route options need Route alternatives switched on in your planning settings.

Add orders to an existing trip

1. Select the orders.
2. In the Selected orders panel, choose a trip under Add to an existing trip (Pick a trip…).
3. Click Add. The orders are added after the trip's existing stops.

Or select the orders, click a trip and choose Add selected orders. Only trips that have not started accept new orders.

Let the optimizer propose trips

1. Select the orders to plan.
2. Optionally select one vehicle. Otherwise the optimizer uses every vehicle in the Vehicles list that has a known position.
3. Click Optimize over followed by the number of vehicles.
4. Wait for the Optimizer proposal. The proposed trips replace the normal trip lines on the map.
5. Review the trips, distance, drive time and the orders that could not be placed.
6. Click Save trips to create them, or Discard.

Nothing is saved until you click Save trips.

Look at a trip or vehicle

• Click a trip to see its stops with ETAs and its road route. Click Open trip for the full trip.
• Click a vehicle (with no orders selected) to see its drivers, last position, current trip and when and where it becomes free. Click Open vehicle for the full vehicle.
• With the Recommendations feature, selecting a single order shows Best-fitting vehicles. Click one to select it. See Recommendations.

The map overview on the dashboard

On the dashboard, in the Planning view, a map shows vehicles and, if you choose them under Columns, Transport Equipment, Shipment and Location. It is for looking, not planning. Use Search..., the filter icon per data type or Global Filter, and tick Show labels under Settings. Click a vehicle or shipment for its details and View full detail. The overview is hidden while the Map planning tab is open, because that tab has its own map.

You can hide this map in Settings > User interface > Dashboard elements by switching off Map planner.