Box.net Data Import – Plan Routes With Data Imported From Box

Box (Box.net) is a cloud-based content management and file sharing service that is widely used by many businesses of different sizes for collaborating with partners and customers while securely storing all valuable information. To accommodate the particular needs of your business or unique business model, the Route4Me Route Planner provides frictionless integration with Box that allows you to access and import data in a fast and effortless manner. Thus, you are able to import spreadsheets with route data into the system directly from your Box account and then use the imported data for planning and optimizing the most cost-effective routes. Being able to import data into Route4Me’s dynamic routing software straight from your Box account allows you to access your information from any point in the world and make your routing and logistics operations more mobile and flexible without having to rely on hard drive storages or being attached to a single computer or mobile device.

To plan one or multiple new routes with the data imported from your Box account, first, go to “Plan New Route” from the navigation menu.

Next, select the “Import Data” option in the corresponding window.

After that, specify the preferred route parameters and then click on the “Create Route and Proceed to Add Addresses” button.

Next, select “Box.net” from the list of all supported third-party cloud-based storages.

Then, click on the “Authorize” button to establish a connection between your Route4Me and Box accounts.

When authorizing Route4Me to connect to your Box account, you can use Google single sign-on for signing into your Box account. To do so, click on the corresponding button and then use your Google Account credentials to sign in.

Alternatively, you can sign into your Box account using your email and password. To do so, first, input your email and password into the corresponding fields and then click on the “Authorize” button.

After that, click on the “Grant Access to Box” button to allow Route4Me to access files on your Box account.

Next, you can use the “Home” root directory to navigate through the folders and files on your Box account in order to find and select the file that you want to use for planning and optimizing one or multiple routes.

You can also use the search to find the preferred folders by name.

Once you open the preferred folder, you can view all files that are stored in this folder on your Box account. Before importing a particular spreadsheet with route data into the system, make sure that this file is either in CSV, XLS, or XLSX format and that it corresponds to Route4Me’s spreadsheet requirements (learn more). In the “Name” column, you can view the names of all files that are stored in the opened folder, and in the “Extension” column you can view the format of each corresponding file.

To import a particular file from your Box account into the system, first, click on this file to select it and then click on the “Import Selected” button to proceed.

Once you import the selected spreadsheet, Route4Me processes the imported data and displays it in the corresponding window. By default, the system automatically processes all imported data with the “Auto (attempt detection)” Upload Encoding. Alternatively, you can manually match column titles to the data contained in the corresponding columns. To proceed, click on the “Continue to Review” button.

In the “Verify Addresses on Map” window, you can view all imported and processed addresses on the map, as well as check their geocoding statuses. Green colored dots indicate that the corresponding addresses were successfully geocoded with “High Confidence.” The addresses that have yellow or red colored dots next to them should be reviewed and fixed accordingly. After reviewing the imported addresses, click on the “Finish Import” button to plan the route(s).

Once the route is planned, it is optimized and then opened in the Route Editor where you can modify it, as well as added to the Routes List with all your routes. When multiple routes are planned from a single spreadsheet, they are opened on the Routes Map (learn more).