Create Master Routes And Recurring Schedules

Route4Me’s Scheduled & Recurring Routing is designed for all types of last mile businesses who want to automate repeating route scheduling, planning recurring schedule delivery routes, and dispatch operations using enterprise route optimization software.

No more headaches, planning the same routes over and over again, late arrivals, missed customer visits, having to remember hundreds of thousands of schedules, etc. We’ll schedule, plan, and dispatch optimized routes for you, weeks, months, or up to 12 months in advance. All you need to do is:

1. Use any optimized route as a Master Route Template
2. Add a custom Recurring Schedule to the Master Route Template
   • Add multiple daily, weekly, monthly, or annual Schedule Rules
   • Pre-assign drivers and vehicles for route auto dispatch
   • Plan Recurring Routes days or months before their start time
   • Add non-operating days to the blacklist
3. Save the Master Route Template and its Recurring Schedule with a touch of a button

Make day-specific changes to individual planned routes based on new tasks and goals: add new addresses, remove canceled visits, update order details, and much more. Manage individual routes or update and reschedule routes in bulk.

Create a Master Route & Recurring Schedule

NOTE: A Master Route is the route template used for creating Recurring Routes based on the corresponding Recurring Schedule rules.

You can create a Master Route to automate route planning for subscription-based scheduled delivery similar to Amazon’s Subscribe and Save and any other recurring schedule delivery routes. For example, you can use Master Routes to leverage a preventive maintenance schedule or to send vehicles to scheduled service appointments.

You can create a Master Route with its Recurring Schedule from the Routes List or Routes Map. First, go to the Routes List or Routes Map from the navigation menu. Next, click on the gear icon or right-click on the route you want to use as the Master Route template and then select Adjust Recurring Schedule from the menu.

Master Route – Recurring Schedule Editor

Next, use the Master Route – Recurring Schedule editor to set up a Recurring Schedule for the given Master Route:

1. A Master Route automatically inherits the Name of the route you used as a template. You can rename the Master Route when creating it and after it’s been created.
2. Recurring Routes are scheduled and planned based on the Recurring Schedule rules, exceptions, and other settings.
3. Recurring Schedule Blacklist contains schedule exceptions. Schedule exceptions are blacklisted dates on which the given Recurring Schedule can’t create any Recurring Routes.
4. The Schedule Preview shows the dates with already created (dark blue), scheduled (light blue), or blacklisted dates (red).
5. You can Assign a User and a Vehicle to the Recurring Schedule, and whenever a new Recurring Route is created, the corresponding User and Vehicle will be automatically assigned to it.
6.  You can create Recurring Routes for a specific number of Days in Advance before the start of the associated Master Route.

To add a new Recurring Schedule Rule, click on the Add New Rule button:

1. Frequency: You can adjust the frequency of scheduling and creating new Recurring Routes: Daily, Weekly, Monthly, and Annually.
2. Start Date and End Date: You can specify when the given rule will start working and when it will stop (end) working. The Repeat Forever rule end date means that the rule doesn’t have an end date.

Daily Delivery Recurring Schedule

The daily routing schedule frequency allows you to schedule and repeatedly plan Recurring Routes every day for daily delivery, every second day, every third day, etc., until the given rule’s end date with your business route planning software.

To add a Recurring Schedule Rule with the Daily frequency, click on the Daily radio button and then specify the Daily repetition frequency. For example, if you select the Daily schedule frequency and specify 1 as the repetition frequency, then a new Recurring Route will be created every day.

If you select the Daily schedule frequency and specify 2 as the repetition frequency, then a new Recurring Route will be created every other day (every second day) and so on. To finish, adjust the preferred Start and End Dates for the given rule and click on the Save button.

Weekly Delivery Recurring Schedule

Weekly routing schedule frequency allows you to schedule weekly deliveries and repeatedly plan Recurring Routes on specific days of every week.

To add a Weekly Recurring Schedule Rule, click on the Weekly radio button. Next, select the days of the week for which you want to schedule and plan Recurring Routes. After that, use the Repeat Every N Week field to specify how frequently the given weekly rule should be repeated (every week, every second week, etc.).

For example, if you select the following Recurring Schedule Rule Parameters:

• Frequency: Weekly
• Repeat every N week: 1
• Select day(s) of the week: Monday, Wednesday, Friday

A new Recurring Route will be scheduled and planned for every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, every week.

Monthly Delivery Recurring Schedule

Monthly routing schedule frequency allows you to schedule monthly deliveries and repeatedly plan Recurring Routes on specific days of every month with the easiest route dispatch software.

To add a Monthly Recurring Schedule Rule, click on the Monthly radio button. Next, use the calendar to pick the days of the month for which you want to schedule and plan Recurring Routes. After that, use the Repeat Every N Month field to specify how frequently the given monthly rule should be repeated (every month, every other month, etc.).

Click on the On Date(s) radio button to pick the dates for which you want to schedule Recurring Routes right on the schedule calendar.

Click on the On Day(s) radio button to pick on the calendar specific days of the month for which you want to schedule Recurring Routes. For example, if you select the following Recurring Schedule Rule Parameters:

• Frequency: Monthly
• Repeat every N month: 1
• On Day(s): 2nd + Friday

A new Recurring Route will be scheduled and planned for the second Friday of every following month.

Annual or Seasonal Delivery Recurring Schedule

Annual routing schedule frequency allows you to schedule seasonal deliveries and repeatedly plan Recurring Routes on specific days of the selected month(s) of every year.

To add an Annual Recurring Schedule Rule, click on the Annually radio button. Next, select one or multiple months and then specify on what day within each month you want to schedule and plan Recurring Routes. After that, use the Repeat Every N Year field to specify how frequently the given annual rule should be repeated (every year, every other year, etc.).

For example, if you select the following Recurring Schedule Rule parameters:

• Frequency: Annually
• Repeat every N year: 1
• Select Month(s) of the year: January, May, September
• On: 3rd + Monday

A new Recurring Route will be scheduled every third Monday in every January, May, and September of every year.

Recurring Schedule Blacklist & Exceptions

You can blacklist dates on which you don’t want to have any scheduled and planned Recurring Routes for auto-delivery and automatic shipping. To blacklist Recurring Schedule dates, click on the Add New Exception button. Next, select the dates that you want to blacklist. You can add multiple routing schedule exceptions to the same Recurring Schedule. On the example below, no Recurring Route will be created from the 17th to the 23rd of October, 2021. In this case, no scheduled delivery, scheduled shipping, or scheduled maintenance will be routed during the specified period of time.

Multiple Rules – Recurring Schedule

Route4Me’s Scheduled & Recurring Routing is designed for any last mile business with repetitive routing schedules for various purposes – from shipping subscription boxes, repeated orders, and recurring purchases to daily food delivery and fleet preventive maintenance schedules. Therefore, you can add multiple rules to the same Recurring Schedule to perfectly fit your business needs and unique business model. Adding multiple schedule rules allows you to create virtually any possible custom Recurring Schedule you want.

Auto Dispatch Recurring Routes

To save you time on dispatching, Route4Me allows you to auto dispatch scheduled deliveries or shipments and planned Recurring Routes to your drivers and telematics vehicles. You can assign a User and assign a Vehicle to a Master Route with a Recurring Schedule, and whenever a new Recurring Route is created, this route will be automatically dispatched to the assigned User and/or Vehicle.

Create Recurring Routes for Delivery in Advance

By default, Recurring Routes are created from 6 to 8 AM (local time zone) 1 day before the start of the given Master Route. For more insight into the future workload, driver scheduling, better planning, etc., Route4Me’s easiest route management software enables you to create Recurring Routes several days in advance of the Master Route’s scheduled start.

To Create Recurring Routes N Days in Advance, specify the preferred number of days in the corresponding field. If you need to create Recurring Routes more than 7 days in advance, please upgrade your module plan.

Before saving the Master Route and its Recurring Schedule, use the Schedule Preview to see all dates for which Recurring Routes are scheduled, planned, and/or blacklisted. On the Schedule Preview:

• Light blue color indicates the dates for which Recurring Routes are scheduled.
• Dark blue color indicates the dates for which Recurring Routes have already been planned. NOTE: You can have already planned Recurring Routes displayed in the Schedule Overview only when you plan routes in advance.
• Red color indicates the dates for which Route4Me will not schedule or plan any Recurring Routes.

After you name the Master Route, add one or multiple schedule rules and exceptions (optional), and assign a User and/or Vehicle, click on the Save button to save the Master Route together with its Recurring Schedule.

Manage Master Route and Its Recurring Schedule

You can manage and edit Master Routes & Recurring Route Schedules at any time to update already planned and future scheduled Recurring Routes:

• Edit the Master Route using the Route Editor – add new addresses, remove addresses, re-optimize, change sequence, update business routing rules, etc.
• Edit the Recurring Schedule of the Master Route – remove rules, add new rules, edit rules, blacklist dates, etc.
• Assign User to the Master Route – all Recurring Routes will be automatically dispatched to the selected User.
• Assign Vehicle to the Master Route – all Recurring Routes will be automatically dispatched to the selected Vehicle.
• Delete Master Route – When you delete a Master Route, all already planned Recurring routes remain unchanged.

Manage & Edit Planned Recurring Routes

Once Recurring Routes are planned based on the corresponding Recurring Route Schedule, you can manage and edit each Recurring Route individually using the Route Editor. You can manage individual Recurring Routes to add more addresses, update order details, customer contacts, visitation sequence, etc.

Recurring Routes can be accessed in your Routes List and Routes Map as regular routes. Recurring Routes inherit the name of their Master Route Template plus “(Duplicate)” at the end.

NOTE: Please make sure that the time zone in your Route4Me account settings is the same as your local time zone (time zone on your computer). Recurring Routes will be planned based on your Route4Me account time zone and displayed based on the time zone on your device or enterprise route management software.

Get Started With Scheduled & Recurring Routing Now

Automate and streamline route planning, route scheduling, and route dispatch operations with the most popular Recurring Routing software in the market.

Get a Scheduled & Recurring Routing FREE TRIAL 7-DAY TEST DRIVE right now!

Still have questions on how Recurring Route Scheduling and Planning works? See what questions our customers ask and find more answers in our Scheduling & Recurring Routing FAQ.