Facilities Guide – Physical Locations, Depots, Warehouses, Offices, Stores, Distribution Centers, Etc.
Route4Me enables enterprise businesses to integrate their physical locations such as warehouses, distribution centers, and offices into their routing system to enhance operational efficiency. By associating Facilities with team members, vehicles, and other assets, you can streamline route planning and optimize resource allocation. This guide will show you how to add and manage Facilities, associate users and vehicles, and plan optimized routes based on Facility locations. Additionally, you’ll learn how to access Facility-specific analytics and KPIs to monitor performance.
Table of Contents
Create Facilities – Add Physical Locations To Your Routing Software Account
To add new Facilities to your Route4Me account, go to “Settings” and “Facilities” from the Navigation Menu. Then, click the “Create New Facility” button. On the “Create New Facility” panel, input the address of the Facility, an alias used for finding the Facility in the system, and the preferred Facility type.
Furthermore, Route4Me enables you to set more than one type for each Facility. This way, you can organize the Facilities on your Route4Me in greater detail to more accurately reflect the reality of your business. To do so, select all the Facility Types that apply to the new Facility. When you select more than one Facility Type, you can mark a single Facility Type as the “Primary Type” by clicking the Radio Button next to the preferred type. At least one Facility Type must be selected, and only one type can be the Primary Type. In detail, the Primary Facility Type is the Facility Type used by the system when sorting facilities and optimizing routes with Facilities. Below, you can find a list of the supported Facility Types on Route4Me’s Enterprise Route Planning Software.
NOTE: For your convenience, the following Facility Type names are generic, and you can interpret and use them as you see fit for your specific business type and model. In detail, the following Facility Types enable you to classify Facilities according to your preference and are not associated with specific functionality outside of your settings and preferences.
| Facility Type | Description |
|---|---|
| Depot | Centralized Facility where assigned vehicles can be located and from where routes usually begin. |
| Warehouse | Storage Facility for inventory management, facilitating order storage and shipment preparation. |
| Fulfilment Center | Specialized Facility handling order processing, sorting orders, and shipping orders directly to customers, optimizing e-commerce operations. |
| Distribution Center | Central Facility for receiving, storing, and redistributing goods or products to various destinations, improving supply chain performance. |
| Distribution Hub | Facility for sorting and transferring shipments to multiple destinations, enhancing route efficiency. |
| Cross-Dock | Facility where inbound orders or parcels are consolidated into the outbound mixed product pallets, streamlining the delivery process. |
| Transloading Facility | Location where goods are transferred between different modes of transportation, streamlining multimodal logistics. |
| Consolidation Center | Facility where smaller shipments are combined into larger loads for efficient transportation and cost reduction. |
| Breakbulk Facility | Facility where large bulk shipments are handled, stored, and broken down into smaller units for easier distribution to final to middle mile or last mile destinations. |
| Office | Administrative center for managing logistics operations, including customer service, route planning, team management, and more. |
| Retail Store | Physical location where customers can purchase goods directly. Can be used as local pickup points in last mile delivery. |
| Retail Shop | Smaller retail location offering direct sales to consumers, integrated into the last mile delivery network for local accessibility. |
| Return to Sender Center | Physical location where return orders are stored and later returned to the original sender. |
Manage Facilities – Edit And Filter Facilities On Your Route4Me Account
Furthermore, you can adjust the same Facility details you set when creating Facilities by clicking the “Edit Facility” button on the Facilities List. In detail, you can change the address of a Facility, rename a Facility by changing its Alias, and change its Facility Type and Primary Facility Type.
Additionally, you can open the Facilities Map by clicking the Map Button in the top right. Each of your facilities is marked on the map and assigned a number corresponding to the number in the “#” column of the Facilities List.
Each Facility on your Route4Me account has an associated status. In detail, “Active” Facilities can be used by the system when optimizing routes and are available when assigning users and vehicles to Facilities on the main Route4Me account. Facilities with the “Archived” status are inactive and aren’t used by the software when optimizing routes and aren’t available when assigning users and vehicles to Facilities.
To archive a Facility and set the “Archived” status, click the Arrow Icon next to the “Edit Facility” button and click “Archive Facility“. After you archive a Facility, you can restore it to the “Active” status by clicking the “Restore Facility” button.
Moreover, you can use Facility Type and Facility Status to filter the Facilities in your Facility List so you see only those Facilities relevant to your management needs. To do so, click the “Filters” button and select the preferred Facility Type and Facility Status. In addition to filtering Facilities, you can use the “Search” field to find Facilities by their Alias or address. NOTE: By default, the Facilities List only shows Facilities with the “Active” status. To see all Facilities, including those with the “Archived” status, click the “Filters” button, click “Status“, check the box next to “Archived“, and click the “Apply” button.
Associate Users With Facilities In Your Route4Me Account
Route planners, dispatchers, drivers, and other members of your route completion team work at Facilities that are part of your organization. For your team management efficiency, Route4Me enables you to assign users to Facilities on your main Route4Me account. To do so, go to “Team” and then “Users” from the Navigation Menu. Then, click the “Edit User” button edit an existing user or click the “Create Users” button to create a new user.
Next, on the “Create New User” or “Edit User” screen, click on the “Facilities” tab. Then, click the “Assign Facilities” button and select the preferred Facilities you want to associate the User with. Furthermore, you can assign a user to more than one Facility for your team management efficiency. Additionally, learn more about Route4Me User Management.
Associate Vehicles With Your Last Mile Business Facilities
Additionally, you can also assign vehicles to Facilities such as depots on your main Route4Me account. To do so, go to “Team” and then “Vehicles” from the Navigation Menu. Then, click”Edit Vehicle” button next to the preferred vehicle or click the “Add New Vehicle” button to create a new vehicle.
Next, on the “Create New Vehicle” or “Edit Vehicle” screen, scroll down to the “Vehicle Facilities” section. Then, click the “Assign Facilities” button, select the preferred Facility you want to assign the vehicle to, and click the “Save” button. Furthermore, you can assign a vehicle to more than one Facility for your fleet management efficiency. This enables you to deploy a vehicle from multiple Facilities and more. Additionally, learn about Route4Me Vehicle Management.
Routes & Facilities – Plan And Associate Routes With Facilities
Route4Me enables you to plan last mile routes and associate them with your business locations. To do so, you can add a Facility to any of your existing Route Optimization Profiles or create new profiles that include Facilities. Go to “Settings” and “Optimization Profiles” from the Navigation Menu and click “Edit Profile” next to an existing profile or click “Create New Profile“. Then, go to the “General” section of the Optimization Profile settings and select the preferred Facility in the “Facility” field.
Open Your Optimization Profiles
Additionally, when a User is planning a route manually, without using an Optimization Profile, the planned and optimized route will automatically be associated with all Facilities assigned to the that User. When using Optimization Profiles, their Facility settings take precedence over the assigned Facilities of the User planning the route. Specifically, routes planned with Optimization Profiles will only be associated with the respective profile’s Facility.
You can learn how to check the associated facilities of your routes further in this guide.
Facility Analytics – Check Associated Facilities Of Routes, Users And Vehicles
Route4Me enables you to seamlessly see which Facilities any of your routes, users, and vehicles are associated with at the touch of a button. Facility attribution data is available directly in your Routes List, Users Snapshots, and Vehicle Snapshots.
Route Attribution – Routes List And Route Snaptshot Facilities Data
To check the associated Facilities of your routes on the Routes List, go to “Routes” from the Navigation Menu. Then, click the Display Columns Icon and check the “Facilities” box to enable the corresponding column and click the “Apply” button. You can also drag columns to any position to better organize your Routes List data and analytics.
Additionally, you can filter the Routes List to show only routes associated with specific facilities. To do so, simply click the “Filters” button and select the preferred options from the dropdown menu.
When you click on a route in your Routes List, you can view a Snapshot of that route’s details and associated destinations, orders, etc. In the Route Snapshot, you can see the Facilities associated with that route directly in the Route Details section on the left.
Additionally, you can enable the “Facilities” column for in the same way as described above. Furthermore, you can filter the Route Snapshot to show only those destinations associated with specific Facilities. To do so, click the “Filters” button and select the preferred options from the dropdown menu.
User Snapshot – Check User And Route Facility Attribution
When you click on a User in your Users List, you can view a Snapshot of that User’s details and associated routes, assets, etc. In the User Snapshot, you can see the Facilities a User is associated with directly in the User Details section on the left.
Additionally, you can enable the “Facilities” column for routes planned by or assigned to the User in the same way as described above for the Routes List. Furthermore, you can filter the User Snapshot to show only those routes associated with specific Facilities. To do so, click the “Filters” button and select the preferred options from the dropdown menu.
Vehicle Attribution – Vehicles List And Vehicle Snaptshot Facilities Data
To check the associated Facilities of your Vehicles on the Vehicles List, go to “Team“, then “Vehicles” from the Navigation Menu. Then, click the Display Columns Icon and check the “Facilities” box to enable the corresponding column and click the “Apply” button. You can also drag columns to any position to better organize your Vehicles Page.
It’s just as easy to see which Facility a vehicle is associated with when you open its Vehicle Snapshot from the Vehicles List. To see the Facilities associated with the routes that vehicle is assigned to, simply enable the Facilities column. Additionally, you can filter routes in the Vehicle Snapshot by their associated Facilities just like with the User Snapshot by clicking the “Filters” button.
Visit Route4Me's Marketplace to Check out Associated Modules:
- Operations
Advanced Team Management Add-On
- Operations
Custom Data Add-On
Last Updated:
About author: Kristian Andreev
