Strategic Optimizations – Automated Multi-Frequency Strategic Cycle Planning With Recurring Routing

Route4Me’s Strategic Optimizations simplify and automate complex strategic cycle planning tasks for multi-frequency delivery and service schedules over extended planning periods. Sync data via SFTP, upload Customer addresses with schedules, evaluate multiple optimization scenarios, and create recurring route plans for thousands of routes with weekly, bi-weekly, or other visit requirements with one click.

All you have to do is upload your data, and Route4Me’s enterprise route optimization API will handle the rest according to your recurring schedules. In this guide, you’ll learn about Strategic Optimizations and how to use them for selecting the most optimal high-volume recurring route scenarios.

NOTE: “Cycle” in Recurring Routing with Strategic Optimizations refers to an instance when a specific Recurring Schedule repeats.

Route4Me Strategic Route Optimizations For Multi-Frequency Recurring Routes

Planning hundreds and even thousands of routes, all with different Recurring Schedules and visitation frequencies, is easy with Strategic Route Optimizations. Simply upload your Customer Locations or sync data via SFTP upload, and Strategic Optimizations will automatically generate the most efficient Scenarios and Route Plans.
Then, follow the steps below to evaluate and select the best Scenarios for your business needs:

1. Go to Customers > Strategic Optimizations to open your Strategic Optimizations page.
2. Open a strategic plan to see its associated scenarios.
3. Pick and open a scenario that meets your requirements.
4. Click to accept the Scenario Routes either as regular routes or master routes for Recurring Routing.

Your account’s Strategic Optimizations page is where you can view, filter, and open Strategic Optimizations and their associated Scenarios. Keep reading to learn more about each of the above steps.

Open Your Strategic Optimizations

Upload Locations – Plan Multi-Frequency Recurring Routes From Spreadsheet

To upload a spreadsheet file with customer locations and schedule data, click “Create Optimization“. Then, either browse and select a file from your device or simply drag and drop a spreadsheet file into the “Create Optimization” panel.

Route4Me’s Strategic Optimizations will automatically validate your data and map it to internal variables for optimization. If a column wasn’t validated, click the Down Arrow and select the correct data type from the menu. Once you’ve confirmed your uploaded data, click “Continue“.

Additionally, you can select “Ignore” from the menu to omit certain data columns from processing and optimization. Similarly, if a data column is necessary but not already listed, select the “Custom” option to associate that collumn’s data to route destinations as Route4Me Custom Data.

NOTE: Especially large datasets with thousands of locations and complex schedules may take slightly longer to optimize.

Once you’ve imported your data, you can configure optimization parameters for strategic cycle planning using the JSON format. Additionally, you can use the blue bar above the configurator to format your JSON text.

You can find a list of configuration parameters for recurring strategic cycle optimization in the table below and a JSON code snippet showing minimal necessary configuration settings under the table.

[
 {
  "route_max_duration": 28800,
  "rt": 1,
  "route_time": 43200,
  "parts": 99,
  "slowdowns": {
   "service_time": 10,
   "travel_time": 10
  },
  "is_flexible_start_time": false,
  "timezone": "America/New_York",
  "scheduler": {
   "start_date": "2030-01-01",
   "cycles": 4,
   "blackout_days": [],
   "blackout_dates": []
  },
  "scheduler_name": "Strategic Cycle Planning Configuration",
 }
]

Locations Spreadsheet – Data Columns And Formatting For Strategic Optimizations

Formatting a locations spreadsheet for strategic planning is similar to regualr Route4Me Spreadsheet Formatting. The table below outlines supported data columns and shows which are mandatory for strategic optimization with recurring routing. You can also click the green button to download an example locations spreadsheet with mandatory and optional columns.

Download Example Locations Spreadsheet

NOTE: If a location has no specific schedule and should be visited once per cycle, all schedulding fields must be left blank.

Filter And Customize Strategic Optimizations Data Table

To find a specific Strategic Plan on your account, you can use custom filters or search for a Plan by name with the “Search” field.

Click the “Created Date” button to open the calendar and filter Strategic Plans by their creation date or time frame. Then, you can further refine the shown Optimizations by clicking the “Filters” button. Currently, you can filter Plans by the number of associated Scenarios and Customer Locations.

Furthermore, you can customize the columns on your Strategic Optimizations page to see only the data relevant to your needs. To do so, click the Display Columns Button and check the boxes next to the columns you wish to enable. After that, you can change their positions by dragging column names. Accordingly, columns listed from top to bottom are displayed from left to right on your Strategic Optimizations. Click the “Apply” button to save your data column settings.

Open Scenarios And Customer Locations From The Strategic Optimizations

Strategic Optimizations provide an overview of your Recurring Routing Scenarios bundled into Optimizations. To view more detailed data about a specific optimization and its associated scenarios, click the “Open” button.

On the “Scenarios” page, you can see the scenarios included in the Strategic Optimization you opened and their associated data such as the number of routes, visits, average and total route durations, and more.

Click the “Locations” tab to see the Customer Locations associated with the Strategic Optimization and its Scenarios. Additionally, here’s where you can find data relating to the visit frequency and pattern of each location.

Customize Scenario Data Columns And Settings

Just like Strategic Optimizations, you can customize the data shown for your Scenarios. To do so, click the Display Columns Button and check the boxes next to the columns you wish to enable. After that, you can change their positions by dragging column names. Accordingly, columns listed from top to bottom are displayed from left to right on the “Scenarios” page. Click the “Apply” button to save your data column settings.

The “Scenarios” and “Locations” tabs support different data columns. See the table below for more information about each tab’s supported columns.

Open And Accept Scenario Route Plans For Regular Or Recurring Routing

To see detailed information about a Scenario’s associated Route Plans, click the “Open” button next to a Scenario. This enables you to evaluate Strategic Scenarios in detail before accepting and adding routes to your account.

Once you open a Scenario, you can see the routes associated with it, including details like start time, planned distance and duration, number of destinations, etc. The combined totals for these metrics are shown in the Summary Panel on the left. For your convenience, Scenario Routes are grouped by week, giving you an overview of their recurring schedules and visitation patterns.

If the Scenario Route Plans meet your requirements, simply click the “Import All as Master Routes” button to add those routes to your account as Master Routes for Recurring Schedules. Alternatively, click the Down Arrow button to add the routes to your account as ad-hoc, non-recurring routes. NOTE: Non-recurring routes will be scheduled for the dates and times shown in the Scenario and won’t repeat.

To get a detailed breakdown of the visitation frequency and schedules for all destinations included in a Scenario, click the “Destinations Schedule” tab. Here, you can see the Customers and Customer Locations associated with destinations in the Scenario Route Plans. Additionally, you can see the visitation frequency and weekday schedules of each destination.

Customize Route Plan Data Columns And Settings

You can easily customize the data shown for your route plans. This streamlines the process of evaluating a Strategic Scenario and simplifies decision-making. To do so, click the Display Columns Button and check the boxes next to the columns you wish to enable. After that, you can change their positions by dragging column names. Accordingly, columns listed from top to bottom are displayed from left to right on a Scenario’s page. Click the “Apply” button to save your data column settings.

The “Routes” and “Destination Schedules” tabs support different data columns. See the table below for more information about each tab’s supported columns.

Last Updated: January 1, 2025August 27, 2025