How do I create recurring routes?

If you plan deliveries on a consistently recurring schedule - for example, planning every weeknight for delivery the following day, or planning once a week for delivery every Wednesday - follow the steps below to streamline recurring route planning with relative Route Scheduling and Saved Views.

Example 1: Recurring Deliveries for "Tomorrow"

This workflow will plan routes that are scheduled for the following calendar date ("Tomorrow"), filter orders for routing that have delivery date attributes indicating delivery for the following calendar date, auto-add them to the map for streamlined routing, and auto-assign and dispatch the route to a selected driver on creation:

  1. From your EasyRoutes Settings > General tab, access the Additional options section and ensure the Automatically add orders to map when on a saved view setting is enabled as shown below. If you prefer to manually add each matching order to the map, this step can be skipped. Click Save at the top of the page to save your changes:

  1. From your EasyRoutes Orders page, click the Add/edit options button below the map to access your active Route Options.
  2. In the How many routes? panel, select the driver you'd like routes to be auto-assigned to as shown below:

  1. Scroll down to the Route scheduling option, and click the Enable button. Select "Tomorrow" from the Schedule route for: dropdown, and select the time of day you'd like the route to begin. Ensure the Auto-dispatch to driver when route is created checkbox is also selected, as shown below:

  1. Enable or configure any other desired route options (time per stop, max route duration, driver tasks, etc.), and click the Save button at the top of the page to return to the Orders page. Any active route options will now be summarized below the map.
  2. Click the Add filter button below your active route options, and select Delivery date. From the list that appears, select Tomorrow as shown below - this will apply a filter to only display orders with attributes indicating a delivery date of the next calendar date; any other desired order filters can also be enabled at this time:

  1. Click the Save view button (star icon) found above the map, and input a name for this saved view before clicking Save:

  1. This will create a new tab at the top of your Orders page with selected route options and order filters already applied; navigate to this tab, and orders that match the filter conditions applied (i.e. with delivery dates matching tomorrow's calendar date) will automatically be added to the map. Click the Create route button at the top of the page to generate a route with these orders, and automatically dispatch it to the driver selected in your Step #3:

Additional Tips:

  • Once configured as described above, the Saved View tab can be accessed daily to quickly filter and plan routes for orders requiring delivery the following day.
  • If your route planning workflows don't currently incorporate Delivery Date order attributes, any other filter variable (by order tag, postal code, delivery status, or delivery method, for example) can be applied in Step #6 to narrow down the list of orders that will be contained within a Saved View.
    • Order tags can be manually added to any individual order or to multiple orders in bulk from the Orders page of the Shopify Admin - full details in this Shopify support article.
  • If your routes are planned the morning of same-day deliveries (instead of the day prior as in the example above), follow the same steps described above, but select Today from the Route Scheduling panel in Step #4, and Today from the Delivery date filter control in Step #6. When configured in this manner, routes will be scheduled for the same day as creation, and contain only orders with attributes indicating a delivery date matching today's calendar date.
  • EasyRoutes supports multiple Saved View tabs - users can follow the steps above to create multiple tabs, for example "Today's Deliveries" and "Tomorrow's Deliveries" if route planning is often conducted both the day prior to delivery as well as the same day as delivery.

Example 2: Weekly Recurring Deliveries

This workflow will plan routes that are scheduled for a specific day of the week (in this example, every Wednesday), filter orders for routing that have order tags indicating a particular day of the week for delivery, auto-add them to the map for streamlined routing, and auto-assign and dispatch the route to a selected driver on creation:

  1. From your EasyRoutes Settings > General tab, access the Additional options section and ensure the Automatically add orders to map when on a saved view setting is enabled as shown below. If you prefer to manually add each matching order to the map, this step can be skipped. Click Save at the top of the page to save your changes:

  1. From your EasyRoutes Orders page, click the Add/edit options button below the map to access your active Route Options.
  2. In the How many routes? panel, select the driver you'd like routes to be auto-assigned to as shown below:

  1. Scroll down to the Route scheduling option, and click the Enable button. Select "Next Wednesday" (or an alternate "Next" day of the week, depending on your delivery schedule) from the Schedule route for: dropdown, and select the time of day you'd like the route to begin. Ensure the Auto-dispatch to driver when route is created checkbox is also selected, as shown below:

  1. Enable or configure any other desired route options (time per stop, max route duration, driver tasks, etc.), and click the Save button at the top of the page to return to the Orders page. Any active route options will now be summarized below the map.
  2. Click the Add filter button below your active route options, and select Tagged with. From the list that appears, select the tag used to indicate delivery on Wednesdays as shown below - this will apply a filter to only display orders with matching order tags; any other desired order filters can also be enabled at this time:

  1. Click the Save view button (star icon) found above the map, and input a name for this saved view before clicking Save:

  1. This will create a new tab at the top of your Orders page with selected route options and order filters already applied; navigate to this tab, and orders that match the filter conditions applied (i.e. with order tags indicating Wednesday delivery) will automatically be added to the map. Click the Create route button at the top of the page to generate a route with these orders, schedule it for the following Wednesday, and automatically dispatch it to the driver selected in Step #3:

Additional Tips:

  • Once configured as described above, the Saved View tab can be accessed weekly to quickly filter and plan routes for orders requiring delivery on a particular day of the week.
  • If your route planning workflows don't currently incorporate order tags, any other filter variable (by postal code, delivery status, or delivery method, for example) can be applied in Step #6 to narrow down the list of orders that will be displayed within a Saved View.
    • Order tags can be manually added to any individual order or to multiple orders in bulk from the Orders page of the Shopify Admin - full details in this Shopify support article.
  • EasyRoutes supports multiple Saved View tabs: users can follow the steps above to create multiple tabs - for example "Wednesday Deliveries" and "Sunday Deliveries" - by modifying the day of the week selected from the Route Scheduling panel in Step #4, and the contents of the tag selected from the "Tagged with" filter control in Step #6.
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