Setting up local delivery with Iris
Local delivery has a lot to decide before your first route: where you deliver, when, what it costs, who drives, what customers hear. Iris walks you through it in the order that matters and finishes by showing you what a customer at a real address would be offered. It takes about fifteen minutes the first time.
There are two ways in:
- On Settings → Local delivery, while you have no delivery area yet, choose Set it up with Iris.
- From the setup checklist on your home page, choose Set up local delivery with Iris. You'll also find it under I want to….
To use the usual screens instead, choose Set up by hand at any time. You can stop at any step with Save and finish later: the setup waits for you under I want to…, and everything you've saved so far is already in your delivery settings.
Everything Iris saves goes through the same screens and rules as Settings → Local delivery. Anything you change here you can change there later, and the other way round. Only an owner or admin can run it; anyone else can read along.
1. Where
- How you deliver. Choose Customers book a time (you offer delivery windows, and customers pick one), Same route on the same day each week (a route for each area and weekday, usually for wholesale customers), or both. You can add the other later in the setup.
- Your delivery area. Give each area a name and list the postal codes it covers, typed or pasted. Iris tells you in words if two areas share a code. Use Add another area for more. An area's own prices come later.
- Where routes start. Routes leave from your default warehouse, so Iris shows its address. You can fix it here. It's placed on the map the next time routes are planned; Iris doesn't do that now.
2. When
For customers book a time:
- Delivery windows. Pick the weekday, the start and end, how many deliveries fit, the areas it serves and whether it's for retail customers, wholesale customers or both. If you tick several weekdays you get one window per day. Saving creates the dated slots straight away, and Iris lists next week's.
- Booking cutoff and timing. The cutoff is said in plain words ("Orders close at 2:00 PM, the day before"). Choose whether retail customers pick a window and wholesale customers pick a date. Only what you change is saved.
For same route each week:
- Weekly routes. One route for each area and weekday, with its hours and, if you like, a capacity. If a choice clashes with another route or window, Iris shows the reason next to the field, exactly as the Routes screen does. You choose who drives a route in step 4.
Iris won't let you go past this act while a window serves no area, or while you have neither a window nor a weekly route.
3. What it costs
- Fees and minimums. The delivery fee, the order size that earns free delivery and the smallest order you'll deliver, for the whole business. An empty box means the rule is off. Under each area you can set different numbers: an empty box follows the business, 0 means zero, and Never free here switches free delivery off for that area. A line for each area shows a worked example ("A $40.00 order in North pays $8.00; at $50.00 it's free."), worked out by the same rules your orders use. Whether the fee is taxed is set under Settings → Sales tax; Iris links you there.
- Which orders go on routes. For staff orders, the customer portal, your store and each connected shop, choose who can have local delivery. Marketplace orders (Amazon, Walmart and the like) are always off. For WooCommerce, the Iraca plugin's shipping method is what offers windows at your store's checkout.
4. Who delivers
- Drivers. Add each driver's name, email, phone and sign-in language. Drivers don't use team seats, and Iris sends them nothing now: a driver gets a sign-in code when they open the app. Copy the Driver app link from here.
- Shifts. For customers who book a time, fill in the Monday-to-Sunday grid so automatic planning knows who works when, or choose I'll build routes by hand. For weekly routes, choose each route's default driver instead. A driver can be the default on only one route per day.
- Routing and proof. When the day starts and ends, minutes per stop for retail and wholesale, whether drivers return to the warehouse, and the proof you want (a photo for retail, a signature for wholesale). Iris shows today's values in words and saves only what you change.
Missing drivers or shifts show as a warning, not a stop: you can build routes now and staff them later.
5. What customers hear
- Notifications. The email switches by customer type and event (booked, reminder, out for delivery, running late, delivered, failed). Text-message switches appear only if your business can send texts. You can add a review link. Preview shows the booked email exactly as a customer would read it, made-up order included, in your documents' language or the other one. Nothing is sent.
- Public delivery-area page (optional). Turn it on to get a link where anyone can type a postal code and see whether you deliver, which days, and what it costs. It shows days and money only, never your routes.
6. Try it
Type a postal code and a basket value, or tap one of your areas, then choose See what they'd be offered. Iris shows what a retail customer and a wholesale customer would each see: the area, the fee and how much more earns free delivery, and the next open times or delivery days. If delivery isn't offered it says why: outside every area, under the minimum, or nothing open. It's the same answer your customer portal and order screens give. Nothing is ordered or booked.
Then Finish. Finishing only marks the setup as done; nothing is created or sent. Iris then points you to the dispatch board, the Driver app link, and the Local delivery box on staff orders. Customers see delivery at checkout in the portal and your store where a channel rule allows it.
Starting over
Start over removes what this setup made, but only what nothing uses yet:
- a window stays if any order is booked into it;
- a weekly route stays if an order, a planned trip, a window or a customer's standing day uses it;
- a driver stays if they have a route on record or are a route's default driver;
- an area stays while a window or route serves it.
Iris lists what it kept. Anything that existed before you started is never removed, and settings you changed stay as they are.