The Dispatch Board

With the Local Delivery add-on, Dispatch (under Orders in the sidebar) is where you turn a day's local deliveries into routes, send the vans out, and record how each stop went. It shows one day at a time: the orders booked for it, the routes that carry them, and a map.

How orders become local deliveries in the first place is in Local delivery orders.

Picking the day

Use the arrows beside the date to step a day back or forward, pick any date, or press Today. The line under the title counts the day's orders, routes, and orders not on a route yet.

The number on Dispatch in the sidebar counts deliveries due today or tomorrow that aren't on a route, failed deliveries waiting for another van, and addresses the map can't place.

Orders for the day

The left-hand list shows every local delivery booked for the day, grouped by delivery window. Wholesale orders scheduled for a date without a window are grouped under Date only.

Each order says which route it's on, or Not on a route. You may also see:

• Redelivery: a delivery that failed and hasn't been returned to stock. It's waiting for another van, and shows on every day from its delivery date on until it goes out again.
• Rest of a part-filled order: a stop delivered only part of the order, and the rest needs a route of its own.
• Address not found or No address: the map can't place this address, so no route can be planned through it. Select Fix to open the order and correct the address. The new address is looked up the next time you build or optimize a route.
• Placed at build time: the address hasn't been looked up yet. That happens automatically when you build routes.

Deliveries with no date

If an order came in when nothing was open for its address, it has no date, so it belongs to no day's board. These are listed in a yellow box at the top whatever day you're looking at. Select one to open the order and choose a date or window on its Delivery card.

Building routes

Auto-build

Auto-build hands every order not yet on a route to the route planner and gets back a set of routes. Tell it:

• Vans: how many routes to build at most.
• Most orders per van: leave blank if a van can carry any number.
• Leaves from: the warehouse the vans load at. Your default warehouse unless you pick another.

The planner fits stops into their windows, inside your delivery day, and leaves each stop the time it usually takes. The delivery day and stop times are set in Settings → Local delivery → Routes, and a customer can have their own stop time on their contact record.

Any order that can't be fitted stays off the routes, and a yellow box lists it with the reason: it can't be reached within the delivery day, its window is too short, no van has room, or its address can't be placed on the map. Fix the reason, add a van, or put it on a route by hand.

Planning from driver shifts

If you'd rather not build routes yourself each day, tell Iraca who is working and let it plan.

Open Driver shifts (the button at the top of the board) and add a shift for each driver on each day they work: the days, the hours, and the warehouse they load at. Ticking several days sets the same hours on each. A driver can have one shift per day, and drivers without a shift that day are never given a route.

Then, once everything that can still be booked for a day has closed (the day's last delivery window cutoff, and your cutoff for date-only orders), Iraca plans that day by itself:

• It builds one route per driver on shift, leaving from that shift's warehouse and finishing inside its hours.
• If a driver has a "most orders per van" number on their driver record, the route stops there. Orders that don't fit stay off the routes and are listed as usual.
• It assigns each route to its driver and marks it Auto-planned.

You can also press Plan from shifts on the board to plan the day you're looking at right away.

It never dispatches. Dispatching is what takes the goods off the shelf and books the sale, so it stays your decision. An auto-planned route waits on the board like any other: look it over, change it if you want, and press Dispatch. Until then the driver doesn't see it, and the number on Dispatch in the sidebar counts the planned routes waiting for you, and they appear in your daily digest.

A route is planned once for each shift. Orders that arrive after the plan aren't added to a driver who already has a route: they show as not on a route, so you can add them yourself. Deleting an auto-planned route frees its shift, so planning again builds a new one.

By hand

Tick orders in the left-hand list, then choose New route with N orders, give it a name if you like, and Create route. To add ticked orders to a route you already have, use Add N selected on that route.

A route built by hand isn't planned yet. Press Optimize to put its stops in order and work out the times.

Adjusting a route

Before a route is dispatched you can:

• Reorder a stop with the up and down arrows.
• Move a stop to another route for the same day with Move to….
• Take a stop off with the ×. The order goes back to not on a route.
• Delete the whole route with the bin. Its orders go back to not on a route.

Any change drops the planned times, so the route goes back to Draft until you optimize it again.

When you reorder or move stops, the route is marked Ordered by hand. Iraca keeps your order from then on:

• Plan times works out the arrival times for the stops in your order.
• Re-optimize order lets the planner choose the order again, and clears the mark.

Late stops

If you order stops by hand, a stop can end up planned to arrive after its delivery window closes, for example a morning delivery placed after an afternoon one. Iraca keeps your order but marks the stop Late for its window and shows how many stops are late on the route. When you press Dispatch on a route with late stops, you're asked to confirm first. Arriving early isn't flagged: the driver just waits.

Route names

Routes are numbered in the order they're created for the day: Route 1, Route 2, and so on. A number never changes, even if an earlier route is deleted. To give a route a name, like "North side", select the pencil next to it. Clear the name to go back to the number.

Each route shows its driver, where it leaves from, its planned start, distance, duration and number of stops. Choose the route's driver from the Driver list on the route; add drivers first in Settings → Local delivery → Drivers. You can change the driver after dispatch too, if someone calls in sick, until the route is over.

The map

The map pins every stop, numbered in the order the van visits them and coloured by route, with the route's path drawn between them. Orders not on a route show as grey pins. Select a route's name to highlight it on the map. The dark square is the warehouse.

Seeing the van

Once a driver using the phone app has started a route, a ring in the route's colour shows where the van was last reported. Hover over it to see the route, the driver and the time of that report. The dot moves by itself, and the board refreshes every 20 seconds while any route is on the road.

A position older than ten minutes isn't shown, because a dot that stale would tell you the van is somewhere it left long ago. Routes whose driver uses only the browser, not the phone app, have no dot (see The driver app). The dot disappears when the route ends.

The map credit, © OpenStreetMap contributors, stays in the corner: the map data's licence requires it.

Dispatching

Dispatch loads the van: every order on the route is fulfilled, so stock leaves the warehouse and the sale is booked, exactly as if you'd pressed Fulfill on each order.

A route goes out whole or not at all. If any stop can't be filled, nothing is dispatched, and the route lists every stop that's blocked and why, usually not enough stock. You can:

• Correct the stock and press Dispatch again.
• Take the stop off the route and deliver it another day.
• Press Dispatch anyway, part-filling N orders: those orders go out with what's in stock, and the rest stays on the order to go out later. See Shipping part of an order.

A redelivery is dispatched without being fulfilled again: its goods already left with the first route.

Handing a stop to a courier network

If you have no driver free, select Hand off to a courier on a stop that hasn't gone out yet, compare the networks' quotes and accept one. See Handing a delivery off to a courier.

Recording how each stop went

Once a route is out, each stop has Delivered and Failed…. For a failed delivery, choose a reason (no one home, refused, address not found, couldn't get in, damaged, other) and add a note if it helps. When every stop is done, the route is marked Completed.

A driver records the same thing from the road, with the proof of delivery you ask for. What they captured shows under the stop: the type of proof, who signed, the scanned code or note, and the time it was taken. Select Download to open a photo or signature. Photos and signatures are never available at a link, only here, to people signed in to your account.

A failed delivery's goods are still on the van. Either:

• Leave it. The order shows as a Redelivery on the board, ready to go on another route.
• Press Return to stock to put the goods back on the shelf.

Returning a failed delivery to stock

Return to stock puts the goods from a failed delivery back into the warehouse the route left from, at the cost they left at, and reverses the sale in your books. If none of the order was delivered, the order is cancelled. If part of it was delivered on an earlier stop, only the part on this route comes back, and the order goes back to part-shipped.

It's refused, with the reason shown under the stop, when:

• The order is on an invoice. Issue a credit memo or void the invoice first.
• A payment has been recorded against the order. Refund it first.
• The month is closed in your books. Reopen the period first.
• The order is already on another route. Take it off that route first.

ASAP orders

Orders sent out with ASAP delivery have their own panel at the top of the board while any are still being placed. Each shows who is being asked (with a countdown), who accepted and is on their way to collect, or No driver took this with the reason. The order also sits on a route of its own, marked ASAP.

For an order nobody took, Offer again starts a fresh round (drivers who declined earlier are asked again), and Take off ASAP returns it to an ordinary local delivery you can schedule. You can also hand its stop to a courier from the route, or dispatch the route yourself. The panel stands down when you do. More in ASAP delivery.

Who can do what

Owners and admins can build, change, dispatch and record stops. Other team members can see the board but not change it.