In eLogii, you can define your Drivers' work hours and which days they operate on. Driver schedules are completely flexible, meaning that all your Drivers can have identical schedules, or they can have unique work hours.
To set up a schedule for your Driver, go to Drivers ⇒ Driver Profile ⇒ Schedule
Click Edit to set up the schedules.
Schedule Exceptions and Breaks can be specified here.
There are a couple of quick actions that you can perform when setting up schedules:
Copy for all days - If your Driver has an identical schedule for every day of the week, the schedule will be applied to all days of the week for one Driver. This is useful if you don't want to adjust the same values for every day of the week.
Copy to all Drivers - If all your Drivers work the same shift, you can also select to apply the same schedule for all Drivers. Essentially, you only need to set up a weekly schedule for one Driver and copy it to all other Drivers.
Copy from Previous day - This option lets you copy the schedule from the previous day.
Schedule Exceptions
If for example, your driver is taking vacation, instead of excluding them from optimization day by day, you can create an exception for a range of dates.
To do this, navigate to Drivers ⇒ Driver Profile ⇒ Schedule ⇒ Exceptions ⇒ Add.
This will prompt a pop-up where you can further specify any other required specifics regarding this Driver for the defined date range. You can create a different schedule for them for just these dates, or leave the schedule and locations override as is if they are not working within the date range.
When creating an exception you can:
Set a day off for the Driver - This will exclude the Driver from any optimizations for a set amount of time.
Schedule override - Temporarily completely change drivers work hours and break time.
Override their Start location - You can temporarily change their Start location. It can be another Depot, a custom location, their last known location, or set no start location.
Override their End location - The same logic from overriding their Start location applies here.
Click Save once the data has been added.
Always check if the Driver you want to assign the Task to has a valid exception set. In case of invalid schedule exceptions, Drivers will not be able to receive Tasks. To solve the problem, remove the exception or throw in a valid one.
Another way of adding a schedule exception for Drives is through the Operations screen. Simply right-click on the Driver you wish to add an exception for and select the Add schedule exception option. A pop-up will appear which contains the same schedule exception setup options found in the Driver schedule section.
You can also add schedule exceptions for multiple Drivers from the Operations screen by entering Selection mode, checking all the Drivers you want to add an exception for, and selecting Add schedule exception from the Actions options.
💡Pro tip - Understanding color of the schedule
Usually, the color of your Driver's schedule will appear blue, and this means that everything is in order when it comes to your Driver's work time. However, the schedule may appear red sometimes, and there are a few causes:
Driver was forced into overtime via manual assignment.
The time has not reached the scheduled start time
The Driver's route has Tasks assigned to them outside of their schedule
Adding Multiple Schedule Exceptions via CSV
eLogii allows users to add schedule exceptions in bulk for multiple Drivers over a specified period of time. You only need to specify the Driver UID (driver column in the CSV) for how long the schedule exception is going to be valid (startDate and endDate column names in the CSV), and if this exception is a day off for the driver (dayOff column name in the CSV, values can be either TRUE or FALSE). You can specify the new start and end time (timeWindowStart and timeWIndowEnd column names in the CSV), or the new start and end location (startDepotUID and endDepotUID, or startAddress and endAddress column names in the CSV).
If you're importing a day off exception for your Drivers, there is no need to populate other columns apart from the driver, date and dayoff column.
Here is an example of a well-formatted sheet.
After formatting the sheet, navigate to the Driver section and click the Exceptions import button. This will take you to the update page where you will be able to attach your file and import the schedule exceptions.
Driver Breaks
Creating driver breaks can be done in Drivers ⇒ Driver profile ⇒ Schedule.
You can select the duration of the break as well as the time window in which the break should take place, or you can set up a fixed time during which the Driver can take a break. You can also set up multiple breaks in one day.
If you perform any of the quick actions such as Copy schedule to all days, the created breaks will be affected and they will be copied alongside the specified work hours.
Click Save once all the data has been added.
Breaks will be displayed in the Driver's Route like this:
What if a Break is added after the Optimization?
It should be noted that the Driver Schedule is taken into account on optimization - so if changes are made to the schedule, it won't automatically be reflected on the existing routes.
However, if you reoptimize either the route or run general reoptimization the newly added breaks will be considered. If the route was completed before the time for the break, the break is not shown in the route. If you added new tasks to the route, the route would include a break, then tasks after it. Or if you optimize a route for a Driver (who you added breaks for after optimization) for tomorrow, the break would be there.
Offset from Route start
This functionality allows you to specify the start interval of the break as an offset from Route start, instead of actual time. This is an Advanced eLogii engine exclusive feature.
For example, your Driver's shift starts at 8 am, and their break is set to be between 12 am - 1 pm and last for 30 minutes, however, they wait until their first Task starts at 9 am, but their break will still happen at the same specified time even though their route will start 1 hour later than expected. To combat this, you can set the offset range which eLogii will consider when moving the break time, and specify the break duration. So if we set the offset to 30-60 minutes, the break will also move from 12 am to 1 pm to 1 pm to 2 pm.
Multiday Route Schedule
If you have Multiday Routes enabled, you will notice that you now have two schedule setup slots. The top one is for the regular single-day schedule, and the bottom one is for Multiday Routes. This is in case you have some Drivers that do single-day runs and others that do multiday runs. You Drivers can have both schedules set up simultaneously (which will make them eligible for both single-day and multiday optimizations), or they can have only one of them set up (which will make them eligible for the type of optimization they have a schedule set up for).
Setting up Multiday Route schedules is done identically to setting up regular Driver schedules. You can specify your Driver's work hours as well as breaks they can take during their shift. The only difference From setting up a regular schedule is the fact that you need to specify the Maximum number of days a Driver can be on the road.
