Zones allow creating separate areas in your delivery Zones and assigning them to your Teams, which consequently allows you to configure specific drivers to deliver to specific areas. You can also assign Zones to Teams and Drivers.
Zones can help you with:
Segmenting your delivery area into parts that are covered by certain Drivers or Teams, or just to limit your delivery area.
Flagging deliveries based on their geographical position for your business purposes.
Determining the best depot from which a Task should originate or be delivered to.
This feature can be found in Configuration ⇒ Zones.
You can create a Zone by selecting Add and drawing on the map. To start the shape, click on the appropriate location on the map and add subsequent shape points by moving your cursor and clicking.
To complete the shape, click back on its first point, or double-click where the last point should be and select Finish Drawing.
This will prompt a pop-up window where you can further specify the Teams and other requirements the Drivers need to fulfill to service this area.
After you finish drawing your Zone, a pop-up will appear with the following options:
You are able to assign specific skills and capabilities for Tasks that fall under the specific Zone, as well as assign default Pickup and Delivery depots. It's worth mentioning that all of these are completely optional, the only mandatory field is the Zone's name.
Users also have the option to:
Match outside of Zone - if enabled, the task will match with the Zone in question if either pickup or delivery locations are within it. It will also take on all the requirements that are needed but not included within that particular Zone. For example, if a task has its pickup location set within the Zone, but the delivery location is outside of it, the task will appropriate all the requirements associated with the delivery as well.
Ignore depot location - in relation to the above, if there is a need for the depot location requirements to be excluded from the task, it can be done by toggling this option on. This can be useful in many cases since Zones consider both Pickup and Delivery locations, so if the Depot is outside of the Driver's operating Zone, if you choose this option, there will be no issues with organizing Routes for such cases.
Click Save once the information has been added. You will now be able to see the Zone listed:
💡Pro tip - Prevent Drivers from operating outside of the Zone area
There is a way to prevent the driver from operating outside the Zone area, by using the reverse logic with the Match outside of Zone option by adding a skill to a Task, such as Outside of Zone for example, when a task's Pickup or Delivery is outside the Zone area.
And since the Driver does not have this skill, the Task will not be assigned to them. Alternatively, you can call the Zone "Outside Zone" for example, and since the Driver is not allowed to work in that Zone, the Task will not be assigned to them.
Currently, eLogii does not have the option to match only Pickup or Delivery locations against the Zone area, but this approach helps achieve the same result. 😊
Tasks are automatically assigned to Zones on import after geocoding the addresses. eLogii will take into account the defined Zone coordinates and assign them to the correct Zone. and apply set properties for said Zone. This means that if you have different skills that get applied to Tasks, depending on whether they belong to Zone A or Zone B, after determining which zone it falls under, the appropriate properties will be attributed to the Task after import.
💡Pro tip - Prevent Drivers from being assigned to Tasks where the Pickup is in the Zone, but Delivery is outside of the Zone
To prevent Drivers from being assigned to Tasks where the Pickup is in the Zone, but the Delivery is outside of the Zone, we suggest the following:
Create a copy of the current Zone, covering the same area
In the configuration for the copy, toggle "Match outside of Zone"
The name of the copy can be something descriptive like "Out of service area" This way, the Task where Pickup is in the Zone, but Delivery is not, will be assigned two Zones
The first one is based on the pickup, but also "Out of service area" for the delivery. Since no Drivers would be assigned to the "Out of service area" Zone, those Tasks would not be assigned by optimization.
There are quick selection/deselection and activate/deactivate buttons for your Zones at the top of the Zone menu.
Next to each of your Zones, you get the following options:
Edit points - You can adjust the dimensions and the shape of your Zones by clicking on the points on the Zone border and dragging them in the direction you want. You can expand the points on the edges of the Zone, or you can create new ones by clicking on the area between two points and clicking it again to confirm the point you'd like to drag.
Edit details - This will prompt the same pop-up that you get after you create a new Zone. You can make any adjustments in terms of skills and capabilities related to the Zone, default Depots, etc.
Activate/ Deactivate Zone - Activate or Deactivate one Zone at a time.
Delete - Deletes the Zone and all the information relating to it. If you delete a Zone the Tasks associated with it will not be deleted from eLogii
Additional features you can use in your Zone configuration are:
Only match the single topmost Zone - if there is a Zone located within another Zone, only the attributes associated with the topmost zone will be applied to the Task. In the example below, this would be Zone 2.
Assigned Teams are not a requirement - the teams associated with the Zone are not set as a requirement when optimizing Tasks
Enable Zone calculation - This means that rules defined within a Zone (skills, capabilities, default Pickup location, etc.) will automatically be applied to Tasks that have a pickup/delivery within a Zone. If this feature is switched off, if there are Tasks that were created within Zones with specific rules, these rules will not be applied to these Tasks anymore.
Assigning skills and capabilities to Zones
In case you have specific Driver skillsets you would like to attribute to specific Zones, or if vehicles with certain capabilities need to be working within designated Zones, you can set this up by clicking the edit icon next to the desired Zone.
You'll be able to do this in the pop-up that appears after you create a Zone or click on the edit icon next to the Zone you wish to assign skills/capabilities to and the same pop-up will appear. Under the Task automation section, you can make the necessary adjustments relating to Driver skills and Vehicle capabilities.
A skill defined in a Zone will be applied to the Tasks located inside the Zone.
Click Save to apply changes.
It's important to note that Zones serve to limit drivers to specific areas, so for example, sending Drivers wherever for pickups but limiting drop-offs is not something that this feature can do at the moment.
How Zone Logic Works
If a Task's Pickup OR Delivery location falls into a Zone, that Zone will be assigned to the Task
If a Task belongs to multiple Zones (Zones overlap, or the pickup is in one Zone, and Delivery in another), that Task will be assigned multiple Zones
In order for a Task to be assigned to a Driver automatically, the Driver needs to be assigned to all Zones required by the Task - so if a Task belongs to 2 Zones, the Driver needs to cover both of them.
In cases where there are Pickup and Delivery at custom locations (i.e. not depot), the Zone logic currently matches either Pickup or Delivery coordinates and assigns the corresponding Zone to the Task.
If you wish to allow only some Drivers to complete tasks whose Pickup or Delivery is in the other Zone they would need to be assigned both Zones.
To illustrate this:
Driver 1 - Operates in Zone 1 and Zone 2
Driver 2 - Operates in Zone 1
Task 1 - The Pickup is in Zone 1 and the Delivery is in Zone 2
Task 2 - Both the Pickup and Delivery are in Zone 1
Task 1 can only be assigned to Driver 1
Task 2 can be assigned to both Driver 1 and Driver 2
Once you import/create Tasks, please note that the Zone cannot be changed explicitly because that would mean that you can have a delivery location in one Zone, and you manually change it to another Zone. That would cause inconsistencies and issues. You can change the location of the point you want and the Zone to which that location belongs will be automatically set.
Assigning Zones to Teams
Assigning Teams to Zones is simple and it can be done by going to Teams ⇒ Team Profile ⇒ Zones and checking the boxes next to the Zones we want the Team to be assigned to. The Zones and Zone rules will be applied to all the members of a selected Team.
Assigning Zones to Drivers
You can assign Drivers to Zones by going to Drivers ⇒ Driver Profile ⇒ Zones
Select the Zones you want to associate with a particular Driver and move them from the left box to the right box like in the example video:
Please keep in mind that Drivers who do not have an assigned Zone are eligible to serve all Zones. In case you wish to restrict that a Driver who belongs to a Zone can do a Task that belongs to that particular Zone, then some skill should be attributed to the Zone that will be applied to the Tasks that belong to it. Also, we want to add the same skill to the Driver who services that Zone so that the system can associate them.
There are no mandatory features or prerequisites for Zones. This means that, even though there are other features that synergize nicely with Zones such as Teams, you can still have fully functional Zones without needing to configure anything else. Think of Zones as a way of automatically applying different properties, such as skills, capabilities, Teams, and tags, for all Tasks falling into a specific Zone, so you don't have to specify those things in your import file.