Multiday Routing allows optimizing across several days. This feature also allows you to have some Drivers doing single-day rounds, while others do multiday ones, so it gives you flexibility over operations.
Before you begin the optimization, Multiday route schedules need to be added to your Drivers' schedules. After you've set this up, you can start optimizing for multiple days.
Even though this is a Base-engine exclusive feature, Multiday routes will work regardless of which engine you use. This means that if you use the Advanced engine for your core operations when eLogii optimizes Multiday routes it will fall back to the Base engine automatically to execute multiday optimization.
Optimizing Multiday Routes
This can be done in Planning ⇒ Optimization button ⇒ Show the number of days ahead to optimize. When you run the optimization for multiple days, in case you have both Multiday and single-day Tasks, Routes will be created for all of them. Drivers with Multiday Route schedules will be assigned Multiday Route Tasks, while Drivers with regular daily schedules will be assigned single-day Tasks.
If you have Drivers that need to make Multiday runs on specific days (due to holidays or any temporary schedule change cases), you don't need to make changes to their schedules, as there is a simpler workaround. Just exclude the Drivers you don't want to include in the optimization by enabling the Selection mode toggle, then select the Drivers that you don't want working for that day and choose the option to Exclude from optimization.
The next step is to optimize +1 or +2 multi-day runs for your remaining Drivers. You can do so by +1 Day or two-day runs for the Drivers who are still included in optimization. Please note that you need to re-include the Drivers in optimization if you wish to optimize non-Multiday Routes for the same day.
You can also utilize skills and capabilities in tandem with Multiday Routes, as well as schedule exceptions. The Driver skill exception/skill override feature works with Multiday routes as well, and you can easily set a skill override for any Driver with a Multiday route schedule.
💡Pro tip - Scheduling Tasks for a day over their time window
To allow Tasks to be scheduled for +1 day over their window the date range needs to be added for the Tasks, and then eLogii will allocate them to the day within that range that they would fit best into.
This is mandatory so that the software knows which options (days) exist as viable solutions for Route creation. You can put the date range to be between today and tomorrow, for example, and then optimize for +1 days.
In addition, you can also hide Tasks scheduled for other dates on your current date shown on the Planning screen so that they don't obstruct your view. You can find this feature under Dashboard settings ⇒ Operations ⇒ On the current planning date, hide tasks scheduled for other dates.
When optimizing multi-day runs it’s important to ensure that all days the Task is planned to be executed on must not have any assigned Routes - meaning that the Drivers can't have any already assigned Tasks for any of those days, otherwise, Tasks will not be assigned.
Multiday Routes and Templates relationship
While multiday Routes are enabled in the dashboard, they will interfere with the Templates, and vice versa. This means that the Route and Task Templates section will not be displayed in the side menu, nor will there be an option to enable them in Configuration if the Multiday Routes feature is enabled.
Similarly, if Route and Task Templates are enabled and being used, after switching on Multiday Routes, they will disappear from the dashboard. If you have Route and/or Task templates before switching the Multiday feature on, you will not be able to access them. In case you disable Multiday routes, you will have access to the templates feature, and your previously saved templates will not have been deleted.
Showing Multiday Route Tasks in the Driver App
By default, the eLogii Driver app will show only Tasks that fall on the current day, however in the case of multiday routes, some users would prefer to have visibility over all Tasks, regardless of their scheduled execution day. This can be enabled in Configuration ⇒ Driver App ⇒ Show tasks from all days in multi-day route.
What is the use case, and who are Multiday Routes meant for?
You can use Multiday Route optimization exclusively, or you can have some Drivers carrying out Multiday optimization, and others doing regular daily rounds. This feature is perfect for businesses that cover large areas of delivery and they need a way to create effective Routes to be able to reach customers no matter how far their location may be.
The most common use case example would be that you have Drivers carrying out a long Route spanning multiple days and crossing many different cities - normal single-day optimization can not account for that as it only considers Tasks to be a single-day operation, therefore they will not be transferred over to the next day. Multiday route Tasks are meant to span multiple days and they will be in your Driver's Route for each day of their execution.
For example, a customer who lives in a different state/city/country placed an order from your business. It will take the Driver approximately 20 hours to get to the customer's location, deliver their order, and return to the Depot, so you know that this would be a Multiday run. For this case, you would set up a date range for this Task for at least 2 days and run the optimization.