Route Optimization plans the driving order for one team's jobs on a single day. When a team has two or more stops, it sequences them, calls Google for the real driving time and distance on each leg, shows you the work, drive, and total-day figures, lets you fine-tune the order by hand, and saves the order back to the schedule board — then hands the route off to Google Maps for turn-by-turn directions in the field.
Where to find it
Route optimization lives on the Schedule tab of the Tasks page — the team-by-day planning board. Find a team that has two or more jobs on the same day, right-click that day's cell (or any task card in it), and choose Optimize route under the Route heading.
The Route options only appear when the cell holds at least two tasks — a single stop has nothing to sequence.
The three route options
| Option | What it does |
|---|---|
| Optimize route | Opens the Optimize Route window, where you sequence the day's jobs and save the new order back to the board. Needs the tasks update permission — without it this option is hidden. |
| Calculate route | A quick on-board estimate. Keeps the current card order and annotates each card with a rough straight-line distance and drive time from the previous stop. It does not open the map, does not call Google, and does not save anything. |
| Clear route | Removes those calculated annotations from the cell. Appears only once Calculate route has been run on it. |
Optimize and Calculate are not two views of the same thing. Optimize is the real planner: real road distances from Google, a saved order, a saved route record. Calculate is a display-only sanity check that measures straight lines from a fixed reference point, so treat its numbers as a rough guide, not a plan. Clear route only clears the Calculate annotations — it does not undo a saved optimized order.
The route planner
Choosing Optimize route opens the Optimize Route window — a map of that team-day's stops on the left, and a Route Planning panel on the right where you set up and review the route. The window is floating and resizable, so you can drag it larger when the stop list gets long.
The map here is deliberately narrow in scope: it shows only that team's tasks for that day plus their project sites. Employee locations, clock pins, accounts, and people are not shown — those stay on the read-only Map page.
Step 1 — Set the start and end points
- Start Location — where the team sets out from. The dropdown lists your active branches that have an address with coordinates, then your yards and warehouses, and finally Current GPS Location, which uses your device's own position. The first branch in the list is preselected.
- End Location — leave it as Same as start for a round trip back to the yard, or pick a different end point from the same list.
A branch or yard with no coordinates on its address is dropped from the list, since it cannot be routed from. If the list is empty, use Current GPS Location.
The panel also lists Today's Tasks for the team — each with a status dot and badge — so you can see exactly what is about to be routed before you run it.
Step 2 — Optimize
Click Optimize Route. GO pins the start and end points, orders the jobs in between by proximity, then asks Google for the real driving time and distance on every leg of that order. The finished route is drawn on the map with each stop numbered in its new sequence.
Because the drive figures come from Google's road network rather than a straight-line estimate, they reflect actual roads and typical driving conditions.
Step 3 — Review the day at a glance
Once optimized, the panel shows a summary of the whole day:
| Figure | What it means |
|---|---|
| Work | Total budgeted hours across the day's jobs. |
| Drive | Total driving time between stops, in minutes. |
| Total Day | Work plus drive — the realistic length of the team's day. |
| Distance | Total driving distance for the route, shown in miles or kilometres to match your browser's region. |
Step 4 — When a leg cannot be routed
Sometimes Google cannot return directions for one hop — an unreachable or badly geocoded job site, or a temporary problem reaching the mapping service. GO does not fail the whole route when that happens. It keeps the sequence, marks the affected legs, and tells you plainly.
You will see two things:
- A red “Some legs could not be routed” banner above the stop list, explaining that drive times and distances for the affected stops are missing, so the totals below are underestimated.
- The affected stop shows Routing unavailable in red where its drive time would normally be, and no distance is listed for that leg.
Treat the Drive, Total Day, and Distance figures as a floor, not a true total, whenever that banner is showing. The route is still perfectly usable — you can reorder it, save it, and send it to Google Maps as normal — but check the flagged stop's address before you rely on the day's timings. A job site with a wrong or missing address is the most common cause.
Step 5 — Fine-tune the order (optional)
Below the summary is the ordered list of stops. Each stop shows its number, the task name, and its drive time, budgeted work hours, and distance from the previous stop.
- Drag to reorder. Grab a stop by its handle and drop it where you want it — the numbers renumber as you go, and the heading is flagged (reordered) so you know the order was changed by hand.
- Start and end are fixed. The first and last rows are your start/end locations and cannot be dragged.
- Re-optimize. A Re-optimize button appears once you've reordered by hand. Click it to throw away your manual order and let GO sequence and re-measure everything from scratch.
After a manual reorder, the drive times on screen still describe the optimized order, not yours. They are not recalculated as you drag. GO knows this: when you save a hand-reordered route it deliberately stores the order without the stale travel estimates, and flags the route as manually reordered. If you want accurate drive figures for your own order, click Re-optimize and then adjust again, or reserve manual dragging for small tweaks where the timings matter less.
Step 6 — Save
Click Save to write the order back to the schedule. The team's task cards for that day are renumbered into the route order, and GO stores a route record for the day with the start and end points you chose, the total work hours, and — for an un-reordered route — the drive time and distance.
The footer tells you where you stand at a glance: Run Optimize to generate a route before you start, Unsaved changes once you have optimized or reordered, and Saved after a successful save. Save stays disabled until there is something to save.
If a task was deleted or moved by someone else while your window was open, GO saves everything it can and tells you how many stops were skipped.
Optimizing and reordering only preview a route — nothing is written until you click Save. If you close the window with unsaved changes, you'll be asked to confirm before discarding them. Cancel backs out without touching the schedule.
Sending the route to the field — Google Maps
The planner connects straight to Google Maps so the team can navigate:
- Google Maps button — opens the entire route, in order, as turn-by-turn directions in Google Maps in a new tab.
- Navigate from a single stop — each stop row has its own navigate button that opens directions to just that location.
That's how the plan gets from the office to the driver's phone. You do not have to save first to use these buttons, but saving is what puts the order in front of the team on the board.
What you need for it to work
- Jobs with locations. The stops are the team's scheduled tasks, so those tasks need job-site coordinates to be placed on the map and routed between.
- A starting point. Either an active branch, yard, or warehouse with coordinates, or permission for your browser to share your current location. If neither resolves, GO tells you No start location available and the route is not run.
- Tasks assigned to the team. Jobs are matched to a team by the team itself, so a task has to be assigned to the team you're routing to appear in the list.
- Permission. Optimizing and saving a route requires tasks update. Without it, Optimize route does not appear in the menu.
Common questions
Why don't I see "Optimize route"? Either the day's cell has fewer than two tasks — there's nothing to sequence — or your role doesn't include tasks update. Ask an administrator if you think it should.
What's the difference between Optimize and Calculate? Optimize opens the planner, sequences the stops, gets real driving figures from Google, and can save the order. Calculate just annotates the existing cards with rough straight-line estimates on the board and saves nothing.
Why does a stop say "Routing unavailable"? Google couldn't return directions for the leg into that stop — usually a bad or missing job-site address, occasionally a temporary problem reaching the mapping service. The rest of the route is unaffected, but the day's drive and distance totals are lower than reality until it's fixed.
Can I change the order the system picked? Yes — drag the stops in the list. Start and end stay put. Note that the drive figures don't re-calculate as you drag; use Re-optimize if you want them accurate again.
Does optimizing change the schedule right away? No — it's a preview until you click Save. Cancel leaves everything as it was.
How does the team get directions? Use the Google Maps button to open the whole route, or the navigate button on any single stop.
Is this the same as the Map page? No. Route optimization is launched from the Schedule tab and is scoped to one team's day. The Map page is a separate, read-only monitoring view and has no route planner.