Prepare data
Before you start calculating tours or capacity utilization, you need to prepare the basic data for optimum results. In this section, we will show you which data is essential for route planning in easymap.
The data required for route planning is based on a customer list and a list of employee locations(1). The information must be available in two separate tables.
Note: The calculation of route planning is currently only supported for EU countries.
The following attributes must be present in the employee list:
-
Employee number and/or name.
-
Spatial reference (address or coordinates).
(1)The list of employee locations can be the table resulting from the area organization or an imported table with the necessary information.
Additional parameters
When creating the tour and workload calculation, all parameters and options can also be selected via a data column in the data table you have imported.
| Option | Description | Unit | Example |
| Planning horizon (weeks) | Specify the period over which your planning should be designed  Please note that your dates are also aligned accordingly. | Input in whole numbers. | 4 |
| Max. Weekly working hours | Define how many hours are available to the employee per location for the tours. | "hh:mm:ss" | 40h 00m 00s |
| Planned working time | hours that the employee is to be scheduled per day. | "hh:mm:ss" | 08h 00m 00s |
| Max. Working time | Maximum hours that the employee may be scheduled per day. The sum of the maximum daily working hours may exceed the maximum weekly working hours in the definition. As a result, the maximum weekly working time is taken into account. | "hh:mm:ss" | 10h 00m 00s |
| Days off |
Which days should not be included in the calculation? |
DD.MM.YYYY | 01.01.2025 |
| Max. Overnight stays | Maximum overnight stays per employee per week. | Input in whole numbers. | 2 |
| Minimum time saving (1) | Minimum time saved by the employee when driving in order to plan an overnight stay during a tour. the travel time between the last customer of a day to the first customer of the following day is compared once with and once without an overnight stay. | "hh:mm:ss" | 00h 45m 00s |
| Minimum retraction time (1) | Minimum return journey time of the employee from the last customer visit to his place of residence in order to plan an overnight stay during a tour. | "hh:mm:ss" | 01h 00m 00s |
(1) These two parameters are linked by an AND.
The following attributes must be present in the customer list:
-
A customer number and/or customer name.
-
A spatial reference (customer address or coordinates).
Additional parameters
When creating the tour or workload calculation, all parameters and options can also be selected via a data column in the data table you have imported.
| Option | Description |
Unit |
Example |
| Visits | Maximum customer visits per week. | Input in whole numbers. | 2 |
| Duration of visit | Length of visit to the customer. | "hh:mm:ss" or in seconds. | 00h 30m 00s or 1600 |
| Visiting rhythm | Weekly interval at which a customer is approached. | Input in whole numbers. | 1 |
| Keep the weekday of the first visit | Specify here whether the weekday of the first visit should be retained. | Text. | Yes |
| Max. Number of deviations Weekdays | Decide here how many days the visit may deviate if the day of the first visit cannot be retained. | Input in whole numbers. | 2 |
| Last visit | Last customer visit for the selected planning horizon. | DD.MM.YYYY | 28.09.2024 |
| Priority | Customers who are prioritized when planning visits. | The values can be selected individually, a xxx value means yyy. | A, B, C |
| Opening hours |
Enter the customer's opening hours here. At least two columns per weekday must be entered in the table (e.g. Monday from & Monday to). If the customer has a closing time in between, four columns are required for one day.
|
"hh:mm:ss" | 08h 30m 00s |
Note: The frequency of visits must not be greater than the planning horizon or the frequency of visits must merge into the horizon.
Data format
In the data for route planning, we find different columns of numbers (date, time, period, etc.). These must be defined correctly when importing data into easymap so that they can be used in route planning. You can find out more about data import here.
| Column | Data type | size |
| Time (start, opening hours, etc.) | Number | Special format > time |
| Duration of visit | Number | Special format > seconds in hours |
| Visiting rhythm | Number | Input in whole numbers |
| Last visit | Date / Time | |
| Days off |
Date / Time |
|
| Max. Weekly working hours | Number | Special format > seconds in hours |
| Planned working time | Number | Special format > seconds in hours |
| Max. Working time | Number | Special format > seconds in hours |
| Max. Overnight stays | Number | |
| Minimum time saving | Number | Special format > seconds in hours |
| Minimum reversing time | Number | Special format > seconds in hours |
