Hopefully you’re starting to grasp some of the core features of the Root Planner, and are ready to hop on board! But we’re still going to continue walking you through every feature we’ve built, so you know exactly what you’re signing up for, and so you understand exactly what makes the Root Planner so uniquely amazing.
Adding Drivers (it could’t be easier!)
Today, we want to discuss what makes the Root Planner stand out when it comes to adding your drivers. First, click on the “drivers” tab, found below customers.
As you can see in the video, once you click “add driver” in the “drivers” tab, you have several places to input data that will be incorporated into your routes. In the details section, you can fill out the serial number, driver’s name, driver color, email, cell phone, default vehicle, and working shift. There’s even a heading called “allowed overtime,” so if you want to allow your driver to work 30 mins past his or her shift, you simply input “30 minutes.” When you’re finished, don’t forget to toggle the Active button on!
There are four other sections under the “Add Driver” tab that you’ll want to check out: cost, start location, end location, and zones. Easily modify your drivers’ start and end locations, considering whether you want them to begin at your company’s hub, or at a custom location, for instance. And, to keep careful track of how you compensate your drivers, you can input fixed costs, costs per mile, salary per hour, and costs per hour of overtime.
Why do I need zones?
Whether you know it or not, your drivers are probably spending FAR more time on the roads than they should be. We’ve talked to far too many small businesses who are manually calculating their routes. And this is just about as awful as it sounds. After all, for any given route, you need to incorporate your number of orders, drivers, driver availability, and order location. It’s simply not feasible for you to look up every single order, see which orders are geographically close, and assign one driver to the appropriate group of orders.
So what ends up happening? More often than not, you’re sending Tom, Emily, and Stephen to deliver a few orders in Brooklyn, and then only had one remaining driver to tackle all of Manhattan. Oh, and if there’s a random traffic buildup, you have no way of directing your drivers out of it.
Now, here’s where zones come in.
How do I create them?!
You’ll see driver zones are the last heading under “Add Driver.” This is where you can decide how you want to manage your drivers’ delivery parameters. Specifically, zones can be used to define the geographical areas where your drivers are permitted to deliver, or to assign the orders within a geographical area to specific drivers. Maybe you want certain drivers sticking to certain zones, but allow some to go in any zone. The level of restriction is totally up to you. Then, this information will be taken into account when the system automatically generates your routes. Best of all, you can manually draw your own zones by clicking right on the map that shows up!
To adjust the settings for all of your zones, find the Settings tab on the left side of your screen, then select “configs.” Finally, select “zones.” Here, you have four options to choose among when it comes to dictating your zones on a system-wide level, with a visual illustration of each option right below. You’ll see drivers assigned to one zone, another zone, both zones, or no zones, and by clicking through each option, you can see visually exactly how these rules play out.
Hopefully you’re starting to grasp the unprecedented level of control you, as the admin, will have over your delivery operations with the Root Planner. The admin side is truly a master account, with everything located in one place, from viewing orders to keeping track of drivers with utmost detail and efficiency. And we haven’t even touched on the real magic of the Root Planner yet – the routes themselves!
So what now?
Be sure to check out the rest of our website at https://rootplanner.io/ to check us out. Then, click “Book a Demo” in the upper right corner, or sign up at https://calendly.com/sprwt/root?month=2021-01 to learn more details from one of our trusty agents, who will walk you through every single step.
Don’t wait another second to jump on board. For just $50 a month, you’ll have access to the intricacies of your operations in ways you never thought possible. And better yet, if you sign up today, we’ll give you 20% off your first month.