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Your First Route

This tutorial walks through creating a complete service route from scratch, including adding a customer, setting up locations, and optimizing the route.

Prerequisites​

Before starting, make sure you have:

  • A Plantrunner account with a service company set up
  • Your company address configured in Company Settings
  • At least one employee (even if it's just you)

Step 1: Add a customer​

  1. Go to Customers in the sidebar
  2. Click Add Customer
  3. Fill in the required fields:
    • Customer name -- e.g., "Greenfield Office Park"
    • Customer type -- Select the category (Office, Retail, Healthcare, etc.)
  4. Optionally add contact details:
    • Contact name -- The person you coordinate with
    • Contact email and phone number
  5. Click Save

Step 2: Add a service location​

Each customer can have multiple locations. After creating the customer:

  1. Open the customer's detail page
  2. Click Edit, then select Location Manager
  3. Click Add Location and enter:
    • Location name -- e.g., "Building A Lobby"
    • Address -- Start typing and select from the suggestions
    • Service time -- How many minutes a typical visit takes
  4. Set the service schedule (important for route building):
    • Service days -- Which days of the week this location is serviced
    • Week pattern -- Which weeks in the cycle (e.g., Week 1 only, or every week)
  5. Click Save
Why service scheduling matters

Plantrunner uses service days and week patterns to automatically suggest routes. Without this information, the route builder can't group the right locations together. Set these for every location before building routes.

Repeat for additional locations as needed.

Step 3: Create the route​

Plantrunner offers two ways to build routes. If you've set service days and week patterns on your locations (Step 2), automatic generation is recommended.

  1. Go to Routes in the sidebar
  2. Click Suggest Routes
  3. Select the day and week you want to create a route for
  4. Choose whether to start from your company office or the first location
  5. Click Generate Routes

Plantrunner finds all locations matching your selection, optimizes the driving order, and shows you the suggested route. You can rename it, reorder stops, and assign an employee before saving.

Option B: Manual creation​

  1. Go to Routes in the sidebar
  2. Click Add Route
  3. Enter:
    • Route name -- e.g., "Monday - North Side"
    • Start location -- Company office or a specific customer location
  4. Add waypoints -- Select customer locations to include
  5. Assign an employee -- Choose who will service this route
  6. Set the schedule:
    • Days of week -- Which days this route runs
    • Week pattern -- Which weeks in the cycle
note

If you choose a customer location as the start point (instead of the company office), the route must have at least two waypoints.

Step 4: Review and optimize​

After creating a route (either automatically or manually), review the route details:

  • Total driving time -- Time spent on the road
  • Total service time -- Time spent at customer locations
  • Total route time -- Driving + service combined

If you created the route manually or want to adjust it, click Optimize Route to recalculate the most efficient driving order. You can also drag and drop waypoints to manually reorder stops.

Step 5: Save and verify​

Click Save to create the route. It will now appear in the Routes list with its schedule and assigned employee.

What happens next?​

Your field technician will see this route on their dashboard. On the scheduled day, they can:

  1. View the route and its waypoints
  2. Navigate to each location
  3. Check in and out at each stop
  4. Log their service tasks and notes

Next steps​