PlumbingBossPro Blog — Dispatch & Scheduling

Auto-Routing Plumbing Calls: Closest First or Furthest First From the Shop

Most plumbing techs can tell you the best order for their day just by looking at the addresses. Most plumbing techs are also not the ones setting the order. When the office builds a route by guessing, the van crisscrosses town, and the drive time comes out of the day's billable hours. Auto-routing gives the office a sensible starting order in one click.

Routing Happens One Van at a Time

Before you route, narrow the board to one van, as covered in Filtering the Plumbing Dispatch Board by Van. Each van starts from the shop and runs its own list, so each van gets routed on its own.

In PlumbingBossPro, auto-route orders a van's stops for the day from your shop address. You pick the direction: Closest First or Furthest First.

Closest First

Closest First starts with the stop nearest the shop and works outward. The tech leaves, hits the first call quickly, and ends the day at the far edge of the route.

When it works well:

• Mornings full of short calls near the shop. The tech gets billable work done early.
• A repair and drain van that needs to stay flexible. Starting close means the van is near the shop, and near the supply house if you use one nearby, when the first emergency calls come in.
• Customers who want early visits. If most nearby customers asked for mornings, Closest First lines up with that.

The downside is the drive home at the end of the day from the furthest stop.

Furthest First

Furthest First drives out to the furthest stop first and works back toward the shop. The long drive happens in the morning, and the day ends close to home base.

When it works well:

• Long drives to outlying towns. Get the long haul over with while the tech is fresh.
• Days that end with a shop stop. Restocking or dropping off an old water heater is easier when the last call is nearby.
• Water heater vans. Ending near the shop makes it easier to unload old tanks before going home.

The downside is that the first billable work starts later, and if an emergency comes in near the shop at 9am, that van is the furthest away.

Which Direction for Which Van

There is no right answer for every shop. A pattern many owners settle on:

• Repair and drain van: Closest First, so it is near the middle of things when emergencies come in.
• Water heater and maintenance van: Furthest First, so it ends the day near the shop with old tanks to unload.
• Days with a far-out cluster: Furthest First, to get the drive done in the morning.

Try both on a real day and see which order your techs prefer. They will tell you.

Auto-Route Is a Starting Point

Auto-route knows addresses. It does not know that Mrs. Garcia is only home after 1pm, that the restaurant's grease line has to be done before 10am, or that the water heater swap should go first so it is not finishing after dark. That is what the office knows.

After auto-routing, look at the order and move stops up or down by hand where it matters. The whole topic of hand ordering is covered in Setting Plumbing Route Order by Hand: When the Dispatcher Knows Better Than the Map.

What the Tech Sees

Whatever order the board ends up in, the tech sees the same order on their phone. Each stop has a navigation button that opens directions to the address, so the tech taps it, drives, works the job, and taps the next one.

The customer side follows the same order. Customers who chose the “when I'm next” alert get a text when they are next in line. The customer app shows their position on today's route on a live map. A sensible route order makes those updates more useful, because “you're stop 4” actually means something.

When to Re-Route

Routes change during the day. An emergency gets added, a customer cancels, a long job runs over. You do not need to re-run auto-route after every change. Usually it is enough to move the new stop into a sensible spot by hand. Re-run auto-route when:

• Several stops were added or removed at once.
• You moved a batch of jobs from another van onto this one.
• You are building tomorrow and the list has changed since you first routed it.

Less Driving, Same Day

Auto-routing is not magic. It is a fast way to get a sensible order so the office can spend its time on the exceptions. Pick Closest First or Furthest First per van, adjust by hand, and let the tech's phone and the customer texts follow. To see how routing fits into the rest of dispatch, visit the PlumbingBossPro plumbing dispatch software page.