Route optimization order logic — how does it decide?

Question

dispatch has been using the route optimization button and the order it spits out makes... questionable sense sometimes. like it'll have a tech drive 20 minutes north then back south past the starting point to hit a job that could've been first.

what's the actual logic here? is it just straight-line distance or does it factor in drive time, traffic, job priority, window times? the docs say "intelligent routing" but that's not exactly a technical spec.

asking because i've got techs grumbling about the sequences and i'd like to know if i'm defending an algorithm that actually makes sense or if i should just be drag-and-dropping everything manually.

Priya Nair (Staff) · Accepted Answer

Ray, happy to help clarify this! Route optimization in FieldPulse considers several factors in sequence:

1. Job time windows — Hard constraints like "must arrive between 9-11am" take priority 
 2. Technician skills and certifications — Won't assign plumbing jobs to an electrician, for example 
 3. Drive time estimates — Based on historical averages, not live traffic 
 4. Job priority — Emergency and high-priority jobs get weighted heavily 
 5. Service duration — Longer jobs may be placed earlier to protect the schedule

What it doesn't currently factor in: live traffic conditions, technician preferences, or customer "ease of access" (like gated communities that slow arrival).

The "20 minutes north then back south" pattern you describe usually happens when a middle job has a tight time window that forces the sequence. If you want more manual control, you can pin specific jobs to time slots and let the optimizer fill around them.

See Route Optimization: How It Works for the full breakdown.

Josh Mercer · Answer

Pro tip: if you're seeing weird backtracking, check whether someone set up recurring jobs with fixed time windows. Those act like anchors and can drag the whole route around them.

We used to fight this constantly until we switched most recurring maintenance to "anytime during business hours" instead of specific slots. Route efficiency jumped maybe 15-20%.

Also worth noting: the optimizer runs once when you hit the button. If a technician finishes early or gets delayed, the rest of that day's route doesn't automatically reshuffle. Some dispatchers will re-optimize midday if the morning goes sideways.

Gwen Albright · Answer

I'll add something Priya touched on but didn't emphasize: skills matching can really mess with perceived efficiency .

If you have three techs and only one is certified for refrigeration work, that job might get placed oddly in the sequence because the optimizer is also trying to keep that tech's total drive time reasonable across their whole day. You're seeing one tech's route in isolation, but the algorithm is balancing all of them.

We audit our skill assignments quarterly — found we had people tagged for things they hadn't done in years, which was constraining the optimizer unnecessarily.