How the optimizer assigns jobs
The route optimizer produces a suggested assignment of jobs to technicians. Understanding how it makes decisions helps you review routes confidently and catch anything that needs a manual adjustment before you commit.The optimizer’s goal
The optimizer finds the assignment that minimizes total driving time across your entire fleet. It looks at all technicians and all jobs together and finds the combination where the least total time is spent driving. This is different from minimizing any one technician’s driving. The optimizer may give one technician a slightly longer drive if doing so lets the rest of the fleet finish earlier overall.What the optimizer guarantees
| Constraint | What it means |
|---|---|
| Shift windows | No technician is assigned a job that would require them to start before their shift begins or finish after their shift ends |
| Appointment windows | If a customer has a confirmed arrival window (e.g. 10 AM – 12 PM), the optimizer will not schedule the job outside that window |
| Skill and certification matching | Jobs requiring a specific skill or certification are only assigned to technicians who hold that qualification |
| Customer-specific tech rules | If a customer is set to only receive a specific technician, the optimizer will not assign that job to anyone else |
| Job count balance | The optimizer caps the number of jobs per technician at roughly ⌈total jobs / number of technicians⌉ — no single technician takes a disproportionate number of stops |
What to review before committing
The optimizer is a strong starting point, but dispatchers should verify the proposed routes before committing, particularly:- Any technician whose first stop is far from their start location. The optimizer may route a technician to a distant job if it reduces total fleet cost, even if that means a long opening drive.
- Significant difference in workload across technicians of similar skills. The job-count ceiling prevents extreme imbalance, but service durations vary — two technicians may have the same number of stops but very different days.
- Unassigned jobs. Jobs that could not fit within any technician’s shift or skill set appear in an unassigned list. Review these separately and either extend a shift, add a technician, or reschedule the job.
Why a job might be unassigned
A job appears as unassigned when:- No technician with the required skill is available within the job’s appointment window
- Adding the job would push a technician past their shift end time
- The job’s location cannot be reached in time given the technician’s other commitments that day