Today's service jobs need a travel plan that fits the work customers are expecting. As a field-service planner, you're looking for ways to shorten the trips between those jobs without changing the visits customers have agreed to.
The time spent on site and the customer's agreed appointment shape the day too. Which jobs can one technician complete together, with less time spent traveling between them?
Start with jobs that can share a route
Keep the daily job fields useful
Prepare a table with the job ID, service address, planned date, assigned technician and job type. Include the known service duration and appointment window when you have them. Parts readiness and site-access notes can help explain why a nearby job belongs on a different route.
Use the address where the work happens. A billing address or a customer's headquarters may be different from the service site. Check plotted locations against the job records before using the map to sequence visits.
Keep each job identifiable even when several visits share an address. One location can need more than one service visit, and two nearby jobs can have different requirements. You may plan them together, but retain their job IDs and service durations in the day's review.
Import the fields needed for mapping and planning from your service system. Keep the current job schedule and operational records there as you review the map. Record the existing driving order and travel for the same start and finish so the comparison has a clear baseline.
Check technician readiness
Decide which jobs the technician can complete before selecting nearby stops. Check the required skills, equipment and parts. Include access restrictions and customer commitments that affect when the technician can enter the site or start work.
Separate a geographic opportunity from an approved job assignment. A technician may drive near a service site and still be unable to do that work. Use the team's eligibility rules to prepare the job set, then use the map to examine its travel.
Keep breaks and loading time in the day too. If parts must be collected before a visit, include that requirement in the planning review. Removing a necessary depot stop from the comparison can make a route appear shorter without making it workable.
Inspect branch reach before selecting jobs
A branch drive-time area can help you examine which job locations fall within a chosen travel threshold. These areas assume perfect driving conditions and exclude both current and historical traffic. Use them to estimate reach, and check real trip evidence before relying on the edge for a time commitment.
Open Map Tools, choose Drive Time Polygon Tool, enter the branch address or add it from a marker's right-side menu, and set the hours and minutes. Click Add Drive Time Polygon. Look at the eligible job points in and around the area.
Click the polygon to inspect the count of locations inside it and its metrics. Remember that the count includes mapped rows; it may contain branch records or several jobs at one address. Use Customize Metrics if a prepared job measure helps the review, or Export Locations from the polygon's three-dot menu to examine the included records.
Check jobs near the edge against known road access and actual travel. A job outside the area can still be a valid assignment, but it needs a deliberate review of the trip and the available day. Keep that decision with the job list rather than treating the shaded area as the assignment rule.
Filter the intended day's work
Open Map Tools, then Filter Tool. On first use, choose Create Filters. If the map already has filters or grouping controls, use the gear to adjust them.
Use the menu beside the planned-date column and choose Date. Set the range for the day you are reviewing. Confirm that the column contains planned visit dates rather than invoice dates or job creation dates. The same calendar range can select a different job set when applied to the wrong field.
Use Group filters for category fields such as assigned technician or job type. Select the categories that belong in this route review. If readiness is recorded in a category field, use that supplied field to keep jobs requiring further preparation out of the approved set.
Check the resulting job IDs against the service schedule. Missing dates, inconsistent technician names and stale assignments can leave a job out or put it on the wrong list. Correct the source where needed and repeat the selection.
You can disable a filter by unchecking its checkbox. Before switching to another technician, check which filters are still active. A filter left over from the previous route can hide jobs that the next technician needs to see.
Grouping markers by technician can help you see where different technicians' jobs are close together. For the daily route, keep the focus on the selected eligible IDs. Nearby pins alone don't establish that the jobs can share a technician or an appointment sequence.
Compare the job route before and after
Start from a job marker, open its tools icon and choose Add to Route. Add other markers the same way or use Add Additional Location. For a geographic selection in the routing tool, use Lasso & Fill Locations and close the polygon to populate the routing panel.
Review the list before calculating the route. A selection can capture an unwanted branch pin or miss a job just outside the drawn area. Confirm the eligible job IDs and arrange the starting and ending locations deliberately. You can drag locations using the stacked equals symbols in the routing panel.
Maptive supports up to 73 locations per route. Account for the start and finish when checking the complete list. Optimize Route preserves the first and last locations, so set them to match the technician's actual day.
Use Get Directions for the existing order. Then use Optimize Route and Add another directions instance to compare it with the optimized order. Read the travel details using the same stops and endpoints. Check any changed sequence against job requirements before accepting it.
For the next technician's route, use Clear Form, select the next job set and choose Add another directions instance. Keep the routes clearly named so the planner can match each result to the right technician and day.
Check the day before changing appointments
Add service and access time
Add the actual work to the proposed travel. Include service duration, setup, loading, parking, site entry and breaks where they apply. A driving estimate covers only part of the day a customer and technician have committed to.
For a simple arithmetic illustration, if 5 between-job legs each take 8 fewer minutes, the total reduction is 40 driving minutes. That is a conditional calculation, not a measured result. Whether another job fits depends on that job's service duration, access time and appointment window.
Check where any recovered time falls. Time saved late in the day can't help a fixed morning appointment. If the shorter route creates a gap before a site opens, the technician may spend part of that time waiting. Review the actual sequence with the person responsible for scheduling.
Preserve promised windows
Check each promised window against the proposed visit order in the existing service system. Confirm whether the commitment refers to arrival, the start of work or completion. Add the service and access time needed to reach the next appointment.
Use actual trip history and the team's planning allowance where traffic or access makes a route less predictable. The perfect-condition branch area doesn't establish that an appointment can be met, and a shorter overall route can still put one job in the wrong part of the day.
Keep schedule approval and any customer changes with the people and system that handle them. Maptive supplies the mapped travel plan; the service team carries out scheduling, dispatch and day-of-work changes in its operating process. Give that team the checked job sequence and the assumptions needed to use it.
Measure the travel change in actual work
Record the actual driving minutes between jobs after the revised plan is used. Use your own travel records, keeping service time and waiting time separate. Compare similar days so the result reflects more than a change in job mix.
Track branch, technician route count, job types and the first and last stops. Record emergency work and unplanned return trips too. Those changes can explain a day with more driving even when the planned sequence was sensible.
One useful measure is actual driving minutes per completed job. Use the same driving definition in both periods. If you measure between-job travel, keep depot travel separate in both. Pair that measure with total driving minutes and the number of completed jobs so a smaller workload doesn't look like a routing improvement by itself.
Review the days that differed from the plan. Check missed parts, difficult access, overrunning service and appointment changes against the job IDs. Use those findings to improve the next eligible job set and route review. Keep the approved day's list and travel record together for the next comparison.
