Platform / Live
Nov 6, 2023 · By Joe Snyder

EasyRoutes Product Updates - October 2023

We've been busy adding new functionality to EasyRoutes in the past month, including one of the features most frequently requested by our users: real-time driver location tracking! More on that, and everything else we added to the app in October below.

A phone lying on a stylised map, a red location pin standing on its screen among pins scattered around it

What's new?

The Tracking tab of a started East End Route, showing the driver’s live location on the map with next stop and ETA, and 10 of 15 stops completed

📍 New Feature: Real-Time Driver Location Tracking

EasyRoutes now provides real-time driver location data for active and completed routes, including:

  • Live GPS location of drivers on active routes and route groups
  • A new Tracking tab for active and completed routes, featuring at-a-glance information as stops are completed in real-time
  • A new option for displaying live driver location on customer order tracking links when a driver is one stop away
A live route dashboard showing the driver, next stop and 3 of 4 stops complete, above a stop table of delivered, attempted and out-for-delivery rows

You can now include real-time driver location (represented by an orange car pin) in customer order tracking links when a driver is one stop away. More details on adding real-time driver location in customer tracking links can be found here:

A customer order tracking page reading “Your order is on the way”, with an orange car pin showing the driver near the delivery address on the map

To enable real-time driver tracking, from EasyRoutes Settings > Driver settings tab, in the Real-time tracking section, check the box for "Enable real-time tracking":

The Real-time tracking section of EasyRoutes driver settings with the “Enable real-time tracking” checkbox ticked

For more information on how to configure and utilize real-time driver location tracking, check out the support article for this new feature.

Note: Real-time driver location tracking is currently only available on EasyRoutes Premium & Enterprise pricing plans.

🚗 New Route Option: Minimize Drivers

We've added a new route option that allows you to plan new routes using the fewest number of drivers required.  Selecting this option before route creation will generate the minimum number of routes possible, while still taking into account any duration, stop count, item count, or weight limits applied via other Route Options:

Route options asking how many routes to generate, with Create the minimal number of routes needed to deliver selected

Note: The minimize drivers route option requires at least one of Max route duration, Max stops per route, and/or Max items per route to be enabled in order to properly calculate any limits of a planned route.

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🛑 New Edit Stop Items Panel

The Edit stop items panel listing Unfulfilled, Scheduled and fulfilled items for a stop, each with a checkbox, above Cancel and Apply buttons

We've added a new "Edit stop items" panel, making it easier to cancel fulfillments, select multiple fulfillments for a stop, or mix and match fulfillments with unfulfilled items for a particular stop.

You can access the new panel by clicking the dropdown arrow under the "Items" column for any stop on a route, then clicking the pencil icon in the top right corner:

The “Items used in this stop” dropdown with the pencil icon in its top right corner circled in red

Use the checkboxes to the left of each individual fulfillment to select which items should be included in this stop, and click Apply to save your changes.

🗺️ Route Start & End Location Improvements

We've added a new setting that requires drivers to start a route before they can update the status on any of the route's stops. This setting helps ensure any Out for Delivery notifications (if sent to customers when a route is started) are triggered before orders can be marked as attempted or delivered:

EasyRoutes Driver app settings with “Require driver to start route before being able to update stops” ticked and outlined in red

When this setting is enabled, the Delivery Driver app will display a warning, and all "Mark as..." buttons will be inaccessible until the "Start Delivery" button for the route has been tapped.

We've also added both Start and End locations as individual entries within a route:

A route's stop table with arrows pointing to the Start and End rows, both at the same address

Additionally, End locations can now independently be marked as "Complete" within the Delivery Driver app, indicating the precise time and location a route is completed, including time spent navigating to the end location.

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📱 EasyRoutes Delivery Driver 1.0.32

The EasyRoutes Delivery Driver app on both iOS and Android has been updated to version 1.0.32, including support for real-time driver location tracking and improvements to route Start and End locations.  The update also includes improvements to the user interface and app performance, as well as various bug fixes. Drivers will need to update to the latest version of the app (version 1.0.32) in order to take advantage of the latest features and improvements.

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Other product updates
(👀 there's some good stuff in here!)

Here are some more additions and improvements we've made to EasyRoutes:

  • Items SKUs, Item weights, and Total weight for an order can now be included on printed packing lists
  • Order weight and Route name can now be included on printed packing labels
  • Improved filtering behaviour to better support filtering by postal codes, regardless of whether they contain spaces or not
  • Comma-separated lists of postal and ZIP codes can now be added when using Filter views on the Orders page
  • You can now change the contact and reply-to email address for your customer notification emails

Your delivery day, planned before you get in.