Employee Route Planner
Executive Summary
Employee Route Planner lets a coordinator review and re-sequence one employee's client visits for a single day. After choosing an employee and service date, the system loads that employee's scheduled visits from AlayaCare and lists the stops in time order. The coordinator can drag stops into a new order or ask the system to optimize the sequence for the shortest driving time, view the route on a map, and then save. Saving recalculates the driving times along the chosen order and updates the visit times in AlayaCare to match. Page settings control whether the route starts and ends at the employee's home address and the time of day the route begins.
Key Features
- Load an employee's visits for a service date, with visits for the same client and address at the same time shown as one stop
- Reorder stops by dragging rows (several rows can be selected)
- Optimize the stop sequence for the fastest driving time
- View the route on a map with numbered stops, visit times, and travel distance
- Save the new order, which updates the visit times in AlayaCare
- Warn before refreshing or clearing when there are unsaved changes
- Configure the start time method, the start time of day, and whether the route starts and ends at the employee's home
Typical Workflow
- Search for an Employee, choose the Service Date, and click Refresh.
- Review the stops. Drag rows to change the order, or click Optimize to let the system sequence them.
- Click Map to check the route if needed.
- Click Save to write the new visit times to AlayaCare.
- Click Clear to start over with another employee or date.
Configurable Settings
Open View Settings or Edit Settings from this screen (when permitted) to change these options.
| Group | Setting | Type | Purpose |
|---|---|---|---|
| General | Start Time Method | Dropdown | How the route's start time is applied when the route is saved. Choices: Starting Time For First Visit, Departure Time From Employee Home Address. |
| General | Start Time | Time | Time of day the route begins (5-minute steps). Used as the departure time when saving and optimizing, and as the time shown for the employee's home when the route starts there. |
| General | Start At Employee Home Address | Yes/No | Starts the route at the employee's home address instead of the first client. |
| General | End At Employee Home Address | Yes/No | Ends the route at the employee's home address instead of the last client. |
Available Permissions
The following permissions are available to be assigned to AlayaCare Roles:
| Attribute | What It Controls |
|---|---|
| View | Open the page |
| Settings View | Open View Settings to see the page configuration |
| Settings Edit | Open Edit Settings and change the page configuration |
Main Grid
The grid lists the stops on the employee's route for the service date (400 pixels high, scrollable). Rows can be selected (several at once) and dragged to change the order. The count Total Clients is shown beneath the grid.
| Column | Description |
|---|---|
| Clients for Route | Client name (or the facility name for a facility visit). |
| Address (no heading) | Street address of the stop. |
Main Grid Filters
| Filter | Purpose |
|---|---|
| Employee | Employee whose route is planned. Type to search by name. |
| Service Date | Day of the visits to load. |
Actions
| Button | Description |
|---|---|
| Refresh | Loads the employee's visits for the service date. If there are unsaved changes, you are asked "Changes Exist. Are you sure you want to refresh the route?" |
| Clear | Clears the employee, date, and route. If there are unsaved changes, you are asked "Changes Exist. Are you sure you want to clear the route?" |
| Map | Opens the Map dialog. Disabled until a route has been loaded with Refresh. |
| Save | Appears once a route is loaded. Saves the current order to AlayaCare. Disabled until the order has changed. |
| Optimize | Appears once a route is loaded. Re-sequences the stops for the fastest driving time. |
| View Settings | Opens the page settings in read-only mode (when settings view is permitted). |
| Edit Settings | Opens the page settings for editing (when settings edit is permitted). |
Dialog Components
Map
Opens from Map. The system builds the map from the employee's visits for the service date, and then shows a list of routes on the left and the map on the right. Click Ok (or the close icon) to close it.
If the employee has fewer than two stops, the message "Please select at least one route with active visits" is shown instead.
Route Grid
| Column | Description |
|---|---|
| Route Name | The employee's name, with the colour used for the route on the map. |
| Clients | Number of stops (clients) on the route. |
| Mapped | Stops that have a location and appear on the map. |
| Skipped | Stops with no usable location, which are left off the map. |
| Visit Time | Total scheduled visit time, in minutes. |
| Travel Time | Estimated driving time, in minutes. |
| KM | Estimated driving distance. |
Expand the route row to see its stops.
| Column | Description |
|---|---|
| Numbered dot | Stop number on the map. |
| Start | Scheduled start of the visit. |
| Visit Time | Length of the visit. |
| Client | Client name and address. |
When the route starts or ends at the employee's home, the home address is added as the first and last stop, labelled with the employee's name.
Dependencies
The following tables must be configured for lookups on this view to work:
| Table | Description |
|---|---|
| Facilities | Address and location of a visit that is held at a facility rather than a client's home. |
| ServiceCodes | Service codes can be marked to be excluded from employee routing and mapping; those visits are left off the route. |
Processing Overviews
This section describes what happens after you confirm a processing action.
Refresh
- Confirms the AlayaCare sign-in, a service date, and an employee; otherwise a warning is shown.
- Loads the employee's profile and their visits for the service date (the whole day in your time zone).
- Skips cancelled visits and visits on hold, and loads the client and service for each remaining visit. The stop address comes from the service's own location when it has one, otherwise from the client's home address.
- Groups visits for the same client and address that start at the same time into a single stop, and leaves out visits whose service code is marked to be excluded from employee routing.
- Lists the stops in start-time order and enables Map, Save, and Optimize.
Optimize
- If the route starts or ends at the employee's home, requires the employee's address to have a map location; otherwise a warning is shown and nothing changes.
- Merges stops for the same client and address into one.
- Sends the stops, each allowing five minutes, to the mapping service for the fastest driving order, departing at the Start Time and starting and ending at the employee's home when those settings are on. Stops without a map location produce a warning ("Address for ... not geocoded").
- Re-orders the grid to the result. Errors from the mapping service are shown as messages. Nothing is written to AlayaCare until Save.
Save
- Requires every stop to have a map location; otherwise a warning names the first stop without one and nothing is saved.
- Asks the mapping service for driving times along the current order, departing at the Start Time (8:00 am if none is set). The route starts at the employee's home when Start At Employee Home Address is on, otherwise at the first stop, and ends at the employee's home when End At Employee Home Address is on, otherwise at the last stop.
- If any stop could not be given a time, shows "At least one client could not be processed" and stops without changing anything.
- For every visit at every stop, updates the visit in AlayaCare: the start becomes the calculated arrival time and the end is set five minutes later, keeping the same employee and service. The update is sent with all of the AlayaCare scheduling overrides switched on, including the reason-code override.
- If AlayaCare rejects a visit because of a conflict, a message "Update Visit Failed" with AlayaCare's reason is shown. There is no message when an update succeeds.