1. Functions

Handyman Route Planning adds the following features to Handyman:

Display of multiple orders on the map
Display of the technicians' home locations on the map
Display of the current location of technician vehicles and other assets (e.g. trucks, construction machinery) on the map
Planning routes to orders, technicians, assets
Optimizing the stops of a route to minimize driving distance
Transfer of planned routes to Handyman resource planning
Display of sites and equipment selected in Handyman Office directly on the map, plotted automatically from their address
Live GPS tracking from both GSFleet and ABAX Triplog, so both fleets appear on the same map
Linking a GPS asset to the employee currently using it, so the map shows who is with a vehicle — not just where it is
Finding the nearest technician who is actually qualified for a job, and adding them to the order in a single step

What are the user Interface Elements?

What does the Map panel show?

The map displays the data selected for display:

Layers selected in Settings & Filter (e.g. Orders, Assets)
Within the layers, the selected individual data records (e.g. specific order)

Depending on the level, the data Handyman displays with different symbols.

A single left-click on the symbol of a data record opens its context menu.

Map pins are grouped into clusters when several items sit at the exact same position, and — depending on how far you've zoomed in — when items are simply very close together. Click a cluster to open a list of everything in it, or zoom in to split it apart into its individual pins automatically.

The zoom factor of the map is adjusted with the scroll wheel of the mouse.

The map section can be moved by clicking, dragging and dropping with the mouse.

Alternatively, the zoom factor and map section you can set using the navigation bar at the bottom edge of the map. The navigation bar can be shown and hidden in the settings.

The map is set up by the system so that all elements selected for display are visible. This can be turned off in the settings.

How do I arrange panels in route planning?

Panels (e.g. Data, Settings & Filters) can be placed anywhere on the screen by dragging and dropping them onto the panel's title bar. Alternatively, they can be docked to the edge of the screen.

By clicking the pin icon in the upper right corner, you can set whether the panel should be displayed permanently or hidden. Hidden panels will appear as soon as you hover over them with the mouse pointer.

How do I configure the Settings and Filter panel?

2.3.1 Filter

In order for data to be displayed in the route planning, an entry select in the filters.
The set filters basically affect all data in all panels and on the map.

2.3.2 Settings

Only search in the current map section
If this setting is active, the automatic setting of the map section is deactivated: If additional data is selected for display on the map, the map section is not automatically adjusted, only the data Handyman displays on the map , which are in the currently selected map section.
Show navigation bar
If this setting is enabled, the map's navigation bar Handyman displays. You can use the navigation bar to adjust the zoom level and the map view.
Show details
If this setting is active, more details about the selected data appear on the map.
Save layout and settings
Saves the layout created by you (e.g. for panels, columns, settings). This feature Handyman displays again the next time you start route planning.
Reset Layout
Clears you-set layout and restores the default settings.

2.3.3 Layers

Each available layer you can select to show its data on the map:

GPS assets — vehicles and equipment with live location tracking, from GSFleet and, if your Handyman client is set up for it, ABAX Triplog. Both appear together as one fleet view.
Equipment — the sites and equipment you selected in the Handyman Office service module, plotted from their address. Only available when route planning is opened from the site or equipment list.
Orders, technicians' home locations, and routes.

The available levels may depend on your license. The GPS assets level is only available when GSFleet or ABAX Triplog is set up for GPS tracking.

What does the Data panel show?

2.4.1 Lists

This panel shows lists from which you can select the records to be displayed on the map.

The lists are filtered according to the filters set in the Settings & Filter panel.

The data records that have a tick in the first column (Show in map) appear in the map.

You can further filter and search the data by using the autofilter bar. Especially in the Auto-Filter row, you can filter by records that are currently (not) displayed on the map by entering a value in the "Show on Map" column.

2.4.2 Tab

The Data panel contains tabs with different data:

Orders — By default, a filter is set for orders without a main participant. The list therefore shows all orders that still need to be planned.
Tasks — Shows the tasks from resource planning. Only the location of the order is taken into account.
GPS assets (previously called "Asset") — Shows GPS-tracked vehicles and equipment from GSFleet and ABAX Triplog. Rows that meet an order's competence requirements (see "How do I find and assign the nearest qualified technician?" below) are highlighted, both here and on the map pin.
Equipment — Only available when route planning is opened from the site or equipment list in the service module. Shows the sites and equipment you selected there, filtered to just what's relevant to the job in front of you. These can't be added to a route, but you can still use Find nearest to see which GPS asset is closest to them.

2.4.3 Menu Bar

The following functions are available in the menu bar (depending on the tab):

Show orders with main participants
If this setting is active, orders that have already been planned will also be displayed. It is usually easier to display the associated tasks and only use the Orders tab to select the orders that are still to be planned.
Show visible ... on the map
Shows all data entries currently visible in the list on the map
Hide visible ... on the map
All data entries currently visible in the list are hidden on the map
Show all ... on the map
Shows all datasets available according to the general filter on the map
Depending on the amount of data, this may result in long loading times
Hide all ... on the map
Hides all datasets available according to the general filters on the map. Use this function to reset the screen so you can reset the filters in a second step.
Link to Equipment / Link to Employee
Available from the context menu on a row in the GPS assets list, or on its pin on the map (see 2.4.4 below) — not from the menu bar. To connect a GPS asset to an installation location or object, right-click (or left-click, per the new pin behavior) the asset and choose Link to Equipment, then pick from the equipment already selected in the service module. If a match already exists — the asset's external ID matches an employee number, or, for ABAX, its current driver does — the asset shows an employee icon automatically, without any manual linking.
Refresh
Reloads the table data.

2.4.4 Context menu for the list

A single left-click on a record — in the list or on its map pin — opens its context menu. For a GPS asset, this includes:

Link to Equipment — pick from the equipment you already selected in the service module, no re-searching.
Link to Employee — pick from the employees available to you. For a GSFleet asset this links to the asset's current user; for ABAX, linking also updates the external ID of the driver assigned to that asset in ABAX, so you don't have to maintain it in two systems.
Add to order — when the asset's linked employee is available and you've just run Find nearest from an order or task, add that employee to the order directly, without leaving the map.

How do I plan and optimise routes?

Routes can be planned and optimized in the route panel. Different routes can be planned within the panel - each in its own sub-panel. You can use route planning to schedule daily routes or multi-day routes.

A new route can be created by:

Click the "New" icon (green plus) in the toolbar of the "Routes" panel
Click on the corresponding entry in the context menu of a list or an icon. The selected entry is immediately added to the new route.

What are the menu bar options for a single route?

Copy route
Creates a copy of the route. This allows variants to be created and compared.
Show/hide route on map
Shows the route as a series of connecting arrows on the map
Transfer route to resource planning
Retrieves resource planning, with the order list filtered to the orders of the route. This allows the orders to be easily planned for the desired technician and the desired time
Delete route
Optimize route
Orders the sequence of stops to minimize driving distance. Calculating optimal routes is a complex, tedious process that can take longer when there are many stops involved. The system supports route optimization with a maximum of 20 stops. Route calculation and optimization are subject to fees. Intensive use of the feature may result in additional costs beyond the fixed monthly fee for route planning.
Minimize route
Minimizes the subpanels. The feature simplifies working with multiple routes simultaneously.

2.5.2 Route planning features

Participant selection list
You can select participants for the route. The starting and ending point of the route is set according to the first selected participant to the employee's home position or, if not defined, to the location of the employee's department.
Picklists for start and end
- Home location of the employee (if defined)
- Location of employee's department (if defined)
- Arrival/departure
  Select this option to manually enter the driving time and distance the employee has to travel before/after the first/last stop. This option is useful, for example, if the journey does not start at the home location or at the department, but the travel time should be included in the total of the route.
Table with the stops of the route
- Travel time and km are automatically calculated by the system
- Orders and tasks appear with the scheduled execution time. The same logic applies as when determining the scheduled execution time in resource planning.
- The order of the stops you can change by clicking, dragging and dropping the mouse.
- The totals for the route appear at the end of the table
- If the total time exceeds the employee's target working time for a day, the sum Handyman displays in red. You can ignore this warning if the route is planned for multiple days.

3. Use cases

What is 3.1. Compose a route from several new orders?

Example: weekly scheduling of newly added orders

Make sure that the Orders, Engineer Home Locations, and Routes layers are showing on the map.
Filter the job list to only display the jobs you want to schedule now (e.g. jobs without main participants in a specific department)
View all visible orders in the map.
If there are too many orders for a route, use additional filter criteria or use the setting to limit the display to the current map section.
Think about which jobs could be well served by which technician.
Create a new route for the technician
Add the individual orders to the route one after the other.
Change/optimize the order and check if the route fits the employee's working time.
If the route is OK, transfer the route's orders to resource planning.
Schedule the individual orders there for the desired time.
Close the route.
Refresh the order list - this will hide the already scheduled orders.

How do I plan an emergency order?

Select the order to be planned and display it on the map.
Select all active tasks and display them on the map.
The location of the active task is the best approximation for the employee's current location.
Create a new route and add the order and an active task. Repeat the process if you want to compare different technicians' travel time from their active task to the job.
Use the resource planning to check the temporal consequences of a rescheduling.
Open the order in resource planning and schedule the order and any other conflicting tasks.

How do I find and assign the nearest qualified technician?

Select the order or task and run Find nearest.
The GPS assets list sorts by distance and marks every asset whose linked employee meets the order's competence requirements — so the closest qualified person is easy to spot, not just the closest person.
Left-click the asset (on the map or in the list) and choose Add to order to assign that employee directly, without opening resource planning first.

How do I see who is driving a vehicle, or link one to an employee?

Open the GPS assets tab or look at the pins on the map — a vehicle already linked to an employee shows an employee icon and that person's name.
To link one yourself, left-click the asset and choose Link to Employee, then pick from the employees available to you.
For a GSFleet asset, this links to the asset's current user. For ABAX, it also updates that driver's external ID in ABAX itself.

How do I find the current location of an object?

In the Handyman Office service desktop, select the object
In the Installation location / Object menu, click on the "Route planning" entry
The route planning opens: the object is selected in the asset list, the object Handyman displays on the map.
The prerequisite is that the object has previously been assigned to an asset .