Urgent call
The system shows who is closest and who can fit in the unexpected visit, then replans the affected day.
Route planning
For most service teams, the daily route comes together in someone’s head, between a map app and the phone. That works until an urgent job comes in.
RDO's automated planning puts the technicians' day together in one click, and you decide what matters more: fitting in as many jobs as possible, or having colleagues travel as little as possible.
Automated planning
“Auto-plan day” builds the technicians' daily routes from the waiting jobs. Nearby jobs go to one technician, and the order leaves time for travel, too. Along the way, it takes all of these into account:
Nobody gets more work than fits into their day.
The job goes to a colleague who can actually do it.
It plans with the estimated service time, not just the addresses.
Only appointments that suit the customer go into the plan.
It counts the travel between jobs as part of the day, so the schedule stays realistic.
Urgent jobs and those due soon don't slip back.
The machine suggests, you decide. The dispatcher reviews the finished plan and can change it at any time.
Planning priorities
In the summer peak, what matters to an air-conditioning team is fitting as many jobs as possible into the day. At other times, it is colleagues driving less, or putting the higher-value quotes first.
In RDO, you can rank six priorities: the number of scheduled jobs, priority, scheduling risk, travel time, distance and quote value. For the less important ones, you can set how much you give up for the sake of the more important ones.
So planning doesn't look for a generic “shortest route”, but for the one that serves your goals best.
With protected capacity, you set for each day how much time planning should leave free. That leaves room for a burst pipe or an urgent repair, without replanning the whole day.
Capacity and risk
The top of the planner shows the state of the day: how many jobs are waiting, how full the schedule is, and how many hours are still free. Route ratings show which day is calm and which is risky, before the technicians even set off.
Where another job still fits without anyone's day falling apart.
Where there is no room left between two jobs.
Where a job that runs over affects the next customer, too.
They show up before the customer calls to ask where the technician is.
Scheduling recommendations
When a new job comes in, RDO goes through the technicians' days and ranks the possible slots by time, distance or risk. For every suggestion, you see how much extra travel it adds.
Alongside the suggestions, you also see why they are good or risky:
If you depart from the suggested order, the expandable explanation shows the consequence in a before-and-after comparison. For example, if two jobs end up too close together and the first one runs over, the second customer will have to wait, too.
| Before | After | |
|---|---|---|
| Buffer before the job | 25 min | 5 min |
| Buffer after the job | 20 min | 0 min |
| Next customer, arrival | 13:00 | 13:20 (late) |
| Return to the depot | 16:40 | 17:05 |
The system shows who is closest and who can fit in the unexpected visit, then replans the affected day.
In case of illness or leave, it takes minutes to find out who can take over their jobs, and how the others' days change as a result.
Excel vs RDO
In principle, yes, but it isn't worth it. Excel doesn't plan routes on its own: you would need a separate program written and maintained for that, and it would still struggle to keep up with changes during the day.
What you end up with is a good record. You still have to put the day together yourself.
Get to know RDO in a demo
In a 20-minute demo, we plan a day from your own jobs and look at which priorities matter most for you.
Frequently asked questions
Yes. The planner suggests; the dispatcher decides on changes. You can move a job to another day or another colleague, and the system shows how that affects the rest of the day.
The system provides a map overview of jobs and planned routes, but it is not real-time GPS navigation. There is a practical reason: a maintenance round is often arranged weeks in advance, rather than put together that morning.