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Planning and dispatch

The trip wizard

A step-by-step walkthrough of creating a trip, from what kind of work it is to the last look before anything is sent.

Updated

The trip wizard is four steps: what kind of work this is, where it goes, who runs it, and a last look before it becomes real. It is the only place in the product that creates a trip, and the same flow is reused to edit one.

Nothing is written while you work through it. In create mode the whole trip is held in the browser until you press Save draft or Schedule, at which point it is sent as a single request — trip and stops together — so you can never end up with a half-created trip because a step failed.

Who can do this

Role
Administrators
Permission
trips:write

Creating and editing trips is an admin action. The plan may also cap how many stops one trip can carry, which the wizard enforces before it lets you finish.

Three ways to start

Create a trip and the first screen is not the form — it is a choice of starting point:

  • Blank. An empty wizard. Right for one-off work that resembles nothing you have run before.
  • From a template. Loads a saved plan — type, origin, priority, the whole route and its tasks — as the wizard’s starting state. See trip templates.
  • Duplicate a recent trip. Copies the plan of a trip you ran, including its stops.

A duplicate is a copy, never a link. Changing it does not touch the trip it came from, and the original keeps its own number, status and history. Both routes are also reachable directly — ?template=<id> and ?duplicate=<id> on the create URL take exactly the same path, which is what makes "run this again" linkable from elsewhere in the product.

The four steps

The rail on the left shows all four at once, each with a one-line summary of what it currently holds, so you can read your position without opening anything.

  1. 1

    Trip details — what kind of work this is

    Trips → Create trip → Trip details

    Pick a type — the only required field on the step. Types are tenant-configurable, so this list is yours, not ours, and it drives which tasks and proof steps are suggested further down.

    An origin is optional. Leave it empty and the trip starts wherever the assigned driver is, with the route measured from the first stop. If the origin you need does not exist yet, create it without leaving the wizard.

    Priority, category, your own reference number and notes for the driver are all optional; category and reference are capped at 100 characters. Custom fields defined for trips appear in their own section at the bottom.

  2. 2

    Route — the stops, in the order they will be run

    Trips → Create trip → Route

    A list on the left, a map on the right. Add stops one at a time, import a batch of destinations, or drop a pin on the map. Stops run top to bottom, and the travel time between each pair is calculated as you go.

    Reorder by dragging, by selecting a stop and pressing Alt with the up or down arrow, or by clicking a stop’s number and typing where it should go. Optimize reorders the whole route into the shortest sequence, leaving locked stops where they are, and Command-K jumps to a stop by name or position.

    An empty route is allowed — a trip with no stops is a real thing — so the wizard warns rather than refuses. Full detail is in stops and sequencing.

  3. 3

    Assign and schedule — who runs it, and when

    Trips → Create trip → Assign & schedule

    Choose a driver, optionally a second driver, and a vehicle. All three can be left empty: the trip is then created unassigned and dispatched later.

    The scheduled end, estimated duration and planned distance are filled in from the route and marked as automatic. Type over one and it pins to your value and stops following the route; a control beside it hands it back to the route whenever you want. A scheduled start is the one thing scheduling genuinely requires — saving a draft does not need it.

    If the driver or vehicle is already booked, or a maintenance or hours-of-service rule is in the way, the conflict appears beside the assignment it concerns. These never stop you — they are for the person who knows something the schedule does not.

  4. 4

    Review — the last look

    Trips → Create trip → Review

    Read-only recaps of the first three steps, each with an Edit link back to the step that owns it, so no value is editable in two places. Above them sits a verdict: either what is still to fix, or that the trip is ready.

    Costs — fuel, tolls, labour, parking, other and revenue — plus tags and internal notes exist only on this step. They are optional, and internal notes are never shown to drivers.

What the wizard blocks, and what it merely flags

Everything wrong with the trip is derived once and rendered in three places — the step rail, the summary panel and the review verdict — so those three can never disagree. Each problem is one of two kinds.

Blocks schedulingWarns only
Trip detailsNo type chosen; category or reference over 100 characters—
RouteA stop with no name, type, address or location; over the plan stop capNo stops at all; a stop arriving after its time window
AssignmentNo scheduled start; a negative duration or distanceNo driver; no vehicle; the same person as both drivers
Server checks—Driver or vehicle double-booked, off shift, or in maintenance
Custom fieldsAny value that fails its field definition—
The two kinds of issue, and what produces each.

Finishing: save, or schedule

Both finishing buttons are available from every step, not just the last one.

  • Save draft creates the trip in draft with everything you have entered, and returns you to the trips list. Nobody is notified. A draft can sit unassigned and unscheduled indefinitely.
  • Schedule creates the trip and immediately moves it to scheduled, which puts it on the dispatch board. A confirmation dialog first states exactly what will happen — the route, the start time, whether the driver gets a push notification, and anything still unresolved.

Whichever you press, the whole form is re-checked first — you may well be on step 4 when the problem lives on step 1, so problems are reported both as a summary and against the field that owns them.

Editing a trip that already exists

Edit reopens the same wizard, with two differences. Every step is reachable immediately — the trip already exists, so there is no order to respect — and each step saves as you leave it rather than at the end.

The final button says Schedule only while the trip is still a draft. Past that it is a plain Save changes, and moving the trip further is done with the action buttons on the trip page. Completed, cancelled, failed and archived trips cannot be edited at all.

When the wizard will not let you finish

The Continue button on the route step does nothing
Cause

At least one stop fails validation.

Each incomplete stop lists its own problems on its card, and the same list gates the button, so the two can never disagree. The commonest cause is a missing type: a hand-added stop starts with no type, and linking a destination fills the name, address and coordinates but not the type.

Schedule is refused because there is no start date
Cause

A scheduled start is the one hard requirement for scheduling.

Go back to Assign & schedule and set one. If you are not ready to commit to a time, save the trip as a draft instead — drafts do not need a start.

The route says you are over a limit on stops
Cause

Your plan caps how many stops one trip may carry.

The message says how many to remove. The cap is set by the plan rather than by a tenant setting, and the server enforces it too, so splitting the work across two trips is the way through.