Demonstration - Routes

Select a Route

When routes are activated, the MAIN screen displays the current Route, if one is selected.  Press the ROUTE button to select a Route.

The FIND ROUTE screen displays available routes for you to select.

In this example, Route 2 has been selected.  When a Route has been selected, the FIND CUSTOMER and FIND ORDER screens only display customers / orders for that Route.

Route Processing

At the FIND CUSTOMER screen, the customers for the route are listed in delivery sequence (stop) order:

• The Route Number displays in the upper right hand corner of the FIND CUSTOMER screen.

• The Delivery Sequence is the first field in the Customer List.

• Existing Orders can be displayed - in this example, Blau & Associates already has an order.

Press the ORDER button to enter an order for the highlighted customer

Enter an order for this customer. When this order is completed, press the DONE button to return to the FIND CUSTOMER screen. with the Customer/Order for the next Route Sequence Number (stop) highlighted.
 

When returning to the FIND CUSTOMER screen. the Customer for the next delivery is highlighted.  In this example, an order for Cambridge Corp. was just completed, so the next delivery sequence (12 - Ace General) is highlighted. All the driver has to do is press the ORDER button to enter the next order.

During the day, the route driver normally just moves from the SUMMARY ORDER screen, back to the FIND CUSTOMER screen with the next scheduled stop for this route already highlighted.

Route Processing Options

OPTION: If the driver needs to do an Off Route sale or customer inquiry, press the ALL Routes button at the FIND ROUTE screen. When ALL Routes have been selected, the normal FIND CUSTOMER and FIND ORDER screens display.

OPTION: The driver can also review existing orders for a particular route.  At the FIND ORDER screen, the  orders for the route are listed in delivery sequence order.  The Route Number and Route Description displays just above the list of orders.

OPTION: The driver can select orders with a particular status (such as PRESELL, ORDER, INVOICE, DELIVERY, FUTURE) for a route.

Option: Route Schedule

Rather than using the route code in the customer table to assign routes to customers, an optional Route Schedule table can be used. This route schedule table has several advantages:

• If customer routes are frequently changed, the updated route schedule table can be downloaded, rather than the entire customer table.

• If a customer is visited several times on one route, the route schedule table can include the same customer several times. Different delivery sequence numbers can be used to schedule to customer visits.

• If different locations for the same customer need to be visited, an entry in the route schedule table can be made for each location.

• If different ShipTo’s for the same customer need to be visited, an entry in the route schedule table can be made for each customer ShipTo.

Option: Limit Handheld to Certain Routes

Each handheld can be limited to Routes that are specific to that handheld.

In some situations, it is more efficient to subdivide customers, customer pricing, items, item quantities, or sales order tables before downloading them to the handheld units. Then the handheld user only sees the information that is important to that user. For example:

• A route salesperson may only need sales orders, customer specific pricing, and customers for a particular route.

• A traveling salesperson may only need to use customers in a particular sales territory

ALO Information Manager can optionally subdivide data, such as customers, by route when they are imported from your accounting system. Then ALO Information Manager will only download the appropriate data to each handheld.   The 'Divide by' (or Master Route) value can be different than the route code, so that you can download whole groups of routes ( for example - Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, etc.) to each handheld.