Minimum Version Required: 24.05
Pre-Conditions
The Strategic Routing App must be installed from the App Library.
Steps
Empower your employees to use the Strategic Planner tool with Encompass and Wise Systems to build efficient routes, lower costs, improve resource utilization, customer satisfaction, and increase driver retention and job satisfaction.
As the beverage industry becomes increasingly complex with more products, more suppliers, rising costs, increased driver turnover, and higher retail demand, the need for fast and efficient strategic routing tools has never been more essential.
Use cases
The Encompass Strategic Planner integration, powered by Wise Systems, covers a wide range of scenarios seen here:
Steps
Before creating a routing plan or session, it is recommended to make a copy of the active Route Version. You will need to leave the new Route Version inactive and set the Start Date to some time well in the future.
1. To start the Strategic Routing process, click on the 3 dots next to an inactive Route Version and click Strategic Planner.
2. If this is the first time using Strategic Planner, you will need to add a new Planning Session. Name the Planning Session something that makes sense to you. Then, select the Planning Session and click the Next: Fleet button.
3. To begin selecting the Fleet data, first choose the Activity type: Delivery, Presell, or Merchandising. Then, click the Search button to retrieve the Vehicle and Route data for the selected Activity.
If there are any Routes you wish to exclude from the Route Plan or Session, check the "Exclude" checkbox for those Routes.
4. To begin setting up the Customer data, click the Next: Customers button.
5. Load Customers by selecting a Sales History date range and applying any other desired filters. Then, click the Search button to load the matching Customers.
6. The Customer data will include Sales Cycle Averages, which are calculated using the average weekly sales for the date range selected. The average is then multiplied by the frequency of the customer's visits in a 4-week cycle.
- For example, if a weekly visited Customer had an average sales of 100 cases per week, the Sales Cycle Average would be 400 cases.
7. To unassign a Customer from a Route, click Unassign Route. This will tell the Strategic Planner that this Customer can be assigned to any route. Also, a customer can be unassigned from a specific day of the week or phased week by checking Unassign Service Pattern.
Customers can be unassigned once the data is in Strategic Planner as well.
8. To send your Fleet and Customer data, click Send to Strategic Planner.
9. Click Login to Strategic Planner. This will open the Wise Systems Strategic Planning tool in a new tab in your browser.
10. The Fleet and Customer data will be automatically uploaded into Wise Systems Strategic Planner. Successful uploads of both Fleet and Customer data will be indicated by the green upload indicator.
11. You will notice the Session or Plan names that were created in Encompass will also be available in Strategic Planner. Click the Plan dropdown to open and view, or copy Planning Sessions.
12. Click Run Strategic Planner to start optimizing your Routes.
13. Select any Constraints, Capacity and Time Window options, and Balancing options then click Run Strategic Planner.
14. Once the Strategic Planner has run, you can view your Territories and their metrics. Each polygon on the map represents a single Territory over a cycle. Use the map to see where Territories are overlapping.
15. Hover over a Customer’s map marker to view key information and service pattern details.
16. Click on an individual Territory to zoom in on all of the Customers assigned to that Territory.
17. Search for a Customer by entering the Customer Number or Name in the search box in the top-right.
18. To view Routes for a specified period, select individual weeks and days of the cycle. When an individual day is selected, the Route's Stops will display on the right side of the screen in sequence order.
19. To reassign Stops between Territories, select the Customer you would like to reassign by clicking on the Customer’s map marker. From the dropdown, select the Territory you would like to reassign the Customer to. You can also select the Remove From Territory option to unassign a Stop from a Territory.
20. Click on the pencil icon beside the Service Pattern displayed within a customer card to edit Service Patterns from either map view or metrics view.
21. When the edit pencil is selected, the editing modal will open where you can update the days or weeks for which the Customer should be serviced. Click Update to save the changes to the Service Pattern.
22. Strategic Planner lets you view metrics for your routes in a separate table view page by clicking the table icon in the bottom left.
In this view, you can examine metrics at the Territory level, across weeks within the cycle, and on individual weekdays. This view is useful for identifying problem areas and ensuring Routes remain balanced as edits and modifications are made. The Group By toggle at the top of the page allows you to group the data by weekday or by week.
23. Select all Customers on a Route by clicking the select "All Customers icon" next to the Route Name. Selected Customers will appear on the right of the screen.
24. Remove Customers from the current Territory by clicking the Territory dropdown and selecting Remove From Territory.
25. Unassigned Customers will show in the Unserviced Customers section located at the top-left of the page and can be shown on the map.
Run Strategic Planner to assign Unserviced Customers. Customers will be assigned to the selected routes, or if no routes are selected, they will be assigned based on the selected configurations.
Check the configurations in the Configurations tab and initiate the Strategic Planner tool by clicking Run Strategic Planner.
26. Once you have completed your Routing Plan in Wise Systems and are ready to import Routes back into Encompass, go to the Route Versions table and click Import Strategic Plan.
27. Select the appropriate Plan and click Import Data.
28. To confirm the Routes imported as expected, run the Routing Report in Encompass.