A zone dispatch is one button for a whole district. Behind it, the system works out who services what, invites them, and builds each of them a job, while making sure nobody gets an address twice and nobody gets an address that is not theirs.
Step by step
- Find the addresses. Every address whose pin lies inside the zone (yours and the ones you have handed out) is in scope. An address outside its active period on the planned date is left out; the popup already hides it for that date, and the creation checks once more. To find one address or customer in the popup, and see which zone it is in, type it in the search box; while the search narrows a zone, that zone's box ticks only the addresses shown, see Create a dispatch.
- Find the businesses. For each address, the business currently responsible for it: your own for addresses you kept, the subcontractor for addresses you assigned (and their subcontractor if they passed it on). Each of these businesses is invited, with a bell notification and a push to its administrators.
- Find the routes. For each invited business, the routes it holds that contain addresses in the zone, including routes you assigned to it yourself. Those routes are put on the dispatch, but only their addresses inside the zone are activated. A route that runs out of the zone keeps its outside stops off this dispatch. Routes with Excluded from zone dispatch are skipped entirely.
- Apply the rules. Service rules and frequency limits remove what they must, the owner's May dispatch my addresses switch removes what it blocks, and addresses already on a matching active dispatch are collected rather than duplicated.
- Attach drivers. Each route's drivers are attached to its stops straight away; they are told there is work once the subcontractor accepts, and the subcontractor can add or change drivers after that. Drivers always go onto a route, never onto the zone: on the open dispatch your own routes are listed under each zone with a driver pill of their own, and a subcontractor's routes are only ever crewed by that subcontractor, see Add drivers to an existing dispatch.
- Phone the duty manager if Call on zone dispatch is on in your settings.
Your own addresses are active at once. A subcontractor's part is view-only until it accepts: its drivers see nothing before that. Until the answers come in you see a pill per contractor (Awaiting response, Accepted, Denied) which retires as soon as their work is under way.
One address, one stop
If two routes overlap on an address and both are dispatched by the zone, the address is one stop with a visit per route. Both routes' drivers see it; it is completed once; it is invoiced once. If two zones overlap and you dispatch both within eight hours, the second dispatch is collected into the first instead of duplicating the shared addresses.
Addresses nobody holds
An address in the zone with no responsible business (Missing business in your list) cannot be dispatched to anyone. The dispatch carries a No business assigned warning and lists them, so you can assign them and Add locations afterwards. Likewise an address that is on no route is flagged under Locations not in route; it is dispatched to the business as a loose stop, without a driving order.
What the subcontractor sees
Only its own slice: its routes, its addresses, its drivers, its message. It does not see the zone, the other contractors, or your addresses. When it accepts, the job behaves like a route dispatch of its own; when it declines, its stops show Denied to you and it is never billed or settled for this dispatch. A subcontractor that instead starts its own dispatch on those addresses is asked to Join the existing dispatch.
Completing and invoicing
Each contractor's part completes on its own. You can Confirm & create invoices for any subcontractor as soon as it is done; you don't have to wait for the whole dispatch. Your own addresses are confirmed the same way. The dispatch as a whole is marked complete by you when every part is.