Creating & updating Schedules

To calculate a schedule, click the Calculate schedule button. portatour® opens a connection to the portatour®-Server and initiates the calculation of a schedule for up to 28 calendar days. To do this, portatour® uses following data and information:

• Your home location (see section Home location on map)
• The working hours you specified and the current time (see section Working hours)
• The settings for overnight stays on the way (see section Measurement System)
• The basic call settings (see section Scheduling parameters)
• The customers activated for portatour® (see section Call address and geo-location)
• The customers to be included in the next schedule through reservations (see section Include in Schedule)
• The activated appointments in your Salesforce calendar (see section Call settings for appointments)
• The current scheduling parameters (see section Modify Schedule Parameters)

The data transfer and calculation takes between 10 seconds and 2 minutes – depending on internet connection, number of customers, scheduling time frame and current server load. Tips to speed up the process can be found in section How can I accelerate the calculation of schedules?. You will see an animation showing progress messages:

During calculation, portatour® optimizes your sales-route as well as the selection of your customers according to call urgency, which is derived from your desired call interval. For the first calculation of a schedule, approximate driving durations are calculated on the basis of beelines – for later calculations, actual distances are taken (see section Unexact beelines have been used for schedule calculation).