Failing a Stop
This article explains how to fail a stop, give a reason, and choose what happens next with an outcome.
What Failing a Stop Means
Failing a stop means that a stop could not be completed as intended, for example a pickup or a drop-off that couldn't be carried out. It also helps improve the quality of your operations data by recording exactly why a stop did not complete successfully.
A failed stop is final: once a stop is failed it stays failed and cannot be dispatched again. To redispatch a stop you don't reopen the failed stop, instead you choose an outcome that adds a new stop to the booking. This keeps a clear record of every attempt.
When to Fail a Stop
Fail a stop when a driver has arrived at the stop but the stop can't be completed, for example:
- The item isn't available for pickup.
- The item is damaged and can't be dropped off or accepted by the recipient.
- The recipient is unavailable, or the address is wrong.
- The driver doesn't have the right tools or the item to complete the task.
- A required check, such as an age or delivery code verification, could not be passed.
- The booking is cancelled while the driver is on the way, so the stop is failed and handled according to your terms and conditions.
Who Can Fail a Stop
- Admins and Organization managers: enabled by default. They fail a stop, give a reason, and choose an outcome. Admins see all data, while Organization managers only see bookings and tours for the organizations they manage.
- Drivers: failing a stop from the Driver App has to be enabled first. In this version drivers give a reason but don't choose an outcome, so their failures use the default outcome (Skip recovery). To enable this for drivers, contact our support team.
How to Fail a Stop
This is supported for the current stop of En Route bookings and tours.
As a dispatcher
- Open the booking's Booking Details page.
- Find the stop you want to fail, click the three dots, and select Fail stop.
- Choose a failure reason.
- Choose an outcome.
- Confirm.
WARNING
Consider related dispatching tasks
Depending on which type of stop you are failing and how the booking is structured, you might want to additionally remove a stop from the ongoing tour. For example, if you fail a pickup and want to reattempt it later, you should manually remove the pending drop-off stop from the tour and check the order of the remaining stops on the booking. If you fail a pickup stop and reattempt it later, you'll need to move the new pickup stop to be the next stop, not the last.
As a driver
A driver fails the current stop while executing a tour.
INFO
The red icon for failing a stop only appears when this feature has been enabled for drivers on your account.
- Next to the Slide when arrived slider, tap the red icon and confirm when prompted.
Choosing a Reason
When you fail a stop you select a reason that describes why the stop couldn't be completed, such as recipient unavailable, wrong address, damaged goods, or a failed verification.
Recording a reason keeps your operations data consistent and makes failures easier to review later. The reason is also included in the notifications MotionTools sends to connected systems.
Choosing an Outcome
After the reason, you choose an outcome that decides what happens to the booking next. Because a failed stop is final, every outcome except Skip recovery adds a new stop to the booking instead of reopening the failed one.
| Outcome | What it does |
|---|---|
| Return now | Adds a return stop to the booking and dispatches it to the end of the current tour, so the goods go back on the same tour. |
| Return later | Adds a return stop to the booking but doesn't dispatch it yet. You dispatch it later. |
| Reattempt now | Adds a copy of the failed stop and dispatches it to the end of the current tour, to try the same stop again. |
| Reattempt later | Adds a copy of the failed stop but doesn't dispatch it yet. Please note that if you want to reattempt a pickup later, you likely need to also undispatch the related drop-off stop from the ongoing tour AND rearrange the order of stops on the booking BEFORE dispatching the remaining stops into a new tour. |
| Skip recovery | Leaves the stop failed with no follow-up stop. This is the default. |
INFO
A return sends the goods back to the pickup address, so the return stop keeps the original contact details but no notes, photos, or custom content. A reattempt is a full copy of the failed stop, because it's a fresh attempt at the same stop.
For more on the return-specific outcomes, see the Booking Return Flow article.
When an Outcome Isn't Available
Some outcomes have conditions, and MotionTools hides or blocks an outcome when they aren't met. Common reasons an outcome can't be used:
- The booking or the current tour has reached its maximum number of stops.
- A now outcome was chosen but the tour is no longer active.
- A return outcome was chosen but the Return stop type isn't enabled for the booking or tour service.
- A return outcome was chosen but the booking isn't a simple pickup followed by a drop-off.
- Return now was chosen but the pickup wasn't completed on the same tour as the failed stop.
What Happens to the Booking and Tour
You can fail a single stop, several stops, or all stops of a booking. Failing a stop changes the booking status depending on the outcome and the other stops:
- If a recovery stop is still open (after a now or later outcome), or other stops are still open, the booking becomes Partially Dispatched. Please ensure that you remove all related stops from the ongoing tour and then review the partially dispatched booking and its order of stops before redispatching into a tour.
- If the failed stop was the last open stop and you chose Skip recovery, the booking is completed automatically, because every stop has reached a final state.
Failing a Return or Reattempt Stop
Return and reattempt stops can be failed too, using the same flow.
- Failing a reattempt stop offers the same outcomes as the original stop.
- Failing a return stop can't start another return ("returning a return" isn't possible). You can only reattempt it or skip recovery.
How to Find Bookings and Tours with Failed Stops
Admins and Organization managers can filter for bookings that contain failed stops.
Make sure the Stop status filter is enabled in the Display options of your dashboard.
Open the Stop statuses filter and select Failed.
Open the All bookings filter and select Customer bookings to show all customer bookings that contain failed stops.