Overview
There are different factors that play into how auto-assigning works.
A key factor is the scheduled mode that is being applied to a tour. There are two different types of scheduling modes: Instant and Scheduled.
Auto-assigning is the process of a tour being offered to drivers based on certain criteria. Drivers that are receiving such requests can typically choose to accept or decline or even to simply ignore.
A tour stays in this matching status either until a driver accepts it, or it is being force-assigned by a dispatcher or it is cancelled.
If a driver who has accepted a tour decides to cancel, the status of the tour goes back to searching for a driver.
- Assigning by service area
- Assigning by capability
- Details for scheduling mode "instant"
- Details for scheduling mode "scheduled"
- Alternatives to auto-assigning
Assigning by service area
When it comes to matching, the Service area plays a central role. On creation, a tour is automatically assigned to a service area. This happens based on the geolocation of the first stop.
When it comes to matching a tour to eligible drivers, drivers have to belong to the same service area as the tour in order to see them. A driver automatically gets assigned to the service area they were last seen in.
Assigning by capability
A powerful and highly-configurable feature of MotionTools is Capabilities. They help businesses to offer various different service While most information can be found on the corresponding article that fully described this feature of capabilities, it is important to note that capabilities have an impact on whether tours are visible to certain drivers or not. This is true independently of the automatic matching methods explained below. So e.g. if a driver does not qualify for a certain tour because he is not online with the correct type of vehicle, then he won't see the tour.
Details for scheduling mode "instant"
In the driver app there is a dedicated tab for tours in the mode "instant". This means the tours have been created for "now" or where previously scheduled but were running late and converted to instant.
The list is sorted chronologically by default with the most recent tours listed at the bottom. Optionally, the list can be sorted by distance with the closest booking shown first.
When to use this option?
When available drivers are always at the (same) pickup location, it is usually preferred to show all available bookings to all eligible drivers and let them start any of them. A typical use case is quick commerce operated from dark stores — bookings are always urgent and should be processed ASAP, and it does not matter which driver takes which request.
Details for scheduling mode "scheduled"
This mode is best to be used, if bookings or tours are planned for later in the same day or even a few days ahead.
In the driver app, there is a separat tab for this "scheduled" mode.
Drivers can accept scheduled tours upfront to be able to plan ahead. As soon as a tour was accepted by a driver, it won't be visible anymore to other drivers.
If a driver does not start a claimed booking or tour 'in time', it then falls back to the "instant mode" to find the best possible replacement driver automatically. The details of this fallback mechanism can be configured in the Dashboard via the scheduling configuration.
When to use this option?
This can be very helpful when working with drivers who:
- Want to plan their day upfront.
- When it is very important to ensure that enough supply will be available.
- When simply the type of operations allows or demands bookings and tours to be 'planned ahead'.
Alternatives to auto-assigning
Besides these auto-assigning feature, MotionTools also offers a wide variety of manual assigning options. These options can be used in the MotionTools Dashboard or even via API. This means that custom logic can be build utilizing these manual assigning features. Which actually automates manual processes based on custom rules.
Basic features are:
- Manually assigning a specific driver
- Manually settings one our multiple preferred drivers to limit the visibility to certain drivers
- Manually setting one or multiple organizations, which limits not only the visibility towards drivers, but also ensures that dispatchers (org mangers) of suppliers can do the assigning to their own workforce
