Instant merge

Overview

MotionTools offer multiple ways to optimize bookings into tours. More details are covered in the article: Introduction to tour building. The Instant merge feature would work best if you adopt the instant delivery model (10 - 60 min), where bookings come in via integration with your shop. As you have a promised delivery time, you might want to show all incoming bookings to drivers right away but select certain bookings manually where drop-off stops are close by, or if instant merge makes sense due to other criteria.

• Step-by-step guide
• Instant merge algorithms

Step-by-step guide

The instant merge button allows Admins and/ or Org managers to merge bookings with these simple steps:

1. Select the bookings you want to merge into a tour. You can either select them individually or select all by checking the box next to the display options.
   • Make sure all the bookings are in the same status (either Pickable, Scheduled or On Hold).
2. Click on Instant merge button.
   • Status of the simple bookings will be changed to Dispatched and will be not visible as individual bookings in the driver app. MotionTools creates a new booking which is marked as Tour. If you want to view only the tours created, click on the drop-down list to filter from All bookings to Driver tours.
      
     
      
3. Undispatch the tour if you made a mistake.
   • Merged bookings (status Dispatched) can be reverted to their previous state by 'unmerging' the newly created tour. Select the tour and hit the Undispatch button — this action cancels the tour and its bookings will be undispatched. Reselect the bookings and hit Instant merge again to create a new tour.
      
     

Instant merge algorithms

Depending on your business decision and promises to customers, you might want to choose between different merging algorithm. Here are the rules we support so far:

• Sorted by first-in

All stops will be merged and sorted by 'first-in'.

For 2-stop bookings we collect all first stops and sort them by first-in, then collect all second stops and sort them again by first-in.

• Optimized by distance

We collect all stops and sort them by shortest distance.

For 2-stop bookings we start with all first stops and sort them by shortest distance, then take all second stops and sort them by shortest distance. We don’t support 3-stop bookings for now.

• Instant merge into On Hold tour

This option allows dispatchers to merge Customer bookings and Driver tours into an existing On Hold tour.

Stops of the selected bookings/ tours are merged into the earliest scheduled On Hold tour that is selected. The stops will be moved to the last position of the tour. You can use the Quick edit feature afterwards to perform certain route optimization algorithms for re-optimizing the tour.

• Instant merge as next stops of En Route tour

This option allows dispatchers to merge Customer bookings and Driver tours into an existing En Route tour.

Stops of the selected bookings/ tours are merged into the En Route tour that is selected. Stops are moved to the next available stop the driver is currently at. You can use the Quick edit feature afterwards to perform certain route optimization algorithms for re-optimizing the tour.

• Instant merge to the end of En Route tour

This option allows dispatchers to append stops from Customer bookings and Driver tours into an existing En Route tour.

Stops of the selected bookings/ tours are inserted at the end of the En Route tour that is selected. You can use the Quick edit feature afterwards to perform certain route optimization algorithms for re-optimizing the tour.