Timeslot management

This article explains how timeslots are managed in a booking and the typical setup for timeslot management.

Overview

In certain types of operations, it is desired to perform deliveries or other types of jobs within a specific timeframe. This can help to improve the efficiency of the operations, especially if the timeslot was selected by the customer.

On MotionTools, it is possible to indicate that a certain stops are supposed to be completed in a certain timeframe.

If timeslots are set, there are various benefits MotionTools provides, such as indicating the requested timeslots to dispatchers and drivers, but also automatically calculating delays and more.

• Configuring timeslots
• Utilizing timeslots
  • in tour building
  • in monitoring
  • in the driver experience

Details

Configuring timeslots

Setting timeslots manually

Timeslots are managed on stop level, in case you don't know what stops are, please read the dedicated article first. 

Timeslots can be set either via API or when using the various interfaces that MotionTools has to offer. Please note though, that the availability of this feature depends on your configuration. If you don't see it in your account, please talk to your customer success manager or send us an email to our support team. 

If everything is enabled and you want to set timeslots as a customer or dispatcher, you can optionally add the following parameters on each stop when creating a stop as part of a booking:

• earliest_arrival_at timestamp: Represents the start time of the timeslot on stop level
• latest_arrival_at timestamp: Represents the end time of the timeslot on stop level

Please note, that it is also possible to set a dedicated start time on booking and tour level. We recommend to always set that so called scheduled_at time to the same time as the earliest_arrival_at of the first stop.

Setting timeslots automatically

MotionTools already supports the automatic setting of timeslots in certain situations. For example, when selecting a place as a location of a stop and that place as preconfigured opening hours, the timeslot will automatically be set to such opening hours.

Utilizing timeslots 

Tour building

• When filtering bookings or tours in the dashboard you can easily filter for the scheduled_at timestamp on booking level. This helps to identify bookings that can be bundled into a tour.
• Depending on the tour building feature that is used, timeslots will be automatically taken into account or not. 
• When tours are built, the suggested start time of a tour will be set by the tour builder feature. Some of the tour builder features will automatically suggest a start time to make sure that the first stop with a timeslot on it can be completed on time, taking potential 'preparation tasks' into account and the way to get to the first stop.
• Besides this, the timeslot information on stop level will be fully preserved and communicate to both the dispatcher as well as the driver.

Ops monitoring

• The earliest_arrival_at and latest_arrival_at timestamps on stop level will be shown for each stop on the dashboard as well as in MotionTools app. Once a stop is completed, the actual arrival timestamp will be shown and this can help admins make better operational decisions based on the data.
• If the earliest_arrival_at and latest_arrival_at timestamps are set on each stop, it indicates that a booking would have to be completed within a defined duration. If the driver is running late and is unable to complete the stop within the set duration, the dashboard will automatically indicate delays based on this stop-level information.
   
  
• In the near future, MotionTools will also calculate delays upfront before a booking is started and also save it on the stop level.

Driver app experience

• The MotionTools driver app communicates the timeslot to the worker in case it was set.
• If the timeslot is set on stop level, it will override the scheduled_at time of the booking and the app will display this time instead of the booking’s scheduled_at time.