Planning a Technician’s Route

How Seayora sequences a technician’s day, where the driving times come from, what it costs, what it leaves out, and why nothing moves until you publish.

Open Work → Routes & dispatch, pick a technician and a date, and Seayora sequences that day’s stops, puts arrival times on them, and shows you what it could not place. Nothing on the job board changes until you publish the plan.

Where the driving times come from

There are two sources, and every screen tells you which one it used. Estimated means straight-line distance between two points, scaled by a road factor you set — free, instant, and roughly right in a gridded city. Measured means Seayora asked Google for the real road network, which is more accurate and costs money.

Route planning ships with the road-network lookup switched OFF. Google bills per pair of stops, so a twenty-stop day is about $2.20, or $4.40 with a traffic model. Before you plan, the screen tells you how many lookups the day needs and what they would cost, and “Most Google lookups per plan” under Operating settings is a hard ceiling — over it, Seayora plans from estimates and says so rather than spending past your limit.

What it leaves out, and why

A job can only be placed on a route if it has coordinates — its own, or its property’s. Anything without them is listed under “Left off this route” with the reason. It is never quietly dropped: a shorter route that silently omitted three stops looks like a better route, and the technician finds out at four in the afternoon.

Holding a stop in place

Lock any stop to hold its position — the ten o’clock appointment you promised a customer does not move because the optimiser found a tighter loop. Emergencies are pinned to the front automatically unless you turn that off.

Publishing

Publishing writes the sequence onto the jobs and tells the technician. It does NOT change the times customers were promised — that is a separate switch on the same screen, because reordering somebody’s stops and ringing sixteen customers to move their appointment are two different decisions.

What Seayora does not do

Seayora does not track vehicle positions. There is no GPS trail, no live map of your vans, and nothing on the dispatch board is a real-time location. What the board shows is who has a route planned, how long it is, and how much open work each person is carrying.

The settings behind it

Where driving times come from, and the traffic model.
Shift start and end, how long a stop takes when the job does not say, and a buffer for parking and paperwork.
A scheduled break after a given amount of work.
Where the day starts and ends — your depot, or the first and last job.
The most stops on one route, and a driving-time warning threshold.
The road factor and average speed used for estimates.

Frequently asked questions

Why does my route say “estimated” when I want real road times?

Either the road-network lookup is switched off (it is off by default because Google charges for it), the day needs more lookups than your limit allows, or Seayora has no server map key configured. The plan tells you which of the three it was.

Can I plan a route for a day in the past?

Yes, though there is rarely a reason to. The planner reads whatever is scheduled for the date you pick.

Does publishing a route notify the technician?

Yes — through whichever channels you have set for “A route was published” under Dispatch notifications.

Two of us hit Publish at the same time. What happens?

One wins. Seayora allows exactly one published route per technician per day, so the board can never end up half from one plan and half from another.

Related guides

Related features and guides

Dispatch Notifications — Documentation. Which events tell whom, through which channel, what quiet hours do and do not hold, and exactly what “push” means on each device.
Dispatch & Work Orders — Documentation. How jobs are routed to service pros, how work orders track status, and how approval limits keep spending in check.
Calendar & Scheduling — Documentation. One calendar over everything Seayora already knows is happening — what it draws, what you can add to it, how reminders and repeats work, and how to read it in the calendar app you already use.
Live GPS Technician Dispatch — Feature. Dispatch technicians with live GPS tracking so you can route the closest available pro and give customers an honest arrival window.
Technician Scheduling, Shifts & Skills — Feature. Shift scheduling, PTO tracking, and per-technician skill profiles, so dispatch routes work to someone qualified and on the clock.
Revenue Forecasting & Market Insight — Feature. Revenue forecasting, market heatmaps, technician leaderboards, and dispute analysis — the analytics that inform hiring, pricing, and where to compete.