Delivery priorities from A to Z

 During building routes, it may be necessary to visit certain points at the beginning of the route or, oppositely, at the end. To accomplish this task, our service uses delivery priority. There are several types of priority settings:

  • Priority of geo-zones;
  • Priority of groups of pointts;
  • Priority of an individual point in the order.

In this article, we will show you in detail each type of delivery priority.

Priority, delivery, ant logistics

To begin with, we suggest you reading the rules of using priorities:

1. You can set or use priority only one of the settings or a combination of them.

2. While setting the point priority, it is necessary to foiiow the principle - the higher value of the point priority is the more important to visit it (100-99-98...3-2-1-0).

3. If you do not set a point priority value, then such points will have a priority value ''Auto''. These points can be anywhere along the route.

4. If a point has one priority by geo-zone, and another by the group of points it belongs to, it is assigned a higher priority value. ''Auto'' is considered as the smallest value. It is used only for a point  ,which hasn't got other value.

5. The priority of a point by geo-zone and the priority of a point by a group of points have an equivalent value. I.e. if a point has one priority by geo-zone, and another by a group of points, it is assigned a higher priority value. But the priority of a point by order is of paramount importance - if a priority value from 0 to 100 is specified for the order, this value is accepted for the point, regardless of the values of directories (priority by geo-zones or a group of points).

Geo-zones priority

Geo-zones priority is used  to prioritize points based on their location.

Consider the following example. It is necessary to the VIP points in the city center be served first.

To do this, specify the priorities of geo-zones: go to the Geo-zones 1 directory and open the Edit record field 2. In the Area priority field 3, for the EFXY geo-zone, enter the value "1", for other zones - the value "0":

Priority, delivery, ant logistics

While generating routes in Additional parameters 1, select the Comps  tab 2. In the Consider the priority of points 3 field, select Yes

Priority, delivery, ant logistics

Pay attention! If a point falls into two or more geo-zones, its priority is determined by the priority of the geo-zone with the higher value.

Additional parameters will display the selected settings for generating routes: 

Priority, delivery, ant logistics

As a result, the route will be calculated in such a way that points that are in the zone with a higher priority will be visited first (in our case, these are points in the city center WRE577,WRE568,WRE563): 

Priority, delivery, ant logistics

Point Group Priority

The service priority of points can also be determined by the priority of the group that the point belongs to. For example, it is necessary that points from the TMS group are served first, and then points from the TPC group.

To do this, specify the priorities for groups of points: go to the directory Groups of points 1 and open the Editing record 2 box. In the Group Priority field 3, for the TMS group, enter the value "1", for the TPC group - the value "0": 

Priority, delivery, ant logistics

While generating routes in the Additional parameters, select the Third tab. In the Consider the priority of points field, select Yes (see the first example in the article).

As a result, the route will be calculated in such a way that the points of the group with a higher priority will be visited first (in our case, these are points WRE80,WRE79,WRE98 from the TMS group): 

Priority, delivery, ant logistics

Priority of an individual point in the order

In some cases, delivery priority does not depend on the location of points and priority points do not belong to the same group of points. Under such circumstances, it is not possible to use the "Geo-zones priority" or "Point group priority" functionality, and the delivery priority is indicated directly in the application.

Below we will consider several detailed examples of using the Priority of an individual point in an order.

Example 1. There is a VIP point (in our case, WRE1), which should be the first in the route list.

To do this, set the priority for the VIP point higher than for the rest of the points. This action can be performed in several ways:

First way. Preparing an Excel file for importing delivery points, add the Priority_Id column into it. In this column, we indicate the priority value “1” for the WRE1 VIP point, and “0” for the other points. Upload the file to the server. 

Priority, delivery, ant logistics

Second way. Go to the Requests 1 documents and open the Edit Record 2 field for WRE1. In the Other 3 tab, in the SP Priority field, enter the value "1", for the remaining points - the value "0": 

Priority, delivery, ant logistics

While generating routes in the Additional parameters, select the Third tab. In the Consider the priority of points field, select Yes (see the first example in the article).

As a result of the calculation, it can be seen that the WRE1 VIP point is set first in the route: 

ant-logictics

Example 2. There is a point WRE79, from which it is necessary to pick up documents during the route. Further, these documents must be taken to the WRE80 point. That is, it is necessary that one point (WRE79) be on the route before the other (WRE80), regardless of the order in which other points are visited.

To solve this problem, set the priority for the WRE79 point higher than the priority of the WRE80 point, without specifying the priority of the other points.

While preparing an Excel file for importing delivery points, add the Priority_Id column to it. Indicate in this column the value of priority "1" for the WRE79 point, "0" for the WRE80 point. For other points, the priority value is not specified. Upload the file to the server. 

Priority, delivery, ant logistics

Pay attention! These actions can also be done manually in the Applications document (similar to the 2nd method in Example 1).

Further actions in the formation of the route are similar to the first example.

After the calculation, it can be seen that the WRE79 point is in the route before the WRE80 point: 

Priority, delivery, ant logistics

To solve complex logistics problems, it is necessary to combine different priority settings, guided by the rules for using delivery priorities presented at the beginning of the article.

If you are interested in the described functionality, we are ready to demonstrate its operation, perform the necessary settings and provide access to the service. To do this, leave a request on the ANT-Logistics website.

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