{"id":214,"date":"2014-06-16T15:11:51","date_gmt":"2014-06-16T15:11:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.portatour.com\/blog\/users\/?p=214"},"modified":"2014-06-16T15:11:51","modified_gmt":"2014-06-16T15:11:51","slug":"two-new-settings-for-fine-tuning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.portatour.com\/blog\/users\/en\/2014\/06\/16\/two-new-settings-for-fine-tuning\/","title":{"rendered":"Two new settings for fine-tuning"},"content":{"rendered":"

We added two new parameters to portatour\u00ae that help you fine-tune the generated routes to your specific needs even better:<\/p>\n

Adherence to business hours for the entire duration of the call<\/h2>\n

So far portatour\u00ae cared that the start of the customer call is within the business hours of the customer \u2013 i.e. you start the call just in time before they close. portatour\u00ae has been assuming your call can last beyond business hours.<\/p>\n

This can be problematic if your visits have a long duration. Then, there is a high risk that your visit stretches far beyond the business hours.<\/p>\n

With the new setting “Adherence to business hours<\/strong>” in Options > Call Parameters > Scheduling Parameters<\/strong> you can define how portatour\u00ae should treat the business hours. Choose from the previous behavior (only the “Start of call<\/strong>” has to be within business hours) or the new behavior: the “Entire call<\/strong>” has to be within the business hours.<\/p>\n

Note that choosing “Entire call” will leave less time for customer calls and therefore fewer calls will be scheduled. Especially lunch breaks of customers reduce the available time for calls significantly.<\/p>\n

Preferred adherence to the call interval for important customers<\/h2>\n

As a user of portatour\u00ae you know that you can control how often a customer should be scheduled for a call by changing the call interval. For example, a customer with an interval\u00a0of 30 days will be scheduled to be visited regularly once a month.<\/p>\n

This works well if your territory is “properly sized”\u00a0\u2013 i.e. it is realistic to visit all your customers within the desired call interval under consideration of your working time and travel time.<\/p>\n

In case your area is oversized\u00a0\u2013 that is, you have too many customers or too short call intervals\u00a0\u2013 then it will be not possible to comply with the configured call intervals of the customers. The calls will take place late. However, portatour\u00ae adheres to the relations, i.e. a 30-day customer will still be visited twice as often as a 60-day customer, just not every 30 days, but later.<\/p>\n

With the new setting “Interval adherence<\/strong>” in the Scheduling parameters<\/strong> of a customer<\/strong> you can switch important customers from “Normal<\/strong>” to “Preferred<\/strong>“. portatour\u00ae automatically takes care that for customers with a preferred interval adherence, exceeding the call interval is avoided\u00a0\u2013 even if your territory is oversized. This is managed by portatour\u00ae by adding “internal reservations” for these customers once the call interval has been reached or exceeded.<\/p>\n

Two important notes on this:<\/p>\n