Hints and Tips - Route Management

[vendtrak]

Vend-Trak easily stores all of your locations in one convenient place.  Creating a Route helps you further define your locations into a route.  Basically, a Route is a group of locations.  Each location can belong to one or more routes.  This makes some of the route reports a little more helpful (see below).

The most convenient report for routes is the Route Service Sheet.  This report is designed to print out and take with you when you go to service your machines.  It has places for you to record the amount you collect, the inventory replacement, and any other notes.  The layout of this report is the same as you will see when you go to enter the data into Vend-Trak.

There are other reports in Vend-Trak that use routes.  For instance, you can run an income report that shows earnings by route.  HELPFUL HINT!!!  We've had some users create a route to group locations by type.  For instance, they may create a route called "Restaurants" and put all of the restaurants in it (even though they are never serviced as a group).  Or they may put all of the auto dealerships in a route called "Automobile Dealerships."  Once they do this, they can run the Income by Route report and see how different types of locations measure up against each other.

Hope this helps and Happy Vending!

[T BIRD]

Thanks Jeremy.  That is great information for me.

[grumpy]

Jeremy

I have some routing questions and suggestions, so I will do the suggestions and if it is already implemented you can tell me how as I have not seen it.

I would like to do my route based on 30, 45, 60 day rotation but there is no easy way for me to tell who is what while creating the route. (currently this is based on gut feeling but could be done prgrammaticly too)sp

I ran out of BBQ peanuts and still need to do my route, two days later order comes in now I need to do my route based on the product I was shorted so I would like to see everybody that has BBQ on location. (hard to keep track of 85 location and 32 products in your head)

How about any auto route, locations that have 30 day service cycle lets say but I missed a couple. Now I need to do a route in a different area/cycle. With auto routing I could pick all locations not done in a certain time period all not serviced in at least 30 days etc..

And an easier way of re-routing routes drag and drop arrow keys to move up and down in list.

Grumpy

[vendtrak]

Hey, Grumpy!  Thanks for taking the time to jot down your thoughts, comments, and suggestions!  I do appreciate that.  Let me take a stab at these...

I would like to do my route based on 30, 45, 60 day rotation but there is no easy way for me to tell who is what while creating the route. (currently this is based on gut feeling but could be done prgrammaticly too

We should be able to accomodate this by adding a filter for "Number of Days Until Service" on the route screen.  Give us a week or two on this and it should be done.

so I would like to see everybody that has BBQ on location.

It would take a bit of coding to make this happen automatically.  But as a temporary fix you could do this: (1) Create a route called "All Locations" or something like that.  (2) Run a Route Service Sheet for "All Locations" and include the product type.  (3) Use this to highlight the ones that have the BBQ product.  I know it's not as automated as you (or we) would like - but it will work in a pinch.

How about any auto route, locations that have 30 day service cycle lets say but I missed a couple. Now I need to do a route in a different area/cycle. With auto routing I could pick all locations not done in a certain time period all not serviced in at least 30 days etc..

And an easier way of re-routing routes drag and drop arrow keys to move up and down in list.

Both of these are on the list.  The first one is about 25% complete...still working out some of the logic.  The second one (drag-and-drop) is a future add on that will come out when a "Version 3" is launched...no scheduled date for this yet.  Drag-and-drop features require a whole other level of programming code.

[grumpy]

Jeremy

Thanks for the reply and the suggestions, (work around works). Vendtrak may not do everything I would like it too...YET. But you have to be the most accomadating software provider ever. Thank You

I noticed your tag line still has bulk in it, you may want to just remove that word.

Grumpy

[T BIRD]

Ditto what you said there Mr. Grumpy Man!  Jeremy is wonderful.  And his software program is a total life saver for me!!

[vendtrak]

I fixed the tag lines and I appreciate the kind words!

[grumpy]

________________BBQ Peanuts

________________M&M Peanut

________________Pistachios

________________Hockey Pucks

Notes Section:    Last collection on 5/7/2008 for $81.50       Avg/Month = $38.62

> Last note posted on 5/7/2008: HP poor performer, BBQ sell out, changed lock on BBQ

Type of Heads : Round

Key # : 8567

Canister 1 Setting : 1oz

Canister 2 Setting : 6

Canister 3 Setting : 1oz

Canister 4 Setting : 6

Canister 5 Setting :

Canister 6 Setting :

Canister 7 Setting :

Canister 8 Setting :

 

Take note of a new feature Jeremy has added to the route sheet. Last collection and avg per month.

Wow I love a software provider who listens to their customers, Way to go Jeremy. Another reason to continue/start to use Vendtrak.

[vendtrak]

We aim to please!  We get a lot of suggestions and we try to compile them and impliment the ones that are requested most.  We want to keep Vend-Trak useful for all of our customers, and who better knows what makes it useful than the customers, right?!?

[T BIRD]

I looked at it after Grumpy posted about it.  I like that those two pieces of info are there.......for sure!

[T BIRD]

I just pulled up a route to print so I can make collections?  It did not have those two new pieces of info in the notes section. ( date of last service and average amount per month )  What am I doing wrong?

Never mind.  I figured it out.  I did not check off what I wanted to see...........duh!