The Operation duration settings are used for managing the duration of each part of the route: loading and unloading at the distribution centre and the duration of each stop of the route.

To set up your durations, please make sure the selected role is Account Administrator and you are on the Operation duration screen of the Setting tab:

Depending on the operation period, operation duration settings are grouped in three sections:

Durations can be fixed or variable based on the size of the order(s) to be loaded or unloaded. The corresponding fields in the Beginning of the route/ End of the route sections allow you to configure the duration of loading at the depot at the beginning/end of the route. The four fields in the During the route section let you configure the default duration of each stop.

Also see Operation duration and Settings window

Fixed loading duration is a fixed time that it takes to load a vehicle at the distribution centre. This time interval is included in the working time of the driver and can include the actual loading, vehicle checks, preparing paperwork and other preparation activities.

Variable loading duration is added to the fixed duration for each capacity unit to be loaded onto the vehicle. Please note that only Capacity unit 1, which is set up on the Manage your capacity units screen, is used for this calculation.

To understand how fixed and variable durations relate to each other, let us look at an example. Let us say, your primary capacity measure is a pallet and you have a route with 7 pallets. The fixed duration is set to 10 minutes and the variable is set to 3 minutes per pallet:

The total loading duration for the route will be: 10 minutes fixed + 7 pallets times 3 minutes each, which is 10 minutes fixed and 21 minutes variable, which is a total of 31 minutes:

The two fields in the bottom - Fixed and Variable unloading durations - work in exactly the same manner but are used to calculate the time it takes to unload the collections made in a route at the end of it.

Fixed and variable loading durations work the same way for duration configuration at stop points. The only difference is that you can set up different variable durations for pickups and drops. These settings will be used to calculate order operation duration, if duration was not specified explicitly for this order.

The Fixed time per visit is time added to each stop. This can be parking, taking the money, signing paperwork, etc. The difference from the fixed time is that the additional time per visit is only added once if you have multiple orders at the same address. This will be added even if you explicitly specify the Operation duration in the order form.

After you configured the settings, click Save to save the changes.