If you have any externally built schedule with the orders allocated to the vehicles and drivers, you may use a feature of the orders import with their allocation to the vehicles, the runs and the sequences in a run in order to reconstruct this schedule in MaxOptra.
How the "Pre-allocated Orders" Feature is Set in CSV File
To import pre-allocated orders from a CSV-file to MaxOptra, fill in the special columns in your import file: "allocationDate", "vehicleName" or "vehicleExternalID", "runNumber", and "sequenceInRun".
Note The "allocationDate" and "vehicleName" (or "vehicleExternalID" if the "vehicleName" was not specified) columns are mandatory for filling in for pre-allocated orders. If one of these two columns is not filled in, then during importing orders, MaxOptra will display an import error message. Also, incorrect values (for example, text in the "runNumber" column or nonexistent vehicle name in the "vehicleName" column) will also cause an import error.
The "runNumber" and "sequenceInRun" columns are not mandatory for filling in.
How the "Pre-allocated Orders" Feature Works in MaxOptra
Using the import of pre-allocated orders from a CSV-file, the planning is performed automatically. When the process of orders import is completed, you will see the orders planned according to the specified allocation information, i.e. an order will be planned for the "allocationDate" date, for the "vehicleName" vehicle, to the "runNumber" run, and with the "sequenceInRun" sequence.
If the "sequenceInRun" is not specified or specified not for all orders, the orders will be allocated by auto-resequence.
If the orders' "runNumber" is not specified, the orders will be allocated to the first run. If some orders have the run number and the other do not have it, then the orders with the specified run number will be planned according to this run number, and the other will be allocated to the first run.
If an order cannot be allocated to a specified vehicle due to its unavailability on the planning date, this order will not be planned and MaxOptra will display the warning: "The selected driver is not available on the selected day".
If the selected vehicle has any previously planned schedule, this schedule will be automatically removed just before the planning procedure.
It is only possible to import pre-allocated orders for one DC in MaxOptra. Otherwise only the first orders with the same DC will be scheduled correctly, the rest will be imported and displayed as unplanned orders in the corresponding DC space. Hence, we suggest creating separate import files for each DC schedule.
If you try to import pre-allocated orders for different allocation dates, make sure you disable the "Import orders for following date" checkbox. Otherwise only the first orders with the same date will be scheduled correctly, the rest will be imported and displayed as unplanned orders on the corresponding date screen.
Using "Pre-allocated Orders" Feature to Move Schedule to Another Day
The pre-allocated orders template can be used to move orders to another day.
If you accidentally scheduled your orders to a wrong day, you should first export this schedule to file, then adapt it to fit the fixed route template, and finally re-import it to the system again. To make it even easier, it is recommended to specify the orderReference in your import template. In this case, if the orders are already allocated, they first need to be un-allocated, as the new import will look up the order reference number and update the schedule date to that on the import file.