HVACBossPro Blog — Dispatch & Scheduling

Closest First or Furthest First: Auto-Routing HVAC Vans From the Shop

Putting a van's stops in a sensible order used to mean spreading a map on the counter or guessing from memory. HVACBossPro does the first pass for you. Pick a van, pick a day, and auto-route it Closest First or Furthest First from the shop. Which one you pick depends on what kind of day that van is likely to have.

Route One Van at a Time

Auto-routing works on a single van's day, which is why the habit in Filtering the HVAC Dispatch Board by Van: One Truck's Day at a Glance goes hand in hand with it. Filter to the van, check the jobs that are on it, then route.

Both options start from your shop. The software orders the van's stops based on where they are relative to the shop and to each other, and the tech's phone shows the new order straight away.

Closest First

Closest First starts with the stops nearest the shop and works outward. The van's first calls are close to home, and its last calls are furthest out.

This suits a repair van on most days. Early in the day the van stays near the middle of your territory, where it is easier to divert to an urgent no-cool or no-heat call that comes in at 9am. It also helps when the tech needs to swing back to the shop or the supply house for a part after the first diagnostic. Being close to base in the morning keeps those trips short.

The downside is the drive home. If the last stop is at the edge of your area, the tech ends the day with a long drive back.

Furthest First

Furthest First drives out to the far end of the van's stops first and works back toward the shop. The last call of the day is near home.

This suits a tune-up van working a planned cluster of maintenance visits, especially in an outlying town or a far side of the metro. The tech makes the long drive while fresh, works steadily back, and finishes near the shop. It also suits days when the tech needs to be back at a set time for a meeting or to restock.

The downside is distance early on. If a same-day call comes in near the shop at 9am, a Furthest First van is the furthest away from it.

A Simple Rule of Thumb

• Repair van, unpredictable day: Closest First, so the van is nearby when calls come in.
• Tune-up van, planned day: Furthest First, so the long drive happens early and the day ends near home.
• Mixed day: try both and look at the order. Pick the one that makes more sense, then adjust.

None of this is a law. It is a starting point, and the next step is always a quick look at the result.

When to Adjust by Hand

Auto-routing knows where stops are. It does not know that Mrs. Garcia can only be home before 11, that the property manager wants the rooftop unit done before tenants arrive, or that the attic at the two-story on Elm will be unbearable by 2pm. After routing, move those stops where they need to be. The detail is in Setting HVAC Route Order by Hand When the Map Isn't the Whole Story.

Attic units are worth a special mention for summer. Many HVAC companies put attic jobs early in the day on purpose, so the tech is not working in the hottest part of the house during the hottest part of the day. That is covered in Scheduling Around Attic Heat: Putting Attic Units Early in the HVAC Route.

Re-Routing During the Day

A van's day changes. A call gets added, a customer cancels, a job gets dragged to tomorrow. You can re-run auto-routing on the remaining stops, but be careful with urgent calls you placed by hand. Routing puts stops in geographic order, so an urgent call you put next may move. After any re-route, glance at the top of the list to confirm the right job is next.

Customers feel the order too. The on-the-way text goes out when the tech taps Start on their job, and customers who chose the “when I'm next” alert get a heads-up as the van approaches. A sensible route means those texts arrive at sensible times.

Less Driving, More Calls

The point of routing is simple: less time behind the wheel, more time at the equipment. A van that zigzags across town is billing for fewer calls than one that works a clean line. Auto-routing gets you most of the way in one click, and a minute of judgment does the rest. For the full set of dispatch tools around it, see the HVACBossPro HVAC dispatch software page.