How to plan and optimize routes

Build the day your way — keep the dispatcher’s order or optimize it, then review and hand the same saved route to the crew.

Route planning is an operator decision, not a black box. Start with the stops already scheduled for a day, keep the dispatcher’s manual order when it fits, or ask TurfTechAdvisor for a suggested driving order. Then review the result, account for promises the software cannot know about, and save one day route that Calendar, dispatch, printing, and crew phones share.

Published May 30, 2026 · Last reviewed September 8, 2026

Steps

Schedule the work and pick the day — Put the visits on the Calendar, assign crews where needed, then open the day you want to route. The route starts from the work already scheduled for that date, so planning and field execution stay tied to the same stops.
Choose manual order or an optimized suggestion — Keep “As scheduled” when the dispatcher already knows the right sequence, or optimize when reducing travel is more useful. The planner can use property map pins, a home-base starting point, road-routing when available, and estimated travel when live routing is unavailable. Closest-first and farthest-first choices are also available where location data supports them.
Protect commitments and adjust the result — Review the suggested order instead of treating it as automatic dispatch. Pin stops that cannot move, drag stops around appointment windows or customer promises, correct a map pin when an address lands incorrectly, and undo an optimization if the previous order was better.
Save one shared route for the day — Saving replaces the day’s canonical route order for everyone who uses it. Calendar, the planning view, dispatch, printed route sheets, and crew phones read that shared order. Reordering one crew keeps the other crews’ stops in the whole-day record; if another device changed the route first, refresh and review the newer order instead of overwriting it.
Hand the saved day to the field — Print the reviewed route when the crew needs paper, or let invited crew members open the same date on their crew dashboard. Each member sees the stops assigned to their crew in the saved route order, can start navigation for addressable stops, clock work, attach photos, and complete the visit.
Monitor the day without changing its plan — Use dispatch and crew status to see what is happening now. A clocked stop may float into a “Working now” group for visibility, but that display does not rewrite the saved route. When the schedule changes, review the route again and choose whether to keep the manual order, drag the new stop, or optimize again.

Related guides

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Mowing-only? Set up recurring visits, push the season to the calendar, and route each day of the week.