Assign a route

Before a route can go out, it needs someone to run it. Assignment is where you decide who that is: an outside provider, or a specific vehicle and driver from your own fleet. You do it from the route's drawer on the Routes tab, any time before you dispatch — a route can sit as a draft without an assignment, but it needs one before it can be dispatched.

Open Assign Provider

From the route drawer, open Assign Provider to choose who carries the route. What you pick here is who Nash hands the route to when you dispatch it — Nash dispatches the route; it isn't the one making the delivery.

Assign an outside provider

Assigning an outside provider is a matter of picking which one, from the options available to that route. Once assigned, dispatching the route hands it to that provider, who carries it out. You don't manage the vehicle or driver in that case — that's the provider's side of the work.

Assign your own fleet

If you're running the route with your own fleet instead, the drawer walks the assignment in order: provider first, then vehicle, then driver. Each choice narrows the next — the vehicle options depend on the provider you picked, and the driver options depend on the vehicle. Work top to bottom and you'll only ever be choosing from combinations that actually fit together.

Assignment and the rest of the route

A route doesn't need an assignment to exist as a draft, but it does need one before you can dispatch it. You can settle the assignment and the stops in whichever order suits how you work — assign first and then finish the stops, or the other way around — as long as both are set by the time you're ready to send the route out.

One thing worth double-checking: if you reorder or add stops after assigning a vehicle, make sure the assignment still makes sense. A vehicle chosen for one set of stops may not have the capacity or the capability for a route that has grown or changed since you picked it. When in doubt, re-open Assign Provider and confirm the vehicle still fits the route as it stands now.

Assignment locks along with the rest of a route's structure once you dispatch — see Dispatch a route for what dispatch does, and Edit a route for reshaping the stops you're assigning against.

Availability

Assigning a route depends on whether your organization has routes enabled. If you don't see the Routes tab or the Assign Provider action, availability varies by org — reach out to Nash.