Dispatch strategies

A dispatch strategy is a saved, reusable ruleset that decides which provider — or your own fleet — an order goes to, and what to do if that falls through. You build a strategy once: an allowed-provider list, a way to pick among them, a delivery-fee cap, requirements, and auto-dispatch or auto-reassign rules. Then you reuse it, instead of making those calls order by order.

A strategy is only as useful as what you put in it. At a minimum it names which providers (or your own fleet) are even in play and how to choose among them. Beyond that, most strategies also set a cap on what you'll pay for a delivery, requirements a provider has to meet to be eligible (like the package types or vehicle size it needs to handle), and rules for what happens automatically — dispatching a new order right away instead of waiting, or reassigning a delivery to the next eligible provider if the first one cancels or stalls.

Dispatch itself — how an order actually turns into a job, and everything that shapes which providers are even eligible — is covered in how dispatch works. A dispatch strategy is the ruleset that makes the final call among the providers dispatch surfaces; this page is about the strategy, not the decision underneath it.

Where you find it

Strategies live at Orchestrate ▸ Dispatch Strategies: a left rail lists your Active and Inactive strategies, and a right-hand editor holds the one you've selected.

Note

If you only have view access, the editor opens read-only. Ask an admin for edit rights if you need to create or change a strategy.

Three ways a strategy gets applied

A strategy doesn't do anything on its own — it has to be attached somewhere:

• Directly on an order. You can set a strategy on an individual order, and that's the one Nash uses when it dispatches.
• By a dispatch automation. Under Orchestrate ▸ Workflows - Automations, if/then rules apply a strategy to orders that arrive without one — orders from a given store, for example — and a Default Dispatch Strategy covers everything no rule matches. See set up dispatch automations.
• By a workflow. If your organization uses Workflows, a Set dispatch strategy action can also assign a strategy from an order-triggered workflow.

Whichever way it's attached, the strategy's provider-selection mode is what drives the pick once dispatch narrows the field down to eligible, in-budget quotes.

Active and inactive

A strategy only runs while it's active. Deactivating one pauses it — orders and workflows pointing at it stop using it — without losing anything you've configured. Reactivate it later and it picks back up with the same setup. Nothing about deactivating a strategy deletes it.

What you can do

• How dispatch strategies work — the full picture: every selection mode, how fee caps and requirements narrow the field, and how auto-dispatch and auto-reassign rules behave.
• Set up a dispatch strategy — create a strategy, configure it, and put it to work, step by step.
• Dispatch strategy settings — every field and option on the dispatch strategy editor, for reference.

A dispatch strategy is a separate thing from an optimization strategy. A dispatch strategy decides who delivers an order — which provider or your own fleet gets the job. An optimization strategy decides how orders are grouped and sequenced into routes, and when that runs — see optimization strategies if that's what you're looking for.

Nash dispatches; the provider or your own fleet performs the delivery.