Set up an optimization strategy

Last updated: August 27, 2026

This walks through creating an optimization strategy: naming it, setting the schedule it runs on, choosing the contracts and store locations it draws from, attaching route restrictions, and configuring what happens to the routes it produces. For what a strategy is and where it fits, start with optimization strategies; for what's actually inside the config bundle and how the timing model works, see how optimization strategies work. For how Nash actually solves a run once it has this bundle to work with, see how optimization works.

Note

Optimization strategies are available depending on your organization's setup. If you don't see them, reach out to Nash.

Create a strategy

  1. Go to Orchestrate ▸ Optimization Strategies. The left rail lists your existing strategies under Active and Inactive; the right side is the editor.
  2. Select Create New Strategy and give it a name. Your new strategy opens in the editor, ready to configure.

Set the timing

Under Optimization Timing, add a schedule:

  • Days of Week — Everyday, Weekdays, Weekends, or a Custom set of days.
  • Cadence — either a fixed interval, like every 30 minutes, or a set clock time.
  • Timezone — which timezone the schedule is evaluated in.
  • Active Dates (optional) — a start and/or stop date, so the schedule only applies within a date range instead of running indefinitely.

A strategy can carry more than one schedule if different cadences make sense at different times.

You can also turn on Smart Frequency, which tightens how often the strategy runs as a delivery's cutoff gets closer. Add tiers, each saying, in effect, "once we're within this many hours of the cutoff, run every this many minutes" — tighter tiers take over from looser ones as orders approach their cutoffs, and the last tier is an unbounded catch-all so there's always one in effect. You can also set a number of minutes before the window opens that Smart Frequency should wait before it starts optimizing at all, so a tight final tier doesn't also fire needlessly far in advance.

For the full timing model and how it fits together, see how optimization strategies work.

Choose contracts

Under Contract Selection, add the contracts this strategy is allowed to draw vehicles from — you need at least one. For each contract you add, you can turn on Use All Vehicles or set a specific Vehicles count to cap how many of that contract's vehicles a run may use.

Restrict to store locations (optional)

Under Store Location Selection, you can scope the strategy to one or more store locations instead of running it organization-wide. A store-scoped strategy runs its schedule separately per store location — and per shift, where relevant.

Note

If your access is scoped to specific store locations, you'll need to pick a store set when you create the strategy, and you won't be able to change it afterward. If your access isn't store-scoped, you can add or change store locations any time, including after the strategy is saved.

If that applies to you, it's worth setting store locations up front rather than leaving this section for later.

Attach route restrictions

Under Route Restrictions, attach any areas the optimizer should avoid when building routes for this strategy. The restrictions themselves are built and managed on their own surface — see route restrictions for how to create and edit them. This section only attaches restrictions that already exist.

Set the pickup time window

Under Order Pickup Time Range, set a From and To value, in minutes relative to each order's pickup time. Only orders whose pickup time falls inside that window are pulled into a run. Narrow the window and a run considers fewer, more time-relevant orders; widen it and more of the order pool becomes eligible.

Set dispatch options

Under Dispatch Options, decide what happens to a run's output:

  • Auto-Dispatch after Optimization — send the routes a run produces straight to dispatch instead of leaving them for you to review first. Leave it off and every run's output waits on the Routes tab until you dispatch it yourself.
  • Unassigned Orders Fallback Strategy — a dispatch strategy to hand orders to when a run couldn't fit them onto any route, so they still dispatch individually instead of being dropped.

Set service and route settings

Under Service & Route Settings, tune the fields that shape how a run builds routes — pickup, dropoff, and incremental service times; the traffic data source Nash plans against; how routes balance across providers; and several other clustering and routing settings. These are largely one-time, power-user tuning rather than something you'll revisit often. For the field-by-field detail on every setting here, see the optimization parameters reference.

Save, activate, and manage the strategy

  1. Select Save. Save is only enabled once the form is valid.
  2. Select Activate. A strategy only runs on its schedule while it's active — a saved but inactive strategy won't fire.
  3. From the strategy's header, you can also: - Duplicate — clone the strategy under a new name, to build a variant without starting over. - Deactivate — pause the strategy without losing its configuration. This doesn't delete it; you can activate it again later.

Once a strategy is active, it runs itself on its schedule — there's no "run now" button, and no workflow assigns it the way one can assign a dispatch strategy. Either it fires on its own timing, or you pick it as a starting point the next time you optimize orders by hand. Either way, the result is draft routes on the Routes tab: Nash optimizes and dispatches, but it's the provider or your own fleet that performs the delivery, so review before you dispatch anything you didn't auto-dispatch.

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