Trips: pick-ups, drop-offs and the day's route

Trips is the only screen in Petboost built to be used while you are driving. Everything about it follows from that: one stop at a time, big targets, and a status change that takes one tap.

The run itself is just today's bookings with addresses on them. Trips is a way of driving them, not a second calendar. It sits in the sidebar with the day-to-day items once a service is marked Mobile service, and under Operations until then.

If the van is where your day starts, make Trips the first page Petboost opens. In All Settings, under Default Page on Load, select the page shown, then Trips. It is offered once a service is marked Mobile service and Trips Booster is on, and it applies to the whole team.

One stop, not a list

Up next is the top of the Trips page and shows the single stop you should head to, with the drive and the predicted arrival.

1. Open Trips and find the Up next card.
2. At the stop, select Mark as picked up, or Mark as dropped off once the dog is on board.

The button changes with the dog: pink to mark a pick-up, green to mark a drop-off. Marking one advances the card to the next stop, so the screen never asks you to find your place.

Dog daycare: a pet taxi becomes a stop only when it is added as a service on the booking. Added from Add Item it is an invoice line, and an invoice line has no time and never reaches the run.

Any other stop is one tap away: select it and its menu offers Mark as Picked Up, Text On Our Way and Mark as Dropped Off, with Undo Pick-Up and Undo Drop-Off to take a mark back.

Collect the next dog on the way

While you drop off one group, Up next can suggest a dog from your next group who lives near the drop-off you are heading to and is booked within the hour.

1. Open Trips and, under Up next, select Collect [pet] next on the suggestion.
2. Mark the drop-off as usual. Up next then shows the dog with On the way.
3. Mark it picked up, and Up next goes back to your drop-offs.

To pull in any dog from a later group, select its stop and choose Collect Next, On the Way. Changed your mind before you reach it: Collect [pet] with their own walk under Up next puts it back. Nobody's booking changes, the dog is still dropped off with its own group, and the choice lives on that phone for today only.

Navigate, leave on time, and change the order

Navigate on Up next hands the drive to the next stop to your maps app, and the timing line under it says when to leave.

1. Open Trips and select Navigate on Up next.
2. The first time, choose Google Maps, Apple Maps or Waze under Navigate with. The phone remembers it.
3. To head somewhere else first, select that stop and choose Go here next. Up next shows it with Your pick.
4. To undo your pick, select Back to the planned order.

Apple Maps is only offered on an iPhone or iPad, and the choice is saved on that phone, so change it any time under Actions, then Your van and stops. Once a phone has chosen, marking a stop leads with the drive to the next one. Navigate is also on each stop in the List and in the stop's menu. The whole run opens in Google Maps only, a few stops at a time on a phone.

On one person's run, the timing line ends with leave by and the time to set off, worked out from live traffic today and expected traffic on a later day. Once that time has passed it reads leave now.

Running late, more than one van, and no signal

When the morning slips, tell the clients still waiting rather than texting them one by one.

1. Open Trips, select Actions, then Running late. On a phone it is under Plan in the bottom bar.
2. Check the list under Will be texted, untick anyone you would rather call, read who Won't be texted and why, then select Text and the count.

The text always says 15 to 30 minutes and its wording is fixed, each booking gets one a day, and booking times stay as they are. Running late only shows on today's run for one person while stops are still to do.

On a day with more than one driver, each van's pins and line take its team member's or resource's calendar colour. Select a stop, then Compare vans, to see the drive it would add to each other van and what it saves its own. Nothing moves from there: to give the stop to another van, open the booking.

Who hears what as you go

Trips can send three texts, each switched on per service under the service's Notifications tab and off until you turn it on: on our way to collect, picked up, and dropped off safely. Who gets them is set once for the business.

1. Open Trips, select Actions, then Your van and stops.
2. Under Customer texts, switch on Ask who to text at each pick-up and drop-off if a household has two phones, or the owner is often home when you arrive.
3. Switch on Send on our way to the second phone too for clients with a second pet parent phone on their profile.
4. Switch on Say how many minutes away to add the live drive time to the on-our-way text.

With the question on, every mark that sends a text asks first: the main mobile, the second phone, Text both or No text. No text is for the owner standing at the door who watched you load the dog. The minutes line is worked out from the stop you just marked with live traffic and only on today's run, so a Tuesday planned on Monday night sends without it.

Optimise once, at the start of the day

Magic Optimise puts the stops in the shortest-drive order. One toggle decides how free it is to move them.

1. Open Trips and select Magic Optimise on the Run row. On a wider screen it is in the page header.
2. Leave Keep groups in booked order on to keep the booked times, or switch it off to let every stop move.
3. Set Start from and Finish at.
4. Select Optimise run.

Left on, a group booked for 8am stays ahead of one booked for 10:30 and only the dogs inside each group are rearranged. Turned off, everything is free to move, which drives shorter and breaks the times your clients were given.

Fit in a booking that came in late

A stop with no place in the saved order sits at the end of the run. When there is one, Magic Optimise leads with Fit it in.

1. Select Magic Optimise, then Fit it in. Trips shows where the stop goes and the drive it adds.
2. Select Apply, or Replan instead to work out the whole order again.

The stops already in the order keep their order, a stop you have marked never moves, and the new stop stays in its own walk. Nothing changes until Apply, and nobody is texted. On a Collect & Return run it fills the run you have open, so open the other run to fit the stop in there too.

Swap groups between walks

On a Collect & Return run with two or more walks, Magic Optimise can drop one walk home and collect the next on the same drive. Only turn this on if your van fits both groups at once.

1. In the Magic Optimise dialog, turn on Keep groups in booked order, then Swap groups between walks.
2. Under After each group, set a park for every walk. A walk with no park is planned on its own.
3. Select Optimise run.

Up next works the swap in order and shows each dog collected between drop-offs with On the way. Back to booked order, under Actions, clears it. On a mobile booking, an extra added with Add Item is a charge only and makes no stop. If the extra needs its own stop on the run, add it in the Services field on Edit.

The kilometres are already recorded

Every stop you marked leaves a time and an address, so the log book is a by-product rather than a chore.

1. Open Trips, select Actions, or Manage on a phone, then Export log book.
2. Choose the BAS quarter, then select Build log book.
3. Optional: enter your rate under Cents per km for an Estimate.
4. Select Download CSV for your accountant, or Print PDF.

When you mark the last stop on today's run, Up next reads Run finished and Export log book opens the log book on this quarter so far.