Does anyone have experience with Google maps APIs?

[Schnell Solutions]

Hi All,

Does google maps APIs allow you to 'auto plan' routes for sales agents? i.e. Is it possible to upload/pass to the API

• List of sales agents with postcodes/town/county they are responsible for (patch)
• Specify limit of 10 visits per day
  
• A list of postcodes they need to visit for the next one week.

AND ask it to 'Auto' allocate the postcodes for all the agents and churn out their travel plan for a week?

I know its possible to tell the API to 'Plan the best route for visiting these 10 postcodes' but we are looking for a software that will automatically plan the sales agents diary for the entire week.

Can Google Maps APIs do this or has any one used another software (that costs under 10k) to achieve this?

Thanks.

 

[garyk]

In a word no, you can use it to show a map and plot points but thats about it.

You will probably find you need some route planning software that takes a postcode and converts it to a lat/long to plot on the map.

I've been doing some mapping very recently for a large plc, I'm using leafletJS which is an open source mapping solution, I have to plot sites and eventually they want to plot engineers vans around the UK. However I am just taking data and plotting it on the map.

 

[gregs2769]

This is something which we are currently doing for one of our clients in the construction industry. So it is achievable and can be just about done for £10k.

Feel free to drop me a line if you want to collaborate on the project.

 

[ecenica]

This link may help offer some insight;

"Can Google Maps automatically plot the best route with multiple destinations?"

https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/maps/DApyRVZ_uAo

 

[garyk]

This link may help offer some insight;

"Can Google Maps automatically plot the best route with multiple destinations?"

https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/maps/DApyRVZ_uAo

Yes so its like I stated in my original post, Maps API on its own, No, Maps + 3rd party software, yes.

 

[Jeff Nev]

I actually provided a similar service via a partner web agency I was working with at the time. The API was custom made and aimed at improving logistical planning; the framework was even used to create a similar service for one of our healthcare clients.

They are based in Brighton, but work nationwide: http://www.neptik.com/

On a side note. garyk do you have any examples of your leafletJS work? The concept sounds very interesting, but I'm only familiar with OpenLayers.

 

[garyk]

On a side note. garyk do you have any examples of your leafletJS work? The concept sounds very interesting, but I'm only familiar with OpenLayers.

Its on a company Intranet so I have obsfucated key info. What you will see is I have multiple layers that can be toggled on/off and I can plot circles of specific size (which are related to a key metric for this client). This is talking to a REST API which returns data in JSON format which I plot.

In addition to leaflet I am also using https://github.com/Leaflet/Leaflet.label to give better labels.

 

[glencooley.com]

• List of sales agents with postcodes/town/county they are responsible for (patch)
• Specify limit of 10 visits per day
  
• A list of postcodes they need to visit for the next one week.

As the other answers have mostly said, google maps and specifically the API doesn't do all of this for you.

However you can use google maps to do some of the heavy lifting.

You can send the API area spaces (these are either poly corodinates or regions that the API recognises)

You can send the visits per day which is 10 in your post. Google won't however try and solve the travelling salesman problem (google it, its as very interesting topic even for non geeks) but you will need to order them. To be honest most salespeople will be able to choose the most efficient route for themselves, local knowledge, roads they know, time they want to get home etc so I would look more to letting them see their visits and let them plan them. So building an interface that each person uses to plan their week is probably more useful. Especially as sales people will do things like hold certain customers back till times of the month etc so let them optimise the selling bit.

Going a week ahead is fine but again I would lean on the sales people to help dictate that rather than mandate it.

I would look at the problem in a different way. "why do you need to plan their week?" Why can't they look at the calls and plan it for themselves considering they are the sales/target driven parts of the equation?

Its not clear what you are really trying to optimise and how thats actually optimising sales in any real term other than visits.

I may be missing something though.