Setting up a flow is an important configuration step. When you announce tasks, certain properties have to be added to them so that your real-life processes are reflected accordingly in Urbantz. Examples of properties that can be set at flow level are service time, workdays, barcode scan requirements and signature requirements.
Overview:
1. General
In the General section of the flow setup, you can:
Name the Flow
Associate an Optimisation
You can also define working days and holidays at the flow level if only certain days of the week/year are to be considered.
ℹ️ If you announce a task on a working day that is not checked or on a holiday, the next available working day will be used instead.
You can also set up advanced options particular needs. Here you can:
Choose what to display when creating new tasks (account, already paid, company, digicode 1, digicode 2, elevator, email, floor, interphone, language, person, phone number, price, and second time window).
Allow updating metadata - If you activate this feature, you will be able to update the metadata of a task during the announcement. The update is based on the taskld and the date of the task.
Allow updating items - If you activate this feature, you will be able to update the items of a task during the announcement.The update is based on the taskld and the date of the task. Data changes could include: dimensions, quantity, etc.
Force day-unique order IDs - this fonction ensures all tasks within a single day have unique task IDs. When activated, this feature prevents two tasks from having the same ID on the same delivery day. If a task is announced with an ID that already exists for another task on that day, it will result in an error during the announcement process.
Restrict order IDs per type only - This is a setting that works in conjunction with the "Force day-unique order IDs" feature. When activated, it limits the uniqueness requirement to tasks of the same type (e.g., delivery or pickup) within a single day.
Generate pickup automatically - If you activate this feature, the system will generate automatically a pickup located in the hub when you announce a delivery task without a dependency.
2. Geocoding
Flow > Geocoding
The geocoding is crucial for ensuring accurate delivery locations and optimising routes effectively.
Country
Language
Geocode address expression: this describes the composition of the field that will be used by our algorithms. An example would be "street number zip city" for Belgian addresses as they are composed in such a way (Avenue Louise 251 / 1050 / Bruxelles)
You can also Use actitivty zone to enhance geocoding. This feature utilizes predefined activity zones to improve the accuracy of the geocoding process
You can also define the geocoding threshold starting at which you want Urbantz to show geocoding errors. We recommend a threshold of 80. You can choose a threshold of 50 or less if you prefer having few geocoding errors but the risk of possible incorrect addresses increases. Alternatively, you can define the threshold at 95 which will result in a lot more geocoding errors to correct manually as well as correct addresses, as nearly all will have to be reviewed. Here you can also enable the option “Reject addresses geocoded in a different postal code“ and Exclude the street number from address validation (for countries without street number).
Attention! Enabling the option “Reject addresses geocoded in a different postal code“ only applies a 25% score penalty; it does not reject mismatched results. If after the penalty the score will go below the treshhold then it will be rejected. If it will be still above the treshold set then it will still be kept.
You can adapt which geocoding service is used, ArcGis, Here or Google. Keep in mind that using different providers incurs additional costs for geocoding. Please make sure the usage of Here only is not enough before enabling other geocoders.
3. Hub
Here is where you configure how tasks are assigned to specific hubs or warehouses for delivery or pickup. Setting up the hub correctly is crucial for efficiently managing the distribution of tasks across different hubs or warehouses in your delivery network, allowing for optimised routing and resource allocation.
Specific Hub - every task will be assigned to the selected hub.
- Closest Hub - "Closest hub" will assign the ideal hub based on the task's final destination.
- Rule-based Hub assignation - choosing this option will let you use simple hub assignation rules.
- Simple rule-based Hub assignation - this option will map the value of the selected field to the hub name.
- Script-based Hub assignation - you will be able to define generic assignation rules by script.
4. Sender
Flow > Sender
This section allows you to define the Sender of the tasks you announce using this flow. You can decide on:
A specific sender:
Announced by name:
Announced by code:
5. Default
Here you can configure default settings for tasks when they are created or imported into the system. It sets default values for various task parameters when specific data is not provided during task creation or import.
Use a time window containment margin of _%
- Setting a margin will shorten the timewindows on a task. e.g., if you have a time window of 10:00:00 - 12:00:00 with 10% margin, the time window we send to the optimisation provider will be 10:00:00 - 11:48:00.
- The violation time will be calculated based on the time window with a margin, so if the task arrives at 12:10:00, the violation time will be 22 minutes.
- So when a margin is set, it's possible that a task has violation time even though it arrives inside the original timewindow
therefore, if the task arrives at 11:55:00, it will have 7 minutes of violation time.
6. Requires
Flow > Requires
This section of the flow setup will determine actions that have to be carried out by Dispatchers and Drivers during the task lifecycle. These options allow you to refine Urbantz to meet all your needs and match your operational processes.
The requirements are divided into:
Requires for delivery tasks
For delivery tasks there are more 'requires' than for pickup tasks. You can define actions at arrival (dispatch), at preparation (truck loading), for the delivery itself, in case of failed delivery and, if you are using that feature, for drop-off.
Requires for pickup tasks
For pickup tasks 'requires' exist for dispatching, for the pickup itself and in case of pickup failure.
7. Integration
Flow > Integration
This section of the flow configuration is all about the way tasks will be announced into Urbantz. Two ways can be configured here (field mapper and parser script) and the third one (API) is always available.
Date format: When announcing tasks the date format chosen here needs to be respected to be recognized correctly by Urbantz.
API Token of the Sender on the Flow: also referred to as the flow key or flow secret, is a security credential used for authentication when making API calls or announcements to a specific flow within Urbantz.
File transformation mode:
Field mapper: match your file format with the Urbantz destination format.
File format: XLS, XLSX and XML or CSV (although CSV files can be used, it is not advised as it can create issues during the announcements).
Field mapping: The field mapping setup is essential for Urbantz to make sure the information you announce is taken out of the file you provide and added into the corresponding Urbantz fields.
1. Upload sample file: insert the file you want to use to configure for your flow.
2. Sheet: the name of the sheet of the Excel file in which your data is stored.
3. Field mapping: assign your column headers to the corresponding Urbantz fields.
ℹ️ If your file contains phone numbers in the column that is supposed to contain the delivery date Urbantz won't be able to interpret a date.
ℹ️ Try as much as possible to keep the same file structure over time for your announcement files. If there are changes to the file, they need to be done in the field mapping as well.
ℹ️. If you encounter difficulties when uploading a file remove the formatting you applied in Excel to have the most basic file possible.
ℹ️. The the imported file should have only one sheet of data. Any additional sheets will not be read.
Parser script: a script to be put in place in particular cases by a member of Urbantz.
Now that the basic flow setup is completed you can proceed with announcing tasks in the Announcement section of your platform to create rounds and send drivers on their way.
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