Sends deliveries and service calls from e-automate to OptimoRoute for route planning, then brings the result back (status, signature and photos) without anyone re-keying the job into both systems.
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Overview | Samples | Variables | Alert Functionality | Best Practices & Tips | Related Alerts
Overview
Overview
Ensuring your delivery vehicles take the most efficient route saves time, reduces fuel costs and gets orders to customers faster. OptimoRoute handles that planning for you, but if you are also running e-automate, keeping the two in step manually means typing the same job into both systems and then typing the result back again.
ID208 is a bridge between the two. It runs on a schedule and, each time it runs, sends new deliveries and service calls from e-automate to OptimoRoute as stops on a driver's route, checks back on the ones already sent, then brings the results home. It updates the order or call in e-automate and attaching the customer's signature and any photos the driver captured on their phone. If a job is cancelled in e-automate, the matching route stop is removed from OptimoRoute.
You choose whether ID208 handles Sales Orders, Service Calls, or both. See the Alert Functionality section below for how each stage works.
Run Schedule: Every few minutes
Type of Output: Data Push
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Sample
Sample
*Coming soon*
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Variables
Variables
Data Source
Variable 12: Data Source — choose Sales Orders, Service Calls, or Both. Leaving this blank is treated as Sales Orders. This decides whether the service call side of the process runs at all.
Sales Orders
ID208 looks at the shipping method on each shipment to decide what kind of stop to create in OptimoRoute. Variables 4, 5 and 6 are the mapping; Variables 1, 2 and 3 set how long to allow at the stop for each kind.
Variable 4: The e-automate shipping method that should become a Delivery in OptimoRoute.
Variable 5: The e-automate shipping method that should become a Pickup in OptimoRoute.
Variable 6: The e-automate shipping method that should become a Task in OptimoRoute.
**Shipments whose shipping method does not match any of Variables 4, 5 or 6 are skipped.
Variable 1: Default delivery duration, in minutes.
Variable 2: Default pickup duration, in minutes.
Variable 3: Default task duration, in minutes.
Variables 7 to 11 are the sales order statuses ID208 moves the order through as the delivery progresses. Each one must already exist in your SOStatuses list in e-automate — see Setting up your statuses below.
Variable 7: Status to set once the shipment has been successfully sent to OptimoRoute.
Variable 8: Status to set on a successful delivery.
Variable 9: Status to set on the day of delivery. This is applied on the run where OptimoRoute reports the stop as scheduled for today. If OptimoRoute later moves the job to a different day, the status fires again on the new delivery day.
Variable 10: Status for cancelled. This one does two jobs: it is the status ID208 sets when OptimoRoute reports the order has gone, and it is also the status ID208 watches for in e-automate to spot orders you have cancelled, so it can remove the matching stop from OptimoRoute.
Variable 11: Status to set when a delivery is rejected or fails.
Service Calls
Variable W: The call types to send to OptimoRoute, separated by commas. Each must match a call type in your SCCallTypes list in e-automate. Only calls of these types, and only calls in Scheduled status, are picked up. **Required when service calls are enabled.
Variable Y: The priority to set on the call once it has been successfully sent to OptimoRoute. Must match an existing priority in your SCPriorities list in e-automate.
Variable X: No longer used. Completed calls are now closed using a fixed status, so whatever is in this variable has no effect.
Address Checking
Variable Z: The name of an OptimoRoute skill used to flag stops that landed on a questionable address — most dealers call this badaddress. The skill must already exist in your OptimoRoute account. Applies to both sales orders and service calls. See Questionable addresses below for what this does. **Leave this blank and the second attempt is skipped entirely — the stop is simply reported as failed.
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Alert Functionality
Alert Functionality
Each time ID208 runs it works through four stages in order.
1. Sending work out
Sales orders: ID208 looks for new shipments in e-automate. Each shipment becomes its own stop in OptimoRoute — two shipments against the same order on the same day stay as two separate stops. Voided and reversed shipments are ignored. The shipping method decides whether the stop is a Delivery, a Pickup or a Task, and shipments whose method doesn't match one of your three mappings are skipped. Once the stop is created, the sales order moves to your Variable 7 status.
Service calls: ID208 looks for calls whose call type is in your Variable W list and whose status is Scheduled. Each becomes a Delivery stop in OptimoRoute. Once the stop is created, the call's priority is set to your Variable Y value. The call status itself is not changed at this point.
The stop is created using the customer's stored coordinates if you have them (see Custom Property Set Up), otherwise the ship-to address is used.
**Work is sent once. A delivery or service call is handed to OptimoRoute the first time it qualifies. Editing it in e-automate afterwards does not send the change across. A send that fails is retried on later runs, up to three attempts.
2. Checking back
For everything it has already sent and that isn't finished yet, ID208 asks OptimoRoute for an update: has the driver arrived, has the job finished, did the customer refuse it, and has dispatch moved it to a different day?
It also records the date OptimoRoute currently has the job planned for. When that date is today, the sales order moves to your Variable 9 day-of-delivery status. If OptimoRoute later reschedules the job, that status will fire again on the new day.
3. Bringing the results home
Once a job reaches a finished state, ID208 downloads everything the driver captured — the customer's signature and any photos or barcode scans — and attaches them to the sales order or service call in e-automate.
On a successful delivery:
- Sales orders move to your Variable 8 delivered status, and the delivery is recorded as a shipment package with the OptimoRoute order reference as the tracking number and the completion time as the delivery date.
- Service calls are closed in e-automate, using the times the driver arrived and finished as the start and close dates.
On a rejected or failed delivery: anything the driver captured is still attached, and sales orders move to your Variable 11 rejected status. Service calls are left as they are.
If OptimoRoute reports the job has gone: after two runs in a row where OptimoRoute can't find the stop, it is treated as cancelled. Sales orders move to your Variable 10 cancelled status and ID208 stops checking on it.
4. Tidying up
If you cancel a sales order or service call in e-automate, ID208 removes the matching stop from OptimoRoute — but only where the job is not scheduled yet or scheduled for a future date.
**Jobs scheduled for today, or for a date that has already passed, are deliberately left alone for a person to deal with.
ID208 also trims its own old tracking records automatically, so nothing builds up over time.
Questionable addresses
Some customer addresses are ambiguous — a town with no street on it, or a street name that exists in three different places. When ID208 sends one of these to OptimoRoute, OptimoRoute reports that it found several possible matches and refuses to guess between them.
Rather than dropping the job, ID208 sends it a second time and tells OptimoRoute to use its best match — but tags the stop with the skill you named in Variable Z. Your dispatch team can then filter on that tag and see every stop that landed on a shaky address, so someone can check it before a driver is sent out.
If you haven't set that skill up in Variable Z, the second attempt is skipped and the job is simply reported as failed. Nothing is ever quietly guessed.
Customer notifications
OptimoRoute notifies your end customer directly about their delivery — this comes from OptimoRoute, not from CEO Juice. ID208 passes across the phone number and email address from the Ordered By contact on the sales order, and sets the notification preference based on what is filled in:
- Phone and email → text message and email
- Email only → email
- Phone only → text message
- Neither → no notification
If you want to suppress notifications for a particular customer, leave the Ordered By phone and email blank on the order.
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Best Practices & Tips
Best Practices & Tips
Setting up your statuses
ID208 moves the sales order through five statuses as the delivery progresses. Each status name you enter in Variables 7 to 11 must already exist in your SOStatuses list in e-automate.
**If a status name has no match in e-automate, ID208 logs an error and skips that status change. The delivery itself still goes through — you just won't see the status move.
Custom Property Set Up
Two custom properties need to be created on the Customer record in e-automate before the first run:
Attribute name = CustomerLat — the customer location's latitude
Attribute name = CustomerLong — the customer location's longitude
Where both are filled in, ID208 sends those exact coordinates to OptimoRoute. Where they are blank, it falls back to working the location out from the ship-to address instead. Both properties need to exist before you start, but individual customers can be left blank.
Email help@ceojuice.com if you would like us to set these up for you.
Optional settings
These two options are set by CEO Juice rather than on your subscription. Email help@ceojuice.com to have either changed.
Saving signatures and photos. Turned off by default. With it on, the signature and any photos the driver captured are saved and attached to the order or call in e-automate. With it off, the delivery is still recorded but no images are attached.
**Turning this on later does not go back and collect images for deliveries that already completed while it was off. Those have to be recovered manually, so it is worth deciding this before you go live.
Assigning the technician. Service calls only. Turned off by default. With it on, the call is assigned in OptimoRoute to the technician from the call, so it lands with the right driver rather than going into the general pool.
Everyday questions
"It delivered, but there's no signature or photo on the order."
Either saving images is switched off, or the driver never captured anything on their phone. Note that switching image saving on afterwards does not go back and fetch pictures for deliveries that are already complete.
"A service call never appeared in OptimoRoute."
Usually one of three things: its call type isn't in your Variable W list, it isn't in Scheduled status, or it had already been sent once before.
"We changed the order after it was sent and OptimoRoute still shows the old details."
This is expected. Work is sent once and later edits are not sent across.
"The delivery date in e-automate looks like the wrong day."
Times come from OptimoRoute. Service call start and finish times use the driver's local time; some other timestamps are stored in UTC, which can look a day out for jobs completed late in the evening.
"Nothing happened at all on that run."
Check that Variable 12 is set to include the type of work you are expecting — Sales Orders, Service Calls or Both.
If none of the above explains what you are seeing, email help@ceojuice.com with the order or call number.
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Related Alerts
Related Alerts
None at this time.
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