RouteSense™ Scheduling Engine
RouteSense™ is Chronicaly's core scheduling engine. It calculates available appointment slots based on real travel time — not fixed time blocks. This means every slot shown to a customer is one your resource can realistically reach.
Why Travel Time Matters
Traditional scheduling tools divide a workday into fixed slots — for example, 9am, 11am, 1pm, 3pm — and show all of them as available. The problem is that a resource finishing a job on the east side of town at 10:45am cannot realistically start a job on the west side at 11am.
RouteSense™ solves this by factoring in:
- The resource's location at the end of their previous appointment
- Drive time from that location to the customer's address
- The duration of the selected services
- Buffer time for preparation and cleanup
- The resource's defined working hours
Only slots that are achievable are shown to customers.
How Slot Availability Is Calculated
When a customer selects a date on the Public Booking Page, Chronicaly runs the following calculation for each resource assigned to that location:
- Look up the resource's last appointment before the requested date and time
- Calculate drive time from that appointment's address to the customer's address
- Add the service duration and any buffer time
- Check whether the result falls within the resource's working hours
- Confirm the slot is not already booked
If all conditions are met, the slot is marked available.
How Resources Are Assigned
Customers do not select a specific resource. Chronicaly automatically assigns the resource with the shortest travel time to the customer's address for the selected slot.
This keeps your routes efficient across the day — the system continuously optimizes who goes where.
Travel Time Indicators for Internal Schedulers
When your team creates appointments using the internal scheduler, they can see travel time indicators for each available resource:
| Travel Time | Indicator | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 0–15 minutes | 🟢 Green | Excellent — minimal travel |
| 15–30 minutes | 🟡 Yellow | Good — reasonable drive |
| 30–45 minutes | 🟠 Orange | Acceptable — long drive |
| 45+ minutes | 🔴 Red | Poor — very long drive |
Internal schedulers can select any resource regardless of travel time indicator. The indicators provide context, not restrictions.
Appointments created by internal schedulers are automatically confirmed. The approval workflow applies only to appointments submitted through the Public Booking Page.
Soft Hold During Booking
When a customer selects a time slot, RouteSense™ places a temporary soft hold on that slot. The hold prevents another customer from booking the same slot while the first customer completes checkout.
If the customer abandons the booking, the hold expires automatically and the slot becomes available again.