Locations, workers & users
Worker and user management is divided into three views: the Locations list, the user accounts, and the worker details. This page covers what each one is for.
Locations and targets
Section titled “Locations and targets”The Locations and targets list is where you:
- add and remove a worker
- change a worker’s order within the Location (this is also the order used in the calendar view)
- move a worker from one Location to another by dragging
If you add a worker with exactly the same name as one you previously removed from the same Location, Allocator restores the removed worker instead of creating a new one — its history comes back with it. If a worker with that name is still active, you get a duplicate-name error instead.
Locations also separate work that should never be shared. If you run more than one depot or region, put each one in its own Location: the scheduler then keeps each Location’s tasks and workers to itself and never moves a task across Locations. You select the Location in the calendar and during scheduling, so one organization can run several independent operations side by side.
(Location is the default name; your organization may have renamed this grouping in General settings.)
add worker, remove worker, order, move group, drag, location, targetsThe Users view manages:
- the user’s role (Manager, Field Staff, etc.)
- the displayed calendar, chosen in the user’s visibility settings — this only applies to the Field Staff role; all Locations are visible to the others. Visibility settings are also how you set up covering for another worker.
- adding and removing users
Worker priority
Section titled “Worker priority”Each worker has a Priority value; the default is 0. The bigger the difference in value compared to other workers, the more Allocator prioritizes this worker. The number the costs are multiplied by is the difference between the values plus one.
- Example: If all full-time workers are given the value 1 and part-time workers 0, Allocator treats the cost caused by a part-time worker as doubled (1 − 0 + 1 = 2), e.g. for travel costs.
- Example: If full-time workers’ priority is 99 and part-time workers’ 0, Allocator calculates the travel costs of part-time workers’ work as 100-fold and does not give them work until the full-time workers’ calendars are full.
Keep priorities equal if you want work divided evenly — see the FAQ.
favor, cost multiplier, part-time, full-time, steer workAddress details
Section titled “Address details”The address determines where the worker starts their workday. The coordinates are fetched automatically based on the address. Allocator plans on the coordinates, not the address text — if a worker (or a task) appears in the wrong place, check the address for a typo or compare it with what Google Maps returns for the same address; if it is right in Google Maps, it is right in Allocator. The worker’s work shifts are also managed from the worker’s details.
start location, home address, coordinates, depotVehicle capacity
Section titled “Vehicle capacity”In logistics the resource being scheduled is a vehicle, and its details include a capacity — the most it can carry at one time. Over a day a vehicle can make several trips (for example returning to the warehouse to reload), so the total moved in a day can be larger than the capacity while each individual trip stays under it. Allocator keeps every trip within the single-trip capacity and sums the day’s load separately — see Vehicle capacity.
Capacity units are whatever you define them to be. If your real units are fractional (small parcels measured against a larger unit), scale every value — both the capacity here and the task Load — by the same factor so the figures stay whole and the calculation stays exact.
vehicle, car, capacity, load, multiple trips, simultaneous, reload, units, fractional, daily totalVehicle capacity
Transport onlyA vehicle's capacity is its single-trip limit; a day's total can be larger across several trips.