FileMaker Advice

====== Useful Tips ======

From: Chaim Bacon (Productive IT)
Date: 2009/7/9
Subject: Re: Purchase order

Hi Menasche, You asked a few questions:
• When the recently added Route Planner calculates a route, will it pick up a topographical problem? For example, the engineer lives in Tilbury RM18 and we want to send him on a job to Thames Way, Gravesend DA11.  We (now) know that the Thames runs neatly between these two postcodes, hence it will take him a good half an hour to reach a crossing and make his way along the river, opposite from where he started his journey!  Get the gist?
• Another questions (similar, still majorly important) is as follows: the engineers start their day before 6:00AM to beat the rush hour.  Will the Route Planner advise him how to save maximal time according to known traffic patterns throughout the day?

Here are the Answers:

No. The route planner is not that intelligent. It would cost us over £100,000 per year to buy data that enables us to do that! All distances are calculated 'as the crow flies', so if rivers, roadwork or traffic gets in the way, then it's not going to know. It's great when you have a list of places to go and need a bit of help sorting out the best order. However, it should always be viewed by a person who might then realise a problem such as a river.
However it's not so stupid! It works like this:
1. You give the route planner your list of destinations and a starting point (the engineer's home or the office)
2. The route planner finds the nearest destination to the starting point (calculated as the crow flies)
3. Then that destination is set as the next starting point and the next nearest destination is found
4. Repeat steps 2 & 3 until all points sorted.
5. The destinations are then plotted on a Google Map
6. The Google Map shows proper directions - taking into account rivers etc.
   However, if Postcode PA had known about the rivers, then it might have chosen a different order of destinations.
7. The user can look at the map and see if anything seems to not make sense.
   if so, then can re-order the destinations.
8. Destinations can also be re-ordered because you might have promised a client an AM or PM engineer visit.
   This type of requirement could also be built into the initial script that sorts the destination list.
9. At any point while re-ordering the user can click the button to see a Google Map of the current order.
From my testing, I'd say that the Route Planner gets it right about 85% right about 85% of the time.
I hope that helps explain how it works.