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Mileage Calculator/Trip Optimizer

The mileage calculation feature allows a user to calculate a freight charge for an order, based on the mileage between the warehouse it will ship from and the customer’s ship to address on the order.

Enabling Mileage Calculation

In order to enable the mileage calculator, an account must be created with TomTom: https://developer.tomtom.com/store/maps-api 

Once registered with them, take the API Key that they provide, go to Company Preferences > Add Ons, and enter it into the TomTom Routing Integration.

Check the “Enable Mileage calculation” check box and select whether not to enable “Address Validation”.

Finally, this URL should be whitelisted on your network: https://api.tomtom.com

Address Validation

Address validation is used to correct small mistakes in the address that is entered on the customer. It will make changes things like “Av” to “Ave” or it may change “St” to “Ave”, depending on which is correct. When an address is validated, a message will appear and a green checkmark will be displayed beside the address:

If an address cannot be validated, a yellow exclamation point will be shown.

In rare cases, address validation may change an address even though it is correct. To keep an address from being changed, click the “Lock Address” check box.

This will display a lock symbol. Address validation can be disabled completely in the company preferences if needed.

Create Mileage Rates

Go to System > Company Preferences dropdown > Mileage Rates


Min Charge – This is the minimum amount the customer will be billed for freight at that rate.
Rate – The amount the customer will be charged per mile.
Sort – Determines what order the rates will show in the dropdown on the order form.
Rounding Level – The final freight charge will be rounded up to the next increment of this number.

Calculate Freight Charges
Orders

On an order, click on the ruler icon next to the freight field. This will calculate the distance for a one way trip, without factoring in traffic.

Choose the rate and click Accept.

If the exact address cannot be found, the following message will appear asking to calculate based on the ZIP code instead: Street was found, but no address with that number was found on that street. Do you want to estimate distance based on the ZIP code?

Trips

To calculate the mileage on a trip, click the refresh button beside distance on the trip detail. This will calculate the distance and time for a round trip, without factoring in traffic.

To change the freight charge for an order on the trip info screen, click the button beside the current freight charge.

Then choose the new rate and click Accept.

Using Route Optimization

Route optimization utilizes the same TomTom integration as the Mileage calculator. To use it, open up a trip’s detail screen and click on “Optimize Stop Order”. Paradigm will then use TomTom to calculate the optimal route for the entire trip and automatically update the stop order.

Note: TomTom doesn’t take into account current traffic patterns when determining the best route. It will optimize the route to find the shortest mileage for commercial vehicles.

Dispatching Map

The Dispatching Map gives the option to see addresses on a map.

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