ServiceDesk 4.8.154 Update 04/05/20

One of the features in the new GraphHopper Route-Optimization (announced here, with handbook here) is you may setup a file that, among other things, specifies the start time for each tech for each day of the week he works. Because the system also knows each tech's starting location (typically his home) and can calculate expected driving time, it can also calculate a rather precise ETA for each tech's first job of the day. Given this, the system allows you, if desired, to provide each tech's first customer of the day with an actual ETA, as opposed to a larger time-frame.

It's something customers, obviously, very much appreciate.

Well, one of our users does it a little differently. Rather than permitting techs to each have a particular "depart-for-the-first-job" time, this user wants each to have a fixed "arrive-at-the-first-job" time, with expectation that each tech will adjust his departure time as needed to make that specified arrival time.

This seemed like something we should accommodate in the new optimization, so we have. There is a new section (see here) in the GraphHopper Optimization handbook that describes how to do this.