Business Central Route Optimization with SuiteFleet

1. Start with the Business Central order

Open the source order 101048 for Pinecrest Hospitality and inspect its delivery destination, line quantities, and configured SuiteFleet relationship. The example contains two lines with quantities 4 and 6 in the units shown.

Open a released sales order and confirm its shipping location, ship-to address, and Qty. to Ship values. If the location requires warehouse documents, respect that handling flow before posting shipment. Released alone does not prove stock has been picked or delivered.

Business Central separates shipment posting from invoicing and supports partial quantities through Qty. to Ship. The original order may no longer be the durable display after full posting, so retain the posted shipment relationship rather than requiring the sales order page to survive forever. Microsoft: posting sales.

2. Configure the planning mapping

Preserve this relationship before exporting delivery work:

Resolve Location Code to the loading point. Distinguish Requested Delivery Date from Shipment Date, and keep Shipping Agent Service Code as a mapped service rule rather than assuming it defines a receiving window.

3. Select eligible stops and available drivers

Open Workbench for the intended date and filters. Inspect task, driver, and hub layers; resolve tasks without a location before optimization. Use geographic selection to choose the intended area, then confirm the selected task set contains only released work.

Choose Plan & Optimize when assigning eligible tasks across drivers, or Optimize Existing Routes when retaining assignments and improving stop sequence. Review enabled drivers, shift windows, departure hubs, and the displayed task-capacity limits. Do not assume those limits represent weight or volume.

Business Central separates shipment posting from invoicing and supports partial quantities through Qty. to Ship. The original order may no longer be the durable display after full posting, so retain the posted shipment relationship rather than requiring the sales order page to survive forever.

4. Review objectives, constraints, and results

Choose the supported objective: Fastest Completion, Shortest Distance, Fewest Vehicles, or Balanced Workload. Review Respect Time Windows, Reassign Assigned Tasks, and Time Per Stop before running the preview. Select the objective that matches the dispatch plan and confirm which routing constraints are enabled.

Inspect the returned driver assignments, stop sequence, projected completion, and every unassigned task. Check stop times against driver shifts as well as customer windows; confirm that the proposed schedule is feasible. Missing locations and conflicting requirements need explicit resolution.

Review the Dallas–Fort Worth planning example, with distances in miles and local receiving times. Dispatchers should check stop sequence, road access, and unresolved work before applying a plan.

5. Execute the route and process actual outcomes

Keep assignment and planned arrival separate from customer delivery. Monitor failed, rescheduled, and completed stops during execution. A route application must not post inventory, close an order, or trigger billing by itself.

If Qty. to Ship is 4 while ordered quantity is 10, the posted shipment and task represent only those 4. Keep the remaining 6 available for a later shipment and do not overwrite posted shipment lines to match an unexpected receipt.

After a stop completes, match its task ID to the source shipment, review required proof, and reconcile accepted quantities. Record actual event time and a separate sync outcome. If the source changes after planning, compare the change with the dispatched allocation before overwriting operational data.

6. Verify the result in Business Central

Use the Posted Sales Shipment as durable shipment evidence and store last-mile details in a related extension record or approved custom fields. Reconcile Quantity Shipped on the original order where it remains available. Do not post Ship and Invoice merely to record customer receipt. Microsoft: posting sales.

Read back the linked record and review every outstanding allocation before marking the full order delivered. Test partial shipment, partial acceptance, failed delivery, duplicate completion, and delayed writeback. Keep inventory posting, receipt evidence, and payment reconciliation under their respective configured rules.