Create delivery areas

What it is

A delivery area is a piece of the map that you mark as "we deliver here." You give it a name and a color, then choose one of three shapes: Search area finds a city, district, or region and adds its boundary; Radius draws a circle around one spot; Draw traces a custom outline from points on the map. Once an area exists, every order that lands inside it gets tagged with that area, so your work is grouped by area instead of one long messy list.

Why it matters

When your deliveries are sorted by area, your day gets calmer. You can see at a glance how many orders are stacking up in each part of town, hand a whole neighborhood to one driver, and stop sending people on zig-zag trips across the city. If you run more than one shop or warehouse, areas also decide which location an order is fulfilled from — Routella sends each order to the nearest store you picked for that area — so packing and routing line up automatically instead of by guesswork.

Step by step

1. 1
   Open Delivery areas on today's board and start a new one

   Go to today's board. On a computer, open Manage in the side panel and choose Delivery areas. On a phone, tap More at the bottom of the board, then under This screen choose Delivery areas on this map. Then press New (or Create your first area if you have none yet). The area editor opens over the map, ready for you to fill in. The steps below follow this editor.
2. 2
   Give the area a name and a color

   Type a clear name you'll recognize later, like 'Downtown' or 'North Side' (a name is required — you can't save without one). A new area starts with a color your other areas aren't using, when one is free. To change it, open More settings in the editor (it starts closed), then tap one of the colored dots or use Custom to pick your own. Give each area its own color so they're easy to tell apart on the map.
3. 3
   Choose how you want to shape the area

   Pick one of the three tabs. Search area is best when you know the city, district, or region name. Radius is best for 'we deliver this far from our store.' Draw is best when you need to follow your own boundary. If a place search cannot load, Routella keeps the text you typed and shows Try again.
4. 4
   Draw the area on the map

   For Search area: type at least part of the place name and choose one result; Routella finishes loading the boundary before Save becomes available. For Radius: search for or tap a center point and set a distance above zero. For Draw: tap the button to start drawing, then add at least 3 points on the map to outline the area.
5. 5
   Check where the Automatic Zone Route starts and pick warehouses (optional)

   Under the map, Routella shows where this area's Automatic Zone Route (a button on the board) starts: the area's warehouse, or the start address on your board when no warehouse is linked. It is the only route that starts from the area's warehouse: Autopilot starts every route from your main warehouse, and routes you build yourself start from the start address on your board. To change a warehouse's address, open the Warehouses page. If your account has two or more warehouses, you'll also see buttons to choose which warehouses serve this area — orders in this area are then fulfilled from the nearest one you picked, and the area's Automatic Zone Route starts from the first one you picked. If you pick none, those orders go to your main warehouse. With only one warehouse, Routella links it for you automatically.
6. 6
   Save the area

   Tap the save button once. While an address or boundary is still loading, the button says Finishing address and stays unavailable. While the area is saving, Routella blocks a second save and shows its progress. If anything required is missing, it marks the exact field. A network or server problem leaves the area on screen and offers Try again; a successful save is shown only after Routella confirms it.
7. 7
   Review, edit, or remove your areas

   Your areas are listed in the same Delivery areas panel on the board. To change one, press its pencil button, then Edit Zone Shape & Settings; the same pencil lets you assign drivers to the area. Press the trash button to delete an area. If you try to close an area with unsaved changes, Routella asks before discarding them. Opening Customers from the area editor temporarily hides it but keeps the unfinished area so you can return to it. The Delivery areas page in the menu shows every area as a card: drawn and searched areas show their size, radius areas their radius, and district areas their districts, along with the warehouses linked to each one. If you have several warehouses, a filter at the top shows only the areas tied to one of them.

Tips

• Keep areas from overlapping too much. If two areas cover the same street, an order could be hard to place cleanly. Tidy, side-by-side areas sort the most reliably.
• Use a different color for every area. It makes the map readable at a glance.
• Start simple with Search area when a named boundary is available, or Radius when you want one clear distance around a point. Use Draw when you need your own outline.
• Wait for the selected address or boundary to finish loading before saving. Routella keeps Save unavailable during that short step so it cannot store a half-finished shape.

Common questions

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