Visual Control Room - Automated Routing, Scheduling & Dispatch Software

Visual Control Room is an automated routing, scheduling, dispatching, and complete customer information management system that uses graphical maps and schedule charts in conjunction with automated optimization of jobs and resource assignments. Visual Control Room is designed for mid-sized businesses and large enterprises in a variety of industries that are involved in the day-to-day management, tracking, and accounting of vehicles, drivers, and resources that are performing work for their customers.

Virtually any company or organization that has workers, vehicles, or equipment on the road can benefit greatly from using VCR. Some of the industries using Visual Control Room include: transportation and trucking, business-to-business and business-to-consumer distribution, general field service type activities, pest control, HVAC, electric and plumbing services, construction, food and beverage distribution, government organizations, courier companies, medical and home health care, utilities and cable TV, cleaning services, gas and oil delivery, retail delivery and service, and any type of company that performs repair or installation functions.

Companies that have deployed VCR have benefited from a 10 to 25 percent reduction in transportation-related time and costs. This saves substantial money and frees up workers’ time for additional work rather than driving. Additional benefits include: automation of job entry, assignment, tracking, billing, time keeping and management reporting; elimination of redundancies in database and record keeping; increased field productivity through graphical visualization of field work; reduced manual effort for performing scheduling tasks; increased gains in customer service; increased accuracy levels for job assignments and ongoing increases in revenue.

Yes. VCR has maps for any area of the U.S.A. and for many parts of the world. These maps are used to display customers, jobs, and routes. The maps also include an automatic address geocoding or “pinning” capability that locates and displays your customers’ actual address locations on each street.

VCR has built-in dynamic routing capabilities for companies with routes that vary daily. A number of variables can be input including: stops to be routed, pool of resources to handle the work, special rules that may be required for optimization such as fleet capacities or skill sets of technicians, and literally hundreds of other types of rules and conditions. You can even define your own rules and conditions to handle specialized needs.

VCR has a capability called Find Best Fit. As your schedule changes, Visual Control Room can automatically assign the new task to the best field resource based on a variety of factors, such as ‘who is closest,’ ‘who has the proper equipment or skill set to handle the job or task,’ ‘who is the preferred driver for this customer,’ ‘territory assignments,’ or whatever your business rules demand. VCR also updates all estimated arrival times when any change to any schedule or route is made.

Yes, the system can handle real-time routing, scheduling, and dispatching requirements. This can be accomplished directly from within the VCR system or through a special set of interfacing software tools, provided by Intergis, that allow you to gain access to all VCR functionality from another computer application.

Yes, many customers use the system to optimize their static routes, and then keep them optimized as changes occur – such as adding new customers, removing or changing information. VCR is used extensively as both a planning tool as well as a dynamic operational tool.

Yes. You can assign territories, zones, or customers based on driver. There are many variables that you can control, such as day of the week, type of work, even repetitive visits or stops based n a frequency.

Yes. Visual Control Room employs the friendly Microsoft® Windows® technology with its “ease-of-use” philosophy. Visual Control Room was created for users who have little or no computer literacy skills or technical knowledge of business computer applications.

Visual Control Room runs on the Microsoft Windows platform. It is a multi-user system that will work on a standalone PC, in a LAN (local area network), or on a Windows server providing access for remote locations with inexpensive terminals or existing PCs.

Yes. Visual Control Room can be operated as a stand-alone system or it may be deployed on a centralized, regional, or localized basis through either dedicated locally installed systems, regional WAN-based capabilities, or via an inexpensive remote terminal based operation.

Yes. Visual Control Room is designed to work with any other computer system and software. If you are already using other applications and systems to manage your business needs, VCR can be easily integrated for maximum flexibility, eliminating duplication of information or operations and making the VCR system appear as part of your existing computer application if you already using one.

Yes. Visual Control Room is fully multi-user, allowing multiple people or locations to be scheduling, dispatching and routing – all at the same time. It provides a centralized database for management reporting and analysis purposes. It automatically controls file and record locking contention and uses proprietary technology to update all screens that are working within the same set of resources and geography.

Yes. Visual Control Room performs automated routing optimization using many different kinds of rules, which the VCR user can define and adjust. Some of these rules include: time appointments; special equipment or skills; various cost factors; user defined rule sets, etc.

Yes. VCR is a real-time system that allows you to add, change, or delete work from the routes and schedules along with any other information in the system. Every VCR user will instantaneously see the effect of all changes whenever they occur.

Yes. Visual Control Room can print detailed maps showing customer locations and very accurate, detailed driving directions. Turn-by-turn driving directions, including a map, are part of Visual Control Room. These directions can be displayed, printed, distributed via e-mail, or sent to wireless handheld devices.

Yes. Visual Control Room has a full suite of reports for management and decision support. These reports are created through a single database and are available for practically every operational and management requirement. Route schedules, customer and job reports, cost and profitability reports, driving directions, maps, and many more reports are available.

Yes. Using Crystal Reports, Intergis makes available our database programming formats so a company may be able to generate their own reports.

Yes. Visual Control Room has a complete back-office suite that includes real-time interfaces with QuickBooks accounting, invoicing, payments, and inventory. This gives companies the ability to use Visual Control Room as a complete system solution. VCR also supports “consolidated” billing for customers that have centralized billing needs for multiple locations.

Yes. You can access the Visual Control Room from anywhere using any Internet connection if you desire, or VCR can be run locally on any PC desktop or local area network. If you use the Internet, you’ll be able to see and use VCR just as though you were sitting at a dedicated PC desktop. Additionally, GPS vehicle location tracking, automatic paging, and many 2-way wireless communication devices typically use the Internet to transmit data to and from VCR.

Yes. Visual Control Room has the ability to use various real-time wireless communication devices for information exchange and job completion such as alphanumeric pagers, RIM and BlackBerry devices, Palm® and Windows Mobile PDAs of virtually any kind.

Yes. VCR allows scanning of virtually any document and attaching it to a customer record or work-related record. Items such as proof of service or delivery documents, drawings, maps, pictures, signed work orders or invoices, hand written notes – in short, any paper document – can be scanned and attached. The documents can be retrieved directly within VCR and faxed, e-mail, or printed to anyone anywhere.

Yes. Using our ConnectRoute product in conjunction with VCR, the system can interface with bar code scanners for item tracking, data entry, inventory and parts usage or stocking, proof of delivery or service, etc. Signature capture is also available as an option.

Yes. VCR provides the same kind of package/item tracking capabilities that FedEx or UPS offers. You and your customers can instantaneously see all the locations, dates, and times of all package/item movements. You can also track and record movements of packages/items within a building or facility and show all the locations, steps, or processes an item has been through along with where it is at any point in time.

Yes, VCR is designed to interface with a wide variety of devices, including cell phones, pagers, Nextel, BlackBerry®, Palm and other handheld devices, e-mail, and web sites. VCR can easily send and receive data from these sources. Your drivers can receive notices of schedule changes right in their vehicles. And, when drivers finish a job, they can automatically update VCR status throughout the day.

Yes, optional GPS tracking can be integrated with the included electronic maps and overlaid on routes allowing you to see, real-time, where drivers are, where they’ve been, if they are off route, or where they should have gone. VCR also keeps this information for historical analysis and review. Reports reflecting the GPS-related information and status are also included.

Yes. VCR has very powerful customer notification capabilities to keep your customers informed of when you will arrive at their locations. Automated telephone, faxing, e-mail, and paging, are just some of the ways that VCR can communicate arrival time with your customers. This feature can dramatically increase customer satisfaction and your customer service capabilities while also saving you a lot of money spent doing these tasks manually.

First, color-coded work progress bars are generated onto a work-time schedule chart to reflect the schedule for each field resource for the day. These schedule charts show drive times, work times, break times, down times, etc. in a color coded manner which provide a visual profile of all of the activities each resource has to perform. The VCR user can at a glance determine who is busy working, when they are driving, taking a break, working overtime, etc. Second, each work or job location, the sequence of the stops from location to location, and how they are linked together to form a route are all clearly depicted on the detailed color map. They can be assigned different colors or shapes to represent different kinds of work or jobs to be done. Route lines connecting the dots are also color-coded to match the technicians or drivers shown in the work-time schedule chart. These combinations of graphical tools provide the VCR user a complete geographical and time-line status visualization of each field resource.

Yes. Because of our varied customer base, we have integrated with many different host computer systems, many popular off-the-shelf applications, and even individually developed systems. We will manage this process for you during set-up.

Yes. A very simple process is included to provide translation between virtually any system and VCR to make initial and on-going synchronizing of all information easy and error free.

Intergis provides complete training, implementation assistance, on-going technical support and system upgrades to its customers.

The VCR maps and address files are updated annually. Maps are available for the entire U.S., Canada, and many other parts of the world.

Yes, you can access the system from anywhere using any Internet connection, from any PC or inexpensive Windows display terminal. You’ll be able to see and use the system just as though it was running on your own PC or desktop.

Yes, using the Vericom MRM Plus Solution, all system functionality can be accessed over the Internet from an Intergis hosting location for a monthly fee if you desire. For details, please Contact Us.