Routing
"A mile can take 5 minutes, or half a mile can take 25."
A working sweep said that to us about routing software, and they were dead right. Anyone who works a real patch knows a job two miles up a straight A-road is closer than one a mile away across a river with one bridge. Software that plans by distance on a map doesn't know that, and it shows.
We Sweep never orders a day by straight-line distance. Every placement decision is made on real Google drive times between the actual addresses booked. Distance gets used exactly once — to decide whether a postcode is inside your service area in the first place.
How the day gets built
- Jobs land where they add the least driving — when a booking comes in, the system looks at the jobs already on that day and the drive times between their addresses, and slots the new one where it costs the least time behind the wheel.
- The day re-plans itself as it changes — every new booking, reschedule and cancellation re-plans the affected day straight away. The route keeps tightening as the day fills, instead of being frozen in the order jobs happened to arrive.
- Your fixed jobs are anchors — anything you book in yourself is locked to its time, and once a customer has their confirmed arrival time, that job is locked too. The fluid jobs are routed around both. The optimiser works for you, not over you.
- Working hours, time off and blocked days hold — the day is only ever built inside the hours you've set, around the time you've blocked out.
The re-planning is only possible because customers book a date, not a time — how that works is on the online booking page.
24 hours out, the route is final
The day before, the route stops moving. It's made final, every customer gets their confirmed arrival time by email, and from that point the system doesn't touch that day again — no job is shuffled after the customer has been told when you're coming.
Until then, customers hold a provisional time and know it's provisional — their confirmation says so in plain words. That gap between provisional and confirmed is what buys the route its room to keep improving. The full reasoning is on the booking page, because three separate sweeps asked us about it and it deserves a proper answer.
On the day
- A mapped route in order — the day's jobs come as a route you can follow, not a list you have to plan.
- Google Calendar sync — every job appears in your calendar, and anything already in your calendar is treated as time you're not available. Conflicts are checked on every booking — and it's per technician, so each sweep's own calendar counts for their own day.
- The day can grow without breaking — find a second flue when you arrive, or get asked "while you're here, could you do the stove as well?" and you add it on the spot. The customer agrees the new total at the door, the price is verified by the system, and the booking — and any payment link — updates itself.
- Customers already know you're coming — confirmed times went out the day before, automatically. What goes out and when is on the reminders page.
Where it's honest to say the software stops
Drive times are Google's standard estimates between two points. The system doesn't try to predict what a road looks like at half three on a school day — you know your patch better than any estimate ever will. When local knowledge disagrees with the plan, you win: move the job, lock it, and the rest of the day re-plans around your decision.
No monthly fee for any of this — 2% per booking, and the detail is on the payments page.
Frequently asked questions
Does it plan by straight-line distance?
No. Straight-line distance is used exactly once: to check whether a postcode sits inside your service area at all. Everything about where a job lands in the day is worked out from real Google drive times between the actual addresses booked.
Does it account for traffic at different times of day?
No. Drive times are Google's standard point-to-point estimates, not live traffic predictions for a specific hour. If you know the school run turns a road into a car park at half three, move the job or lock it where you want it — the system never overrides your local knowledge.
Will it move a job I've placed myself?
Never. Bookings you create in the admin panel are locked to their time, and any job you move by hand stays where you put it. The optimiser only rearranges the fluid jobs, and it routes them around your fixed ones.
Can a job move after the customer has their confirmed time?
No. The route is made final 24 hours before the day, confirmed arrival times go out to customers, and from that point nothing on that day is moved by the system.
What does the day look like on the road?
Your jobs for the day come as a mapped route in order, and everything syncs to Google Calendar — each technician to their own calendar, with conflict checking against anything else already in it. If a job grows on the doorstep, extra work can be added there and then with the customer's agreement, and the booking updates itself.