Glossary
Definitions of key terms and concepts used throughout NextRoute.
Glossary
A reference guide to the terminology used throughout NextRoute. Terms are listed alphabetically.
B
Blackout Date
A company-wide date on which no routes are generated or dispatched. Common examples include holidays, severe weather days, or company events. Blackout dates appear on the Calendar with a red indicator and suppress route generation for all templates.
See Blackout Dates.
C
Completed (Route Status)
A route status indicating all stops have been serviced (completed or skipped). A route is automatically marked as completed when the last stop is finished. See Route Status Lifecycle.
Customer
A person or business that receives service from your company. Each customer has a name, contact information, billing status, and one or more properties. Customers are the top-level entity in the data model.
D
Daily Route
A concrete, date-specific route generated from a route template. A daily route contains the actual stops to be completed on a given day, after applying frequency filters, blackout dates, vacation holds, and skip policies. Daily routes progress through a status lifecycle from draft to completed.
See Daily Routes.
Dispatched (Route Status)
A route status indicating the route has been sent to the assigned driver's mobile app. Dispatching triggers a push notification and makes the route visible in the driver app. See Dispatching.
Draft (Route Status)
The initial status of a newly generated route. Draft routes have not been sent to a driver and are not visible in the mobile app. They can be reviewed, edited, and optimized before dispatching.
Driver
A team member with the driver role who executes routes in the field using the mobile app. Drivers can view their assigned routes, complete stops, submit photos and checklists, and send GPS pings. Drivers do not have access to the web dashboard.
F
Frequency
How often a stop is serviced. NextRoute supports three frequencies:
| Frequency | Schedule |
|---|---|
| Weekly | Every week on the template's assigned day |
| Biweekly | Every other week, controlled by the week parity setting |
| Monthly | Once per month, controlled by the month-week setting |
See Service Plans.
M
Master Route
See Route Template.
Month Week
A setting on monthly-frequency stops that determines which week of the month they are serviced. Options: 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, or last.
P
Parity (Week Parity)
A setting on biweekly-frequency stops that determines which alternating week they are serviced. Options:
| Value | Meaning |
|---|---|
A | Serviced on "A" weeks |
B | Serviced on "B" weeks |
every | Serviced every week (overrides biweekly) |
The A/B week designation is determined by the route generation engine based on the calendar week number.
Property
A physical location where service is performed, belonging to a customer. Each property has an address, geographic coordinates (lat/lng), a service zone assignment, bin configuration, and an optional service plan. A customer can have multiple properties.
See Customers & Properties and Properties API.
R
Route Status Lifecycle
Daily routes progress through these statuses:
draft → optimized → dispatched → in_progress → completed| Status | Description |
|---|---|
draft | Generated, not yet dispatched |
optimized | Stop order has been optimized for travel efficiency |
dispatched | Sent to the driver's mobile app |
in_progress | Driver has started completing stops |
completed | All stops finished (completed or skipped) |
Route Template
A reusable template (also called a master route) that defines which properties to service, in what order, and how often. Route templates are linked to a service zone and are used by the route generation engine to create daily routes. Each template has a name, day of week, default driver, and a list of template stops.
See Master Routes and Route Templates API.
S
Service Plan
A pricing and frequency configuration that determines how often a customer is serviced and how much they are billed. Each plan has a name, price, frequency (weekly/biweekly/monthly), and optional add-on pricing (e.g., additional bin charges). Plans can be recurring or one_time and can be marked as public (visible on enrollment) or private.
See Service Plans.
Service Zone
A geographic region that groups properties and routes together. Zones have a name, color, day of week, and boundary (polygon or ZIP codes). Properties are automatically matched to zones based on their coordinates. Each zone typically corresponds to one or more route templates.
See Service Zones.
Skip Category
A reason why a stop was not serviced on a given route. Skip categories are configurable per tenant and include reasons like "Gate locked", "No access", "Contaminated", and "Customer request". Some categories can be configured to trigger automatic rescheduling.
See Skip & Reschedule.
Stop
An individual service point on a daily route. Each stop references a customer and property, has a sequence number, and progresses through statuses (pending, completed, skipped). Stops are the atomic unit of work for drivers.
T
Template Stop
An entry on a route template that defines a property to be serviced. Template stops have frequency settings (weekly, biweekly, monthly), parity/month-week configuration, and an approval status. Template stops are used by the generation engine to create daily route stops.
Tenant
An organization using NextRoute — your company. Each tenant has its own customers, properties, routes, team members, billing, and settings. Tenants are completely isolated from each other. The tenant is identified by a unique ID and a public-facing slug used in enrollment URLs.
V
Vacation Hold
A date range during which a customer's stops are excluded from route generation. Vacation holds are set per customer and can optionally pause billing. When a vacation hold is active, the customer's properties are skipped during route generation without counting as a "skip".
See Vacation Holds.
Related Pages
- Getting Started — quick-start guide
- FAQ — common questions answered
- API Authentication — how to authenticate API calls