Automate your visit planning with the help of the SAP Dynamic Visit Planning add-on. This blog post shows you the basic features and configuration options you get with the add-on.
The visit planning functionality has been available to SAP Sales Cloud users for a long time. However, maintenance in the standard version also requires a certain manual effort. With the release of the Dynamic Visit Planning Add-On, SAP is offering an automated and intelligent approach to optimizing visit planning. The main features comprise automatic, system-generated visit recommendations and efficient route planning. Used correctly, they allow sales representatives to make more efficient use of the time they spend with customers.
Once the add-on has been licensed and correctly configured in scoping, an additional work center with four submenus is available:
- Cockpit: Sales representatives get an overview of their current & planned visits here. In addition, they can schedule new visits here; configured recommendation parameters are taken into account when doing so.
- Route Groups: Route Groups show a collection of customers for whom visits are recommended. The recommendation is based on the predefined configuration. Likewise, the employees who are responsible for the recommended visits are determined here.
- Visit Lists: This menu item provides a general overview of all planned and carried out visits. Depending on the role that is accessing it, this list can be selected according to certain criteria such as route groups, customers or employees.
- Visit Management: Here you can set the parameters that will be used for dynamic visit planning. In particular, the customer attributes used by the recommendation algorithms can be specified here.
Dynamic Visit Planning: Cockpit
The main area of the Cockpit is a map. It allows you to get a quick overview of the visits scheduled for the selected day. In addition, the upcoming visits are listed. This list also provides other information such as address, start time as well as travel time to the visit address from the current location. The map area can also show other existing customers nearby to possibly schedule them for a visit on an existing route.
Recommendations for visits
The Visit Recommendation Value is an important indicator for a visit. This is determined using a specified configuration, which is based on customer attributes, for example customer classification or the customer’s sector, as well as the desired visit intensity. A color coding from red to orange and blue to green indicates the visit’s urgency.
This Visit Recommendation Value can be used, for example, to identify customers with the highest score among those recommended to visit by the algorithm. Once a number of customers have been selected, the “Optimize” button can be used to determine the best route based on location and expected travel conditions (e.g. traffic jams). In addition, a start & end address (e.g. your sales representative’s home address) can be stored, which will be included in this optimization. If you are satisfied with the generated recommendation, the visits will be added to your personal agenda.
Dynamic Visit Planning: Route Groups
Unlike the Cockpit, the Route Groups menu is more commonly used by team leads to maintain employee visit schedules. It is used to determine which employee should visit which customers. In addition, information such as desired visit frequency, expected visit duration, and potential days to visit the customer can be maintained directly. Once maintained, the add-on can provide an optimized visit recommendation considering the Visit Recommendation Value. Planners therefore only need to add the relevant customers and the system creates a proposal with the optimal visit schedule. Sales representatives can accept the schedules visits for the specified time period with a single click.
Overview
The SAP Dynamic Visit Planning add-on makes it significantly easier to maintain visit data and visit planning in SAP Sales Cloud. The add-on automates and optimizes many activities that previously had to be implemented manually, saving sales managers and sales representatives a lot of time. The add-on not only automates individual work steps, but also provides a simple yet qualitative overview of employees’ visit activities.
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Please contact Jimmy Jüttner (jjut@camelot-itlab.com) with questions about the SAP Dynamic Visit Planning Add-On or for a live demo.
