Route4Me: Run Your Business As Usual Even When Offline

How the offline mode of Route4Me's route planner app can help you manage your field operations when there’s no internet available
Featured image credit: Casezy idea/Shutterstock.com

These days, field service operations depend on the internet. Your drivers might want to access routes on their smartphones while they’re on the road, or they might want to add a note about a stop into their route planner app. In most cases, performing these actions requires an internet connection.

But it’s unreasonable to expect 100% signal strength all of the time, especially in the suburbs and in rural areas. And even in a city, tall buildings will sometimes block your connection. Your drivers can lose access to the internet at any time, which might cause them to get lost and miss the ETAs you provided to your customers.

That’s why you need a route planner with an offline mode, and we have some great news for you – Route4Me’s Android and iOS apps both work offline!

The purpose of this feature isn’t for drivers to use Route4Me offline all the time, but rather to help your drivers manage situations where the internet is unavailable for some reason. After a route is downloaded onto your driver’s device, it can be visited, routed, and navigated without an internet connection.

Read on to learn more about how Route4Me’s offline mode works and which specific features can be accessed while offline.

Offline Mode in the Route4Me Apps

Performing Actions Offline

Route4Me’s route planner app for iOS devices allows you to perform these actions offline:

  • View a route and its stops and open it on the map.
  • Send messages through the Activity Feed.
  • Mark stops as Visited and Departed.
  • Add notes of all formats, including text, image, and signature notes.
  • Use the integrated voice-guided navigation (if included in your subscription plan) or a third-party voice-guided navigation app.

You can perform all of these actions offline on the Route4Me Android app as well, and you can also scan barcodes while offline on Android devices.

Once the internet connection is restored, the data produced by the actions mentioned above will automatically re-synchronize with the Route4Me servers.

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Synchronizing Data Manually with the Android App

You never need to worry about data synchronization when using the Route4Me route planner. Even if your data does not synchronize automatically, Route4Me’s Android app gives you the ability to synchronize pending data manually.

You just need to have these three things in place before you can start synchronizing:

  • The Android device should be updated.
  • The latest version of the Route4Me Android app must be installed on the device.
  • The device must be connected to the internet.

Then, tap on the menu icon in the top-right corner of the screen and select “Pending Data” when prompted.

You’ll see all the data that still needs to be synchronized with the servers, as well as details of the actions that were performed while the device was offline.

Select “Synchronize All” to sync the pending data.

Once the synchronization is complete, you’ll receive a message confirming that the synchronized data will be available across all authorized devices associated with your Route4Me account.

So, what do you think about Route4Me’s offline mode? Do you have any questions about this feature? Check out Route4Me’s other navigation features.

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Want To See For Yourself How Route4Me Can Boost Your Profits?

Whether you want to slash the time it takes you to plan routes for your drivers, increase the number of stops they can make, or keep your customers satisfied knowing that your drivers show up on time… Route4Me helps you achieve that!

Start Free 7 Day Trial

About author: Rahul Dasgupta

Rahul Dasgupta is a content writer with over 20 years of work experience. He holds a master’s degree in computer science and has written thousands of blog posts on route planning and scheduling, making it easy for readers to learn about these complex topics. Rahul enjoys playing tennis in his spare time and loves cuddling with his pet labrador Shinu. Rahul is a big fan of Roger Federer, Messi, and Bill Gates - he admires their drive to be the best at what they do and their philanthropic efforts.

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About Route4Me

Route4Me has over 40,000 customers globally. Route4Me's Android and iPhone mobile apps have been downloaded over 2 million times since 2009. Extremely easy-to-use, Route4Me's apps create optimized routes, synchronize routes to mobile devices, enable communication with drivers and customers, offer turn-by-turn directions, delivery confirmation, and more. Behind the scenes, Route4Me's operational optimization platform combines high-performance algorithms with data science, machine learning, and big data to plan, optimize, and analyze routes of almost any size in real-time.