Category Archives: Anywhere

Displaying customers of multiple users on the map at the same time

This update is intended for administrators and supervisors.

Previously, you could only display the customers of a single user on the map. As of now this is possible for customers of multiple users at the same time.

Proceed as follows:

  • Switch to the workspace of the company or a specific user group.
  • In the main menu, click Customers.
  • Optional: use the search function to filter customers.
  • Click the map icon above the customer list.

To color customers by user, click the cogwheel and change Color to User – Name.

This will provide you a good overview of the territories.

Note: This may take a few seconds to display depending on the number of customers, the performance of your device and your internet bandwidth.

To hide a user’s customers completely, click the eye symbol next to the user in the legend window. Clicking again will display those customers again.

Clicking a customer icon on the map displays the user in question in the information bubble at the bottom. Opening the customer detail view automatically switches to the user’s workspace.

Tip for manual territory splitting: The selection mode in combination with the lasso and mass editing can be used, for example, to transfer the customers of several users to one specific user in the event of overlapping territories. Be careful though, especially if you have configured automated data exchange via the portatour® API.

Mass editing multiple users’ customers in a single step

This update is intended for administrators and supervisors.

Previously, you could only edit the customers of one single user at a time. As of now, it is possible to edit the customers of several users at the same time in a single step.

Important Note: Perform such mass edits only when necessary and very carefully. If the data of many users is affected, large data loss or significant recovery effort may result from erroneous mass edits.

Proceed as follows:

  • Switch to the workspace of the company or a specific user group.
  • In the main menu, click Customers.
  • To filter the customers you wish to edit, use the Extended Search.
  • Review the list and ensure that these are the actual customers you wish to edit.
  • Click the Edit all X button at the end of the list. The mass editing window opens.

  • The number of affected customer records and the number of affected users are displayed. Check this carefully! Proceed only if these numbers are plausible!
  • Perform the desired mass edit.
  • Depending on the number of customers and users affected, the process may take several seconds. A restore point is created in each of the affected user accounts.

New Maps January 2022

Today we have updated the map data and traffic flow data on our servers.

Changes in the road network and driving speeds may affect driving times between customers, so we recalculated them for you in portatour®. Some users might notice the change when updating the schedule next time.

In addition, when displaying maps in portatour®, the loading times might take a little longer since the map details need to be downloaded to your device again.

Workspaces: Open multiple users in different browser tabs

This update is intended for administrators and supervisors.

Previously, to open the account of a field rep in portatour®, in the user list you had to click the entry “Log in as this user” . This menu entry has been replaced by “Open workspace“.

Here are the advantages of the new workspaces:

  • It is now possible to have portatour® open in several browser windows or browser tabs at the same time and to see the workspace of a different user in each window/tab. This allows you to quickly switch between field reps at any time in the back office.
  • If you create a bookmark in the browser while you are in the workspace of a given user, the bookmark also contains information about the respective workspace. That is to say, when you click the bookmark, the workspace of the user in question opens automatically.

New Maps July 2021

Today we have updated the map data and traffic flow data on our servers.

Changes in the road network and driving speeds may affect driving times between customers, so we recalculated them for you in portatour®. Some users might notice the change when updating the schedule next time.

In addition, when displaying maps in portatour®, the loading times might take a little longer since the map details need to be downloaded to your device again.

Major June 2021 update

After an intensive development period, we have rolled out a major update of portatour® today. To read details about the new features, scroll down or use the following links:

Extensions especially for administrators of company accounts:

We wish you much success with using the new features and are looking forward to your feedback at feedback@portatour.com.

Display of and allowance for road closures

portatour® is now aware of current road closures and automatically takes them into account when calculating schedules. As such, necessary detours are taken into consideration when planning driving times. There is no need to change any settings in portatour®.

To display current road closures, proceed as follows:

  • Open the map.
  • In the top right corner, click the cogwheel icon.
  • Set the “Traffic” selection box to “Traffic: Road closures only”.

Road closures are displayed in black and marked with the following symbol:

Zoom in on the map to see closures on smaller roads.

portatour® updates the road closures once a week, usually on Saturdays. When doing so, portatour® also loads and takes into account future road closures expected for the coming week. This is helpful since as a user, your schedules are calculated into the future.

Display of probability of congestion on the map

For several years now, portatour® has been using historical speed data for the calculation of driving times. This data is collected by navigation systems and mobile phone providers by measuring the movement data of millions of road users and is provided for respective road sections. Road sections where the traffic flow data often shows congestion or slow traffic are either avoided or planned with longer travel times when calculating schedules. Traffic flow data is updated in portatour® on a quarterly basis.

What’s new with this update is that you can now display the affected street segments as follows:

  • Open the map.
  • In the top right corner, click the cogwheel icon.
  • Set the “Traffic” selection box to “Traffic: Typical for work days”.

Roads that are shown in red have a high probability of congestion on work days and are therefore evaluated judiciously when planning travel times.

Reminder: In the Options under “Driving Speed” you can further influence driving time. More about this in the online help.

Days off in the portatour® Report

In the “Call Reports” section, if there are any appointments, they are displayed for days where no report exists. This is especially useful for days off (vacation, holiday, etc.), as there is no longer any need to create an extra report for such days, provided that there is already an appointment on that day.

Extension of the API documentation with field descriptions

This enhancement is intended for developers who use the portatour® API for automated data exchange.

In the API documentation you can now find the field descriptions for each of the import calls, including the technical names for each field. You will need these if you manually edit the import configuration file. This is helpful, for example, if you add a new custom field in portatour® and want to map it for import via the API.

You can switch the language of the descriptions directly in the documentation. The technical field names for the import are language-independent.