Assign specific stops to specific drivers
Lock a stop to one or more chosen drivers in Upper with Pre-Assigned Drivers. The optimizer honors your choice and distributes the rest of the stops automatically.
Some stops have to go to a particular person — a customer who only wants one driver, a stop that needs the driver with the right equipment, or a high-value drop you want on a trusted route. Upper handles this with the Pre-Assigned Drivers field on a stop. Set it, and optimization keeps that stop on the driver (or drivers) you chose while distributing all your other stops across the fleet automatically.
Pre-Assigned Drivers is available on the Optimize and Enterprise plans. On other plans the field is locked and shows an upgrade prompt. Your workspace may label drivers as Technicians, in which case this field reads Pre-Assigned Technicians.
How it works
When you pre-assign a stop, you tell Upper which driver(s) are allowed to handle it. During optimization, Upper keeps that stop on one of the drivers you chose instead of distributing it freely, then optimizes everything else around it using your workload settings. You can pre-assign a stop to a single driver or to several — pick one driver to pin the stop exactly, or pick a few to give the optimizer a short list to choose from.
You can set Pre-Assigned Drivers two ways: on an individual stop (or contact) in the app, or in bulk by mapping a column during import.
Set Pre-Assigned Drivers on a stop
Open the stop
In your route plan, open the stop you want to lock. The Edit a Stop panel opens on the right.
Find the Pre-Assigned Drivers field
On the Basic Info tab, scroll to Pre-Assigned Drivers.
Choose your driver(s)
Open the dropdown and select one or more drivers. Selecting more than one gives the optimizer a short list it can choose from; selecting exactly one pins the stop to that driver.
Save
Click Done to save the stop.
You can also set Pre-Assigned Drivers on a saved contact from the contact form. When that contact is added as a stop, the pre-assignment comes along with it — useful for a customer who should always be served by the same driver.
Set Pre-Assigned Drivers during import
If you're uploading many stops at once, you can pre-assign in bulk from your spreadsheet.
Add a column to your file
Add a column for the driver — for example, a header named Driver, Assigned Driver, or Pre-Assigned Driver. Enter the driver's name on the rows you want to lock; leave it blank for stops the optimizer should place freely.
Map the column on import
During column mapping, point Upper at your driver column and confirm it maps to Pre-Assigned Driver. Upper recognizes the common header names above automatically.
Finish the import
Complete the import. The pre-assignments are applied to those stops.
What happens during optimization
- Load all of your stops into the route plan.
- Pre-assigned stops keep the driver(s) you selected.
- Choose the drivers to include in the Assign Drivers tab and run Optimize Route.
- Each pre-assigned stop stays on one of the drivers you chose.
- Every remaining stop is distributed across the fleet using your workload distribution setting.
A pre-assigned stop stays on your chosen driver even when another driver would be a closer or faster fit. Pre-assign only the stops that genuinely need a specific driver — the more stops you pin, the less room the optimizer has to build efficient routes.
Troubleshooting
Related
Create routes for multiple drivers
Add every stop to one route in Upper, select your drivers, and let multi-driver optimization split and sequence the stops across your fleet in a single pass.
Exclude roads or areas from routes
Keep Upper from routing through specific zones by drawing a restricted area on your Service Area map — for closures, no-go neighborhoods, and out-of-service boundaries.