Setting up delivery vehicles

Your delivery vehicles are how Breww organises own-vehicle deliveries into runs, shows them on a map, and (with the Advanced Deliveries addon) optimises the route each vehicle takes.

You'll find them at Settings -> Deliveries -> Vehicles.

Adding a vehicle

Click Add vehicle and fill in:

• Name - what you'll call the vehicle around Breww, for example "Transit" or "Van 2".
• Registration plate - optional. Breww stores this in upper case.
• Max load weight - the most the vehicle can carry, in your account's weight unit. Zero is allowed, but it can't be a negative number.
• Breww UI colour - the colour Breww uses to help you tell your vehicles apart at a glance. Give each vehicle a distinct colour that shows up well on a white background. You can edit the vehicle at any time to change it.

There's also an Advanced Deliveries addon features section:

• Included in Advanced Deliveries addon - lets you include only some of your vehicles in the addon. You're billed monthly based on the peak number of vehicles with this enabled. If you're not subscribed to the addon yet, the setting is still saved and will take effect if and when you subscribe.
• Profile - a vehicle profile fine-tunes how routing works for the vehicle. See Use Vehicle Profiles to further customise delivery routing.

Size and weight

The Size and weight section, within the Advanced Deliveries addon features, tells Breww how big the vehicle is, so that larger vehicles are routed as trucks.

• Size preset - fills in typical sizes for a kind of vehicle, grouped by region: Europe, North America, Australia and New Zealand. Check them against your own vehicle, as they decide whether routes are planned for a van or a truck.
• Height, Width and Length - if your account uses miles, enter these in feet and inches, such as 13ft 6in. Otherwise, enter them in metres, such as 4.1 m.
• Gross vehicle weight - in your account's weight unit.

A vehicle that's taller, wider, longer or heavier than a large van (2.7 m high, 2.2 m wide, 7.5 m long or 3,500 kg gross weight) is routed as a truck, so its routes keep to roads suitable for trucks. Live traffic isn't taken into account for vehicles routed as trucks. If you don't enter any sizes, Breww decides how to route the vehicle from its Max load weight.

Truck routes are planned for a standard truck, avoiding roads unsuitable for a truck up to 3.7 m high, 2.94 m wide, 12 m long and 26,000 kg gross weight. They aren't tailored to your vehicle's exact sizes, so if your vehicle is bigger than any of these, Breww shows a warning on the vehicle's form, next to the vehicle in the list, and when you optimise a run, as low bridges and weight limits below your vehicle's actual size may not be avoided. Check routes for these vehicles before they set off.

Making a vehicle inactive

When you edit an existing vehicle, an Active option appears that isn't shown when you first create one. Disable it to retire a vehicle without deleting it. Inactive vehicles are shown with an "Inactive" badge and sorted to the bottom of the list.

You can delete a vehicle outright using the red delete button on its row, but making it inactive is usually the better choice for a vehicle with history behind it.

MOT and tax tracking

For UK breweries, Breww looks your registration plate up with the DVLA and shows the vehicle's colour, make and year of manufacture, along with its MOT and tax status. The status badges turn amber as they approach expiry and red once they've expired. If the plate isn't recognised, you'll see "Unknown (not a valid UK plate)" instead. Editing the vehicle and correcting the plate makes Breww look it up again.

This requires Breww's Advanced Deliveries addon, and only applies to vehicles that are included in the addon.

Default start and end addresses

By default, Breww assumes each delivery run starts and ends at your brewery. If a vehicle is based somewhere else, or finishes its day somewhere else, use the map pin button on the vehicle's row to set a Default start address and a Default end address. Leave either blank to keep using your brewery's address.

This button is only shown for vehicles included in the Advanced Deliveries addon.

Vehicle profiles and attributes

Below the list of vehicles you'll find your Vehicle profiles and Vehicle attributes.

Attributes are features that a vehicle has, such as "Tail-lift" or "2-person delivery". You add attributes to a vehicle profile, and can then require an attribute on a particular delivery so that Breww only routes it to a suitable vehicle.

Deleting a profile disassociates it from any vehicles currently using it, and deleting an attribute disassociates it from any vehicle profiles and deliveries currently using it. Neither deletes the vehicles themselves.

For full details of everything a profile can control, see Use Vehicle Profiles to further customise delivery routing.