Planning Interface

Modified on Wed, 23 Sep at 8:58 AM

What is the planning interface?

The planning interface — the planning page — is where Resources and Tasks are brought together into Trips. This document explains how the page is laid out and how its parts interact. For the underlying entity model (Business Units, Resources, Customers, Sites, Tasks, Trips), see the Architecture documentation. For general list-page behavior — adding and editing entities — see the Interface: Data Pages documentation.

The page is made up of a toolbar, a left-hand panel of entity lists, the Gantt, the map, and a right-hand panel for information — plus the Smart Planning flow, reached from a call-to-action in the toolbar.

The toolbar in Luminar Works

At the top of the planning page:

A Business Unit selector — a dropdown from which the user selects the Business Unit to plan for.
A planning horizon selector — a calendar component. It allows the user to select a single day, or, if the Multi-day Planning module is active on the Business Unit's subscription (trialled or subscribed), up to 7 consecutive days.
On the right, call-to-action buttons for Smart Planning — see The Smart Planning flow below.
Next to the Smart Planning call-to-action, an Export Trips call-to-action — see The Export Trips flow below.

The Business Unit and the planning horizon are the two primary filters applied to the dataset shown on the rest of the page — matching how filters are applied by Business Unit and date range elsewhere in Luminar Works to determine whether a task may be included in a plan.

The left-hand panel in Luminar Works

The left-hand panel lets the user view and interact with lists of Agents, Assets, and Tasks, each behind its own tab at the top of the panel.

Search, selection, and sorting

Below the tab headers:

A search bar, for filtering the list below by characters entered.
A Select all button.
A multi-select control, allowing multiple items to be selected concurrently.
A sort dropdown, for choosing the sort criteria. By default, Agents and Assets are sorted by name, and Tasks are sorted by Site name.

Filtering in the left-hand panel

Next to sorting is a filter button. Selecting it opens a filter panel to the right of the left-hand panel, with the data points available for the selected tab.

Clear filter and Close filter sit at the top of the filter panel.
Each section of filter options is expanded by default, and can be collapsed.
A Show results button at the bottom applies the filters selected and collapses the filter panel.
Closing the filter panel without selecting Show results caches the in-progress selection without applying it — the previously applied filters are retained on the list below. Reopening the filter panel restores that cached, unapplied selection.
This cache persists only while the user stays on the planning page. Refreshing the browser or navigating away resets the filter to empty.

Status sections in the left-hand panel

Below search and filtering, each list is grouped into sections by the entity's status:

Agents and Assets are grouped into Active, Planned, and Inactive sections.
Tasks are grouped into Ready, Planned, and Blocked sections.

Search and filter criteria apply across every status section, but only one status section can be expanded at a time. This is by design: it keeps the user focused on the Agents and Assets that are Active and not yet Planned, and on the Tasks that are Ready — the entities that still need to be allocated.

The Gantt in Luminar Works

The Gantt sits at the top of the main planning area, to the right of the left-hand panel.

Zoom, timeline, and navigation

The top row of the Gantt carries a zoom control, for zooming in and out on the time granularity displayed, with the corresponding date and time units shown along the timeline. The Gantt can be panned left and right, depending on the zoom level and the selected planning horizon. Keyboard shortcuts are also available:

Zooming — Ctrl + Scroll Wheel.
Panning — Shift + Scroll Wheel.
Horizontal scrolling — Scroll Wheel.

The resource list and assigning resources

On the left side of the Gantt is the resource list — the Agents and Assets available to be planned.

The primary resource (the Agent in a Time-Constrained Business Unit, the Asset in a Capacity-Constrained Business Unit) is allocated first, by dragging it from the Agent or Asset list and dropping it onto a new row on the Gantt. Only a resource in the Active state can be dragged this way — a Planned resource cannot.
The secondary resource can then be added to that row either by clicking an add-agent icon on the row, or by dragging it from the list and dropping it onto the row.

The Gantt distinguishes, by color, the times a resource's operating window is open from the times it is not.

Visits, travel, and wait on the Gantt

Within a resource's row:

A trip start / trip end icon marks the resource's home location — assumed to be its Business Unit's location, unless otherwise specified at a resource level.
A thin line between activities on the row — start, Visit, or end — represents the travel time between those locations.
Each Visit is shown in the color of its Trip — outlined with a white fill while the trip is Planned, and shown as a solid fill with white text once the trip is Published. The same Published/Planned color treatment is mirrored on the map.
The width of a Visit, or any other element on the Gantt, represents the time that activity takes — it is derived from the data provided and is not adjustable by dragging.
Within a Visit block, left to right: the Visit's sequence number within the Trip, the Site name, and the number of Tasks included in the Visit.
Where a resource has transited to a Visit's Site but the Task's service window does not yet allow activity to start, a Wait is shown. Wait blocks are implemented by Smart Planning, are filled black with no other color variation, and — unlike Visits — cannot be dragged onto or off of the Gantt.

If every Task and Visit is removed from a Trip, the Trip itself is removed — a Trip cannot exist on the Gantt without at least one Visit, and must always have a start and an end activity.

The map in Luminar Works

The map, below the Gantt, displays the pin locations of Sites associated with Tasks that qualify based on the selected Business Unit, planning horizon, and any search or filter criteria applied to Tasks in the left-hand panel.

A Task that is available for planning shows its Site's icon in blue.
A Blocked Task shows its Site's icon in a lighter grey — present, but not available for planning.
A Planned Task shows its Site's icon with the Visit's sequence number, in the color of the Trip it has been allocated to.
Where a Visit groups more than one Task at the same Site, a small circle above the icon shows the number of Tasks in the Visit — for example, a Visit numbered 1 in its Trip's color, with a circle above it showing 3, denotes the first Visit of the Trip, comprising three Tasks.
Once a Trip is Published, its Visits' icons fill in with the Trip's color, matching the same Published treatment shown on the Gantt.

Other map icons:

A Business Unit icon — black, with a house symbol — marks the Business Unit's location.

Travel between locations is shown as a turn-by-turn path in the Trip's color: a dotted line while the Trip is Planned but not yet Published, becoming a solid line once Published.

Adjusting the layout in Luminar Works

The height given to the map can be adjusted by dragging the separator between the Gantt and the map. The Gantt always displays at the top of the page.

The entity and trip panel in Luminar Works

Selecting an entity opens an information panel on the right-hand side of the page:

Expanding the right-hand panel with no entity selected, will open the Business Unit metrics for the selected Business Unit and planning horizon: total Assets, total Agents, total Trips, and total distance planned.
Selecting an Agent, Asset, or Task card in the left-hand panel displays that entity's information in the right-hand panel.
Selecting a Trip's activity on the Gantt displays the Trip Activity in the riht-hand panel — timestamps for each visit, tasks associated to visits and the Trip's start and end — and allows the assignment or reassignment of resources, and the removal of Tasks from the Trip.

From the trip panel, the user can reassign either the primary or the secondary resource, and can publish and unpublish the Trip. Statistics update automatically as the Gantt changes — whether from a manual drag, or from Tasks and resources being planned through the Smart Planning optimizer.

The Export Trips flow in Luminar Works

The Export Trips call-to-action, in the top right of the toolbar next to the Smart Planning call-to-action, opens export options in CSV, Excel, and PDF formats. Only published trips qualify for inclusion in an export. Published trips can also be shared to the allocated Agent by email and WhatsApp.

The Smart Planning flow in Luminar Works

The Smart Planning call-to-action, in the top right of the toolbar, opens a modal that walks the user through an optimization run. See the Smart Planning documentation for detail on the optimizer itself.

Select tasks. Ready Tasks are listed on the left, and Tasks selected for Smart Planning on the right, so the user can see how many of the available Tasks have been selected. Search, Select all, and sort are available on both sides.
Select resources. The user selects one or more resources of the Business Unit's primary resource type — Agents in a Time-Constrained Business Unit, Assets in a Capacity-Constrained Business Unit — subject to the limits of the Business Unit's license.
3.Smart Plan. Once tasks and resources are selected, the user runs the optimizer.

There is a second way into the same flow: from the Task tab in the left-hand panel, switching to multi-select and selecting the desired Tasks brings up a selection summary bar at the bottom center of the map, from which the Smart Planning flow can also be launched — as an alternative to the toolbar call-to-action.

If there is a need to adjust planning settings these are available under the Business Unit's configuration.

Luminar Works planning interface FAQs

What determines which Tasks, Agents, and Assets appear on the planning page?
The Business Unit and planning horizon selected in the toolbar, together with any search or filter criteria applied in the left-hand panel.

Why can I only expand one status section at a time in the left-hand panel?
By design — it keeps the list focused on the Agents and Assets that are Active and not yet Planned, and the Tasks that are Ready, since those are what still need to be allocated.

Can I drag a Planned resource onto the Gantt?
No. Only a resource in the Active state can be dragged onto the Gantt as a primary resource.

Can I resize a Visit or other element on the Gantt?
No. The width of an element on the Gantt is derived from the data provided — it is not adjustable by dragging.

What happens if I remove every Task from a Trip?
The Trip itself is removed. A Trip cannot exist on the Gantt without at least one Visit, and must always have a start and an end activity.

Can I drag a Wait block onto or off of the Gantt?
No. Wait blocks are implemented by Smart Planning and cannot be dragged on or off — they are filled black, with no other color variation.

How do I tell a Planned Trip from a Published one?
On both the Gantt and the map, a Planned Trip's Visits are shown outlined in the Trip's color with a white fill. Once Published, they fill solid in the Trip's color with white text, and the travel path on the map changes from a dotted line to a solid one.

What does the panel on the right show if I haven't selected anything?
Business Unit–level KPIs for the selected Business Unit and planning horizon: total Assets, total Agents, total Trips, and total distance planned.

How do I export or share my trips?
Use the Export Trips call-to-action in the top right of the toolbar, next to Smart Planning. It exports published trips to CSV, Excel, or PDF; only published trips qualify. Published trips can also be shared to the allocated Agent by email and WhatsApp.

Is there more than one way to start a Smart Planning run?
Yes. Use the Smart Planning call-to-action in the toolbar, or multi-select Tasks from the Task tab in the left-hand panel and launch it from the selection bar that appears at the bottom center of the map.