LastMile Hubs: Managing Delivery Hubs

A hub is where deliveries gather, get sorted and go out on routes. Create and maintain your hubs — address, coordinates, operating hours and status — and register the vehicles that run from them, all on one page.

A hub is a delivery hub: the place where parcels arrive, are sorted, and leave again on delivery routes. Almost everything in LastMile hangs off hubs — pickups bring goods back to a hub, the sort wall works at a hub, routes start from a hub, and dispatch rules can match deliveries by hub. The Hubs page — LastMile → Hubs (/lastmile/hubs) — has two tabs: Hubs, where you maintain the places themselves, and Vehicles, where you register the vehicles that run out of them. Set the hubs up first; the rest of LastMile then has somewhere to point at.

Step 1: Create a hub#

1. Open LastMile → Hubs, stay on the Hubs tab and click New hub.
2. Fill in the name — the only required field. Use the name your team actually calls the place; this name is what shows up in lists, dispatch rules and route work.
3. Fill in the address and city, and the latitude / longitude when you have them. Coordinates are worth the minute they take: distance-based work — nearest-driver dispatch and route building — can only use a hub properly when it knows where the hub is.
4. Optionally set the operating hours, then save. The new hub starts out active and appears in the list with its address, hours and status.

• Operating hours are written as JSON text, one entry per day — for example {"mon": "9:00-18:00"}. A single note entry also works when the hours are easier to say in words than in a schedule; the list shows the note as-is.
• A hub’s status is either Active or Inactive. Only active hubs are offered where hubs are picked — for example, the hub condition in LastMile → Dispatch rules only lists active hubs.

Step 2: Edit or deactivate a hub#

1. Click Edit on the hub’s row to change its name, address, city, coordinates or operating hours — the same form also carries the status field, so you can switch a hub between Active and Inactive there.
2. To take a hub out of use, click Deactivate on its row (the button only shows while the hub is active). Deactivating does not delete the hub or its history — it just stops the hub from being picked for new work.

Step 3: Register vehicles on the same page#

1. Switch to the Vehicles tab on LastMile → Hubs and click New vehicle.
2. Enter the plate number — the only required field — and pick the vehicle type: sedan, van, box truck, truck or trailer. Tick Liftgate if the vehicle has one; that fact decides which bulky or pallet deliveries it can take.
3. Fill in the capacities you know: maximum weight (kg), maximum volume (m³) and maximum pallets. The list shows them together as one capacity line, and honest numbers here keep oversized loads off vehicles that cannot carry them.
4. Optionally attach the vehicle to a driver with the Driver field, then save. The vehicle starts out active, with its type, liftgate mark, capacity and driver shown in the list.

• A vehicle’s status is Active, Maintenance or Inactive — set it from the same Edit form when a vehicle goes into the shop, so a vehicle under repair is not treated as available.
• Edit or deactivate a vehicle from its row, the same way as hubs: Deactivate only shows while the vehicle is active, and deactivating keeps the record instead of deleting it.

How hubs connect to the daily work#

• Sorting happens at a hub: the sort wall in LastMile → Sort works on the parcels gathered at the hub, so the hub you create here is the place those scans belong to.
• Dispatch rules can match by hub: a rule in LastMile → Dispatch rules with a hub condition only takes deliveries of that hub, which is how different hubs end up with different driver pools.
• Routes are built per hub area: keep each hub’s address and coordinates current, and the routes planned in LastMile → Routing start from the right place.

Docklify features used in this article#

• Hub list and hub create / edit / deactivate (name, address, city, lat/lng, operating hours, status) — LastMile → Hubs → Hubs tab (/lastmile/hubs)
• Vehicle registry on the same page (plate, type, liftgate, weight / volume / pallet capacity, driver, status) — LastMile → Hubs → Vehicles tab (/lastmile/hubs)
• Hub as a match condition in dispatch rules (active hubs only) — LastMile → Dispatch rules (/lastmile/dispatch-rules)
• Sorting at the hub (sort wall) — LastMile → Sort (/lastmile/sort)
• Routes planned from the hub — LastMile → Routing (/lastmile/routing)