Skip to content

Help center

How to run a delivery day in Porch Route.

12 short guides, each written from the real screens: what to click, what each field means, and what happens next. Start at the top if you’re new.

Getting started

  1. Sign up → Set up your business → Day board

    Getting started: your business, depot and time zone

    Setting up takes four short steps: your business’s name and time zone, the depot your routes start from, one vehicle, and how orders will arrive.

    6 steps

Fleet and zones

  1. Vehicles

    Vehicles and what they can carry

    Each vehicle tells the planner what it can carry (frozen, refrigerated, dry), how much fits (weight, boxes, stops) and what it costs to run.

    6 steps
  2. Zones

    Delivery zones and delivery days

    A zone is the area you’re willing to drive to and the days you drive there — a radius around a point or an area you draw on the map, with delivery days, an optional window, a daily order limit and an order cutoff.

    5 steps

Orders and routes

  1. Orders · Integrations

    Adding orders: by hand, from a CSV, or over the API

    Orders reach Porch Route three ways: typed in one at a time, imported from a CSV (with column matching, a Shopify layout and address checking), or sent by your store or system over the API with your own order number.

    6 steps
  2. Day board → Build routes · Route detail

    Building and editing routes

    Choose a day, select the orders and the vehicles to use, and choose “Build”.

    6 steps
  3. Day board · Route detail → Dispatch · Dispatch board

    Dispatching and the day board

    The day board is the morning screen: every route for the date with its driver, vehicle, stops, distance and savings.

    6 steps

Drivers

  1. Drivers · Route → Share driver link

    Drivers and driver links

    Drivers run routes from a link you text or email them — nothing to install, no account needed.

    5 steps
  2. Driver link · My routes → Open drive view

    Drive mode for drivers

    Drive mode shows one stop at a time, in type big enough to read at arm’s length: the customer, address, instructions and one big “Delivered” button.

    7 steps

Customers

  1. Settings → Notifications · Integrations → Messages

    Customer notifications and tracking

    Customers get texts and emails under your business’s name — scheduled, on the way, almost there, delivered and couldn’t deliver — each with a link to a live tracking page that shows their own delivery, the truck on a map while it’s coming, the proof photo, and a place to rate it.

    6 steps
  2. Settings → General → Proof of delivery · Drive mode · Route detail

    Proof of delivery and the undo window

    Drivers take a photo or collect a signature at the door; you decide whether either is required.

    5 steps
  3. Integrations → Texting customers · Orders

    Texting setup and consent

    US carriers require every business that texts its customers to register once — who you are and what you send — before texts go out.

    6 steps

Integrations

  1. Integrations

    API and webhooks

    Connect any order system in three steps: create an API key, add a webhook endpoint, send a test.

    6 steps

Building an integration?

The API docs cover creating and updating deliveries by your own order reference, and verifying signed webhooks.

Can’t find it?

Tell us which screen you’re on and what you expected to happen. We read every message.