CSV to multi-vehicle delivery routes in one morning

The spreadsheet morning every farm knows

Cutoff hit yesterday. Pack lists live in one tool. Addresses live in a sheet. Someone opens Google Maps tabs and starts dragging pins across vans. That works until the fleet grows, frozen shares appear, or a seasonal driver needs a clean list before eight. The switcher journey is not "rip out membership." It is "get this CSV onto capable trucks today."

A single Google Maps link tops out at 9 stops, counting the destination, according to Google's Maps help center — and just 3 stops in between when the link opens in a phone's browser, per Google's own Maps URLs guide. That is why "drag pins into Maps" turns into a wall of browser tabs the moment a route passes a handful of addresses, long before a real farm day with two vans and forty stops.

For the wider planning habit — zones, days, and how a farm week fits together — see how to plan delivery routes for a farm or CSA.

Three ways stops come in

• CSV import. Export the week's active deliveries and bring them into Porch Routes.
• Orders API. Send stops with your own order numbers when you already have a system.
• Manual entry. Add a handful of stops by hand when the day is small or last-minute.
• Temperature on the stop. Mark frozen, refrigerated, or dry so vehicles can be constrained honestly.
• OpenStreetMap addresses. Lookup and road distances run without a Google Maps key to buy.

From CSV to drivers on the road

1. 1

   Export or send this week's stops

   Pull active deliveries from your sheet or membership tool. Skips that never left the membership tool never become stops — see CSA routing without replacing membership software.

2. 2

   Import and mark what each van can carry

   Frozen, refrigerated, and dry are hard vehicle rules. Porch Routes will leave a stop unassigned rather than put frozen on a dry truck.

3. 3

   Build multi-vehicle routes

   Pick the day and the vehicles. The plan splits stops by capability, fits windows and capacity, and shows what the plan saves versus driving stops in arrival order.

4. 4

   Text drivers a link

   Drive mode runs in the phone browser: one stop at a time, maps hand-off, photo or signature proof, undo window before the customer is told. Staff drivers can log in if you prefer.

5. 5

   Members track; your system can hear back

   Branded tracking and texts go out under your farm name. When you use an order system, signed webhooks can return outcomes with your IDs.

A worked example: forty-one rows, two vans, one CSV

Say Tuesday's CSA export has 41 rows: 26 produce boxes that can ride in either van, 9 frozen meat shares that need a cold vehicle, and 6 pantry add-ons. You have one refrigerated van and one dry van, and a route to build before ten.

What happens on import

If the export comes from Local Line, Barn2Door, GrazeCart, or Local Food Marketplace, a matching preset fills in most columns automatically — customer name, address, order number — and shows what it could not match so you can map those by hand. From a plain spreadsheet, you map columns once and the mapping is remembered for the next import. Either way, the 9 frozen rows get marked as frozen before the build, not after.

What the build does with 41 mixed-temperature rows

The optimizer plans both vans together: the 9 frozen stops can only land on the refrigerated van, the 26 produce and 6 pantry stops fill in around them on whichever van has room, and it respects each van's delivery windows and weight or unit capacity as it goes. If the refrigerated van cannot fit every frozen stop, one stays unassigned rather than riding the dry van — a flag to add a second cold run or shift a stop's day, not a silent mistake found at the porch. The plan screen shows the miles and minutes saved against driving all 41 stops in the order they arrived.

Setting up CSV import before the first real morning

• Export a real file first, even a small one. Seeing your actual column headers before the week you rely on it beats guessing at the mapping screen under pressure.
• Use the matching preset if your platform has one. Local Line, Barn2Door, GrazeCart, and Local Food Marketplace exports each have a preset that fills in most columns for you.
• Mark every vehicle's temperature capability before a mixed import. A frozen row has nowhere valid to go if no van is set up as refrigerated yet.
• Import one small batch before the full week. Confirm addresses and temperature classes landed where you expect, then bring in the rest with confidence.
• Keep the orders API in mind for later. If copy-pasting a spreadsheet every week gets old, sending stops by API with your own order numbers is the same routing underneath.

Common mistakes with a first CSV import

• Importing before vehicles have temperature classes set. Frozen and refrigerated rows need a van marked to match, or they cannot be assigned honestly.
• Trusting a column match without checking it once. City and region columns look alike in a preview; one quick scan catches a swap before it reaches a route.
• Re-importing the same file twice. Without checking for existing stops first, a repeated import can create duplicates on the same route.
• Importing the whole month instead of the week you are actually driving. Extra future-dated stops just add clutter to a build meant for one morning.

Do you need to buy a Google Maps key for any of this?

No. Address lookup, road distances, and the maps shown while building routes run on OpenStreetMap by default, so importing a bigger file does not mean a bigger Google bill.

What you are switching away from

You are usually not switching away from a beloved membership portal. You are switching away from manual pin-dragging and tools that treat every stop as dry. How Porch Routes sits next to Spoke / Circuit, OptimoRoute, Route4Me, Routific, and CSA suites is covered in the farm delivery route software comparison. The wedge here is farm-first signup to first route, hard vehicle temperature capability, and free Porch Light with no card.

Do drivers need an app after the CSV import?

No. Once a route is built, dispatching it texts each driver a link that opens drive mode in the phone's browser — nothing to install, nothing to sign into. Staff drivers can log in instead if they prefer an account. See farm delivery driver link — no app for how that morning looks.

Do I have to replace my CSA membership tool to use CSV import?

No. Keep membership, billing, skips, and pack lists exactly where they are. Export or send that week's active deliveries into Porch Routes for routing only — the full reasoning for keeping both tools is in CSA routing without replacing membership software.

What you can do on Porch Light (free)

Porch Light is free up to 150 orders a month with no credit card. Every feature sits on every plan; plans differ by order volume, included customer texts, and support. That is enough for many weekly farm or CSA exports to become real multi-vehicle routes before you pay.