Delivery partners

A delivery partner is another company that delivers some of your orders. You choose the partner and the day. You don’t plan the order, and nobody on your team drives it, so it has no driver, no vehicle and no estimated time.

Delivery partners are on the Round and Depot plans. Owners and staff who can plan rounds can use them. Drivers can’t. An API key needs the rounds:write permission.

Add a delivery partner

Open Settings, then Delivery partners under Feature settings. Press Add delivery partner. Only the Name is needed. You can also add an Email address, which is where Bottle sends the partner’s list.

Press Change on a partner to edit its Name or Email address.

Remove deletes a partner no order has used. Once an order has used it, the partner is archived instead: you can’t choose it for new orders, and its orders still name it. Press Restore to use it again.

Use a delivery partner

On Rounds, put an order straight on a partner in any of these ways. Each uses the day you are looking at, with no dialog:

• Drag it from the waiting list or a round on to the partner under Delivery partners.
• Tick orders in the waiting list and choose Delivery partner: Hilltop Gas in the assign menu.
• Right-click a stop on the map and choose Give to Hilltop Gas.

To choose a different day, or from anywhere else, choose Use a delivery partner, choose the partner and the Delivery date, and press Use a delivery partner for 1 order. The button names how many orders you ticked. You can do this:

• On Rounds: right-click a stop on the map.
• On a new order: choose the partner under Who delivers it? as you create the order, with its Delivery date, and save it.
• On an order: from the order’s menu.
• On Orders: tick orders, or use the menu on one row.

The delivery date must be today or later, and it becomes the order’s delivery date. Bottle records the partner, the day, who set it and when.

Bottle refuses a collection, an order that isn’t still to be delivered, and an order on a round that is out or finished, and says why. When you do several at once, it does the ones it can and names the rest with the reason.

If the order is on a round that isn’t out yet, it comes off that round. The round is put right, and a driver who already has it is told.

What changes for that order

• Plan rounds leaves it alone. It isn’t under Check these or in the waiting list.
• You can’t add it to a round until you take it off the partner.
• Send to driver doesn’t apply to it.

On Rounds, each partner has a row under Delivery partners, with its orders and cylinders for the day and whether it has the list. Press the row to open the partner’s day beside the map, with each order’s address and products. The orders also appear on the map in their own colour with the partner’s name on the pin, and the map’s key names the colour. You can’t drag them, and their pins have no menu.

Send the list to the partner

Open the partner’s day on Rounds and press Confirm and send list. Bottle shows the partner, the email address, the day and every order on the list. Press Send 3 orders to email it as a CSV file. If the list has changed since you opened it, Bottle says so and sends nothing.

The file has the order reference, contact name, address, postcode, phone, products and quantities, delivery notes and delivery date. It has no prices, payment details or other customers.

If the partner has no email address, type one and Bottle saves it with the partner.

You can press Download CSV instead and pass the file on yourself. The list stays Not sent, and the partner’s day shows who downloaded it and when. Bottle then asks whether you have sent it. Press Mark as sent once you have.

The partner’s row and day show one of these:

• Not sent: the partner hasn’t had this day’s list.
• Sent: the partner has it. The day says when and who by.
• Changed since sent: the list has changed since then. The day names orders added, orders taken off, and what was edited on an order: its products or quantities, address, delivery notes or contact details.

Nothing goes on its own. Press Send again to send the whole list as it stands. The email has a Taken off since the last list section giving the order references, so the partner knows what not to deliver. If every order has come off, Send again tells them there is nothing to deliver that day.

Changing a sent order’s delivery date takes it off that day’s list. On the new day it starts as not sent.

If the email fails, Bottle says so, the list stays as it was and Bottle Support hears about it. If emails to that address have been bouncing, Bottle says that instead. Change the address, or download the file.

Only a person signed in to Bottle can send or download a list. API keys and assistants can’t.

What the customer is told

The customer gets an email with the delivery day when a partner takes the order, and again if the day changes. It says a delivery partner is bringing it, so it gives only the day. Their tracking page shows the day too. Neither shows a time, a window or a vehicle.

The customer gets no delivered email for a partner’s order, because you might mark it delivered a day or two after it happened. No customer email names the partner.

Mark delivered

Open the partner’s day on Rounds and press Mark delivered on an order, or Mark all delivered for all of that day’s orders. You can also use the order’s menu, or tick several on Orders. Who delivered it? starts on Delivery partner.

Mark delivered on one order asks how many empties came back, as it does on the order. It starts at the empties the order expected, so change it if the partner brought back a different number. Mark all delivered, and ticking several on Orders, record the empties each order expected. To record a different number, mark that order delivered on its own, or correct the delivery on the order afterwards.

The stock moves when you mark it, as for any other delivery, and the order counts as delivered at that moment. It isn’t marked delivered on its own when the day comes.

If you choose Our driver instead, the order comes off the partner.

Take an order off a delivery partner

Press Take off delivery partner on the order in the partner’s day, or choose Take off delivery partner from the order’s menu. The order goes back to waiting on the day it had, with no round. Bottle keeps the record that the partner had it. You can’t take an order off once it has been delivered. If your business moves to a smaller plan, you can still take orders off their partner.

Cancelling an order also takes it off its partner. Changing the delivery date of the order changes the partner’s day too.

On the Bottle app

Order details in the Bottle app on iPhone and Android shows the partner and the day under Delivery record. When you mark a partner’s order delivered there, Who delivered it? starts on Delivery partner. Choosing a partner is an office decision, so it’s done on the web, not in the app.