India's Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology confirmed this week that the IndiaAI Mission's shared compute capacity has crossed 38,000 GPUs, offered to startups and academic institutions at an affordable rate under the mission's ₹10,372 crore outlay (MeitY, 22 September 2026).
That same push toward accessible AI is showing up in everyday field-sales tools. 1Channel's AI Journey Planner turns a plain outlet spreadsheet into a realistic, constraint-aware route plan, with no separate route-planning software or data science team required.
What the Planner Reads From Your Spreadsheet
An admin uploads one spreadsheet. The planner reads outlet coordinates in decimal degrees, visit frequency, and each rep's start point, end point and weekly day off.
- One file, two sheets: outlets and field team
- Column headers are auto-detected, no fixed template to learn
- Works with exports you already have, no separate route-planning tool to set up
It scales the same way for a handful of reps or a full national field team, since outlets, reps and territories are all read from the same file.
Setting Realistic Travel Assumptions
Straight-line distance between outlets is not what a rep actually drives. The planner converts it into road distance using a 1.3 road factor.
Two defaults drive the rest of the plan, and an admin can adjust either one at any time:
| Setting | Default |
|---|---|
| Average time per outlet | 60 minutes |
| Average travel speed | 25 km/hr (city traffic) |
Changing either figure recalculates the plan instantly, so the assumptions can be tuned to a specific city or territory without waiting on a rebuild.
When a Day's Route Doesn't Fit
Not every visit list fits inside one working day once real travel time and working hours are accounted for.
Rather than forcing an unrealistic route or quietly dropping visits, the planner returns the best possible day-by-day plan, and reports exactly what did not fit and why.
- Runs without manual scheduling
- Respects working hours, start and end locations, and the weekly day off
- The shortfall is reported, not hidden
What You Get Back
The finished plan downloads as a spreadsheet, filterable by rep, with two sheets: the Journey Plan itself, and a separate Visit Shortfall sheet.
In the product's own example, a file covering 186 outlets and 5 field reps produced 407 planned visits. Filtered to one rep, a single day's route summary looks like this:
| Field | Example value |
|---|---|
| Day start / Day end | 9:43 AM / 8:30 PM |
| Total outlets | 5 |
| Total distance | 144.9 km |
| Travel time | 5h 48m |
| Store time | 5h 0m |
A manager can also open the route on a map and drill into each leg individually, such as Stop 1 to Stop 2 at 5.6 km and 13 minutes, to sanity-check the plan stop by stop before it goes out to the field team.
FAQs
1. How is agentic AI different from a simple route calculator?
A route calculator measures distance between two points. Agentic AI works through the real constraints, working hours, travel time and day-off rules, to build the whole route end to end, cutting down on manual adjustment afterward.
2. Does it use real-time traffic data?
No. Straight-line distance is converted into road distance using a fixed 1.3 road factor and an average city speed, not live traffic conditions. Both the speed and the time-per-outlet assumption are adjustable by an admin.
3. Does it work for a large field team, not just a handful of reps?
Yes. Outlets, reps and territories are all read from the same spreadsheet, so it scales from a few reps to a full national field team without extra setup.
4. What happens if a full day's route genuinely does not fit?
The planner reports the shortfall honestly, so a manager knows exactly which visits did not fit and why, rather than finding out in the field.
5. Does this replace manually built beat plans?
Yes, for the sequencing and time-feasibility work. It replaces building routes by hand, so a manager reviews the output rather than constructing it from scratch.
Let Agentic AI Plan the Day
See how a plain outlet spreadsheet becomes a realistic, constraint-aware route plan with 1Channel's AI Journey Planner.
Explore AI Journey Planner →Note: Software screens may vary based on your business structure and configured workflows.
