Pharmacy delivery software: routes, signatures and ID checks for prescription deliveries

What a pharmacy delivery route needs

A prescription isn't a parcel: it can't be left in a safe place, it often has to reach one named person, and some deliveries need a signature or an ID check. A pharmacy delivery route comes down to five things:

The right person

“Hand to named person only” or “Don't leave with neighbours” travels with the stop to the driver's phone.

A signature

The patient, or the person receiving for them, signs on the driver's screen.

An ID check

The driver confirms they've seen the recipient's ID before handing over.

A delivery window

Housebound patients need to know when to expect the driver, say between 14:00 and 17:00.

A record

Who signed, when and where — and why a delivery failed.

Route Planner Teams helps you keep that record: a signature, an ID check, a photo or a note, saved with the time and the place. It doesn't set your procedures. Which deliveries need a signature, who may receive a prescription and what happens after a failed delivery remain your pharmacy's decisions, under the rules that apply to you.

Plan the route from your delivery list

Upload the day's deliveries

Export the day's delivery list to CSV or Excel and click Upload file in the route builder. Columns such as Recipient, Phone, Notes and Delivery window are picked up automatically, and so is the proof each stop needs:

• Signature required with Yes asks for a signature at that stop.
• Age verification or ID check with Yes asks for an ID check.
• Yes in both columns asks for a signature and an ID check. Leave the cells empty, and the stop follows the team setting.

There's no integration with pharmacy software: the delivery list comes in as a file. A route can have up to 200 stops; see Create a route and add stops.

Optimize — one route per driver

Set the start time — 14:00 for an afternoon route, say — and the minutes per stop, then click Optimize Route. The stops get the best order along real roads, around each patient's delivery window, and every stop gets an arrival time; one that would miss its window is marked late in red. Turn on Round trip if the driver comes back to the pharmacy. See Optimize with delivery windows.

More than one driver? On the packages for 5 and 10 drivers, Route Planner Teams splits the day’s deliveries between your drivers automatically: load all the stops, click Split into routes and choose how many routes you need — each driver gets a balanced route from the pharmacy. On the 3 driver package you decide who takes which area — by postcode or ZIP code — and make one route per driver. Choose the driver, and the route appears in their app with a notification. Routes can be planned up to 7 days ahead.

Repeat prescriptions (refills, in the US) for the same patients? Duplicate route copies a route's stops, windows, phone numbers and notes to another day.

Signature and ID check at the door

For the whole team

On the Team page, under Proof of delivery, choose what drivers capture when a stop is Delivered — for most pharmacies, a Signature — and when it's Not delivered, such as a Photo and a Text note with the reason. The driver can't mark the stop until it's done.

For one stop

Open a stop in the route builder and choose Custom under Proof of delivery to ask for something different at one address — for example a signature and an ID check when it's delivered, and a photo and a note when it isn't. A stop with its own proof is marked on its card.

A column in your file sets the proof for a Delivered stop only. On those stops a failed delivery asks for nothing; to get a photo and a reason there too, open the stop and pick them under Not delivered, as above. See Proof of delivery and parcel control.

What the ID check is — and isn't

The ID check is the driver's confirmation: they tick it after looking at the recipient's ID. The app saves the tick with the time and the place; it doesn't scan, photograph or store the document. Which documents to accept, and for which deliveries, is up to your pharmacy. And don't ask drivers to photograph an ID card or a prescription label: the photo is for the doorstep, not for personal details.

Proof for every delivery: Proofs, Activity and export

Each proof is saved with the time and the place where the phone was. On the website, open a route and click Proofs, or choose Whole day: proofs of delivery in Routes to see every driver at once.

Activity lists every delivered or failed stop in order, with its time and how far from the address it was marked. For your own files, export a route or the whole day to Excel, CSV or a printable PDF route sheet, with each stop's status, the time it was marked, the failure reason and which proof was collected.

Routes and their proofs are kept for 60 days after the route's last change; for a longer record, export them before then. See Proof of delivery app for drivers.

Driver location and patient privacy

While a driver's team route is in progress, the website shows the driver's live position on the map — only the latest point, updated about every 30–60 seconds while they're moving, with no history of where they've been. It stops when the route is finished, and drivers' personal routes are never shared with the team. Tell your drivers about it before their first team route.

Patients' details need the same care. To deliver, the driver needs a name, an address, a phone number and how to hand over, not why. Keep Notes for the driver to what matters at the door: “Hand to named person only”, “Call on arrival”, a gate code. Don't put medicines, conditions or other health details in notes, names or file columns: the driver sees them in the app, and they appear in exports.

When nobody's home: failed deliveries

Nobody answers, the patient refuses the delivery, or the person at the door isn't the one named on the stop. The driver marks the stop Not delivered with what the team asks for — a photo and a note with the reason, say — and it appears in the route's Activity with the time and how far from the address it was marked.

You see it on the website as soon as it's marked (with no signal, it syncs later). Call the patient, agree a new time and add the stop to a later route that day, or to tomorrow's. What happens to the medicine in the meantime follows your pharmacy's procedure.

Three things Route Planner Teams doesn't do. It doesn't send texts, emails or tracking links to patients — the website shows each route's updated arrival times, so you can tell a patient when to expect the driver. It doesn't monitor temperatures or keep a cold chain record for fridge items. And it has no API: the file is the link.

What it costs

Everything in this article — delivery windows, route optimization, signatures, ID checks and proof of delivery — is included in every Teams plan, from $99 a month (£99 in the UK).

Frequently asked questions