What Are Zones?

Zones are the business configuration layer of the Otesse ERP system. Every operational decision — pricing, scheduling, staffing, industry availability, and customer-facing booking — flows through zones. Understanding zones is essential for configuring your service operations correctly.

The Three-Layer Architecture

Otesse uses a three-layer architecture to separate geography from business logic. Each layer has a distinct responsibility, and they work together to provide flexible, powerful service area management.

Layer 1: Boundaries (Geography)

A boundary is a pure geographic shape on a map. It has no business meaning — it simply defines a region. Boundaries can be polygons drawn on a map, radius circles around a point, collections of postal codes, administrative regions, composite shapes built from other boundaries, or route corridors along highways.

Boundaries are reusable. The same boundary can be shared across multiple zones and service areas without duplication. This means you draw your geographic shapes once and reference them wherever needed.

Layer 2: Service Areas (Serviceability)

A service area wraps a boundary with a simple serviceability flag. It answers one question: "Can we service this location?" Service areas add minimal business context on top of pure geography. They are the bridge between a shape on a map and the business rules that govern operations within that shape.

Layer 3: Zones (Business Rules)

Zones are where all business logic lives. A zone defines pricing overrides, operating hours, staff assignments, industry availability, and booking configuration for a geographic area. Zones reference boundaries for their coverage but contain all the operational intelligence.

Why Three Layers?

This separation gives you maximum flexibility. You can reuse the same geographic boundary across multiple zones with different business rules. You can change a zone's pricing without touching its geography. You can swap out boundaries without reconfiguring business rules. And you can create exclusion zones that override all other zones regardless of priority.

Default Zone

When your company is set up, the system automatically creates a default zone. This zone acts as a fallback — when a customer's address does not match any other zone, the default zone's rules apply. Every company must have exactly one default zone. The default zone typically has a priority rating of 50 and uses a broad boundary (like a postal code set covering your general service area).

Zone Priority System

Zones use a priority rating from 0 to 100 to resolve conflicts when a customer's address falls within multiple zones. Higher priority wins. For example, a "Premium Same-Day" zone with priority 75 takes precedence over a standard "Eugene Metro" zone with priority 50 when both cover the same address.

Common priority ranges include 0 to 25 for low-priority fallback zones, 50 for standard zones, 75 for premium zones, 90 for express or priority zones, and 100 for emergency override zones.

Negative Zones (Exclusion Zones)

Zones with the negative flag enabled represent areas you explicitly do not service. Negative zones always win — they override all positive zones regardless of priority rating. Use cases include rural areas outside your delivery range, restricted zones like military bases or gated communities, temporarily blocked regions due to natural disasters or construction, and competitor-exclusive territories.

Zone Hierarchy

Zones support parent-child relationships for organizational display. A "Pacific Northwest" parent zone might contain "Portland Metro" and "Eugene Metro" as children, with each of those containing their own child zones. However, hierarchy is purely organizational — child zones do not automatically inherit configuration from parents. Each zone in the hierarchy has its own independent boundaries, industries, pricing, and schedules.

Key Relationships

Zones connect to nearly every part of the ERP system. They link to boundaries for geographic coverage, industries for service availability, products for price overrides, schedules for operating hours, and staff for dispatch assignments. Understanding these connections is critical for proper zone configuration.