Dispatch is where the day is won or lost, and in many service businesses it happens on a phone. The coordinator knows who is free by memory and the board in their head is wrong by ten in the morning. The dispatch board puts the same information in front of everyone who needs it.

Technician dispatch: what the board shows

  • A lane per technician with the day's visits in order.
  • Open visits that still need someone, so unassigned work is visible, not hidden in a list.
  • Who is on a job: a technician with a job in progress shows as "On a job", even on their day off.
  • Leave and weekly offs taken from attendance and leave, so you do not send someone who is away.

Assign, move and rebalance

Pick a visit and choose a technician, or crew. Move it to another technician or another day when a plan changes. A move is refused if the technician has approved leave that day and warned if it is their weekly off. Moving a visit to a technician in another branch is refused, which keeps each branch responsible for its own work.

Assigned by the office or taken by the technician

Because technicians change often, ServicePilot supports two routes to the same result. The office assigns, or a technician with permission takes an open job. Either way the job becomes Scheduled and the record keeps who made the assignment, so you can later see how much work is taken versus handed out.

A morning on the dispatch board

  1. Open the board for today and tomorrow.
  2. Check the open visits that have no technician.
  3. Assign by load and area, using the lanes to see who has room.
  4. React to changes: move a visit when a customer reschedules or a technician is out.
  5. Watch progress as jobs move to In Progress and Completed.

Illustrative example: a CCTV maintenance team of eight

At a security systems business in Surat, three installation jobs and five maintenance visits are due Tuesday. The coordinator sees one technician has approved leave and moves his two visits to a colleague with a lighter lane. A new complaint comes in at 11 am and goes to the technician nearest to finish.

Who it is for

Branch managers and coordinators dispatching three or more technicians. See jobs and scheduling for the visit record behind each card.