Dispatching a job

What you'll learn

• Take a call and turn it into a scheduled job
• Assign the right technician based on skills and location
• Optimize the day's route and rebalance when things change
• Keep customers informed automatically as status changes

Step by step

1. 1

   Capture the call

   Use Call Intake to log the caller, find or create the customer, and pick the service location. Record the problem in the customer's own words — technicians rely on it more than a job type code.

2. 2

   Create and schedule the job

   Choose a job type, priority, and arrival window. Emergency work goes at the top of the board; maintenance visits can be scheduled into open capacity later in the week.

3. 3

   Assign a technician

   On the Dispatch board, drag the job onto a technician. The board shows each tech's current load and location so you can pick the closest person who has the right skills for the work.

4. 4

   Optimize the route

   Run route optimization for a technician's day to order stops by drive time. Review the map, then lock in stops that must stay at a fixed time, such as a customer who can only be home at 8 AM.

5. 5

   Dispatch and track status

   Dispatch the job and watch it move through en route, arrived, in progress, and completed. Each transition is timestamped, so you can see where the day slipped and why.

6. 6

   Handle the day's surprises

   When a call runs long, reassign the remaining stops to another tech from the board. The customer gets an updated arrival notification automatically — no phone tag required.

Tips and common mistakes

• Book the last job of the day closest to the technician's home to cut unpaid drive time.
• Use priority, not the schedule, to mark emergencies. That keeps reporting honest about response times.
• If a job keeps getting bumped, it's usually mis-sized — check the estimated duration on the job type.