Dispatch: assign the day's work
One board to hand the day out: assign each job to an installer, park the crew in bays, and route the mobile jobs — all for the date you pick.
Shop operations11 in this section
Dispatch is where you hand out the day. It's a manager-only board — installers don't see it — that answers three questions for whatever date you're looking at: who's doing each job, which bay they're in, and how the mobile crew should drive. It reads people, cars and places only; no prices and no pay ever show here. Everything is scoped to one day, set by the date picker in the top-right.
The board has three stacked sections. The Assignment board is the unassigned pool plus one column per installer. The Bay board shows where the crew and cars are parked. The Field view is worker locations and a route optimizer for mobile jobs. Below that sits the Service areas editor — your coverage zones. Work top to bottom and the day plans itself.
Assign the day's jobs
- 1
Start with the Unassigned pile
The left card lists every scheduled job that has no owner yet — the header counts them ("3 jobs need an owner"). Each card shows the job title, customer, vehicle, its scheduled time, and a Mobile badge when it's done at the customer's location instead of in a bay.
- 2
Pick an installer from the dropdown
Every job card has an Assign worker dropdown. Workers who can do all of that job's services are listed first; anyone else appears lower, tagged • not skilled. You can still pick them — it's an override, not a lock — but the tag warns you they're missing a skill.
- 3
Watch it move
Choosing a worker drops the job straight into that person's day column on the right, and the Unassigned count ticks down. To reassign, open the dropdown on the job in its column and pick someone else; choose Unassigned to send it back to the pool.
Assigning is what fills a tech's My Work
The moment you assign a job, it appears on that installer's My Work and they get a New job assigned notification linking straight to it. The job also keeps flowing through the Workflow board as it moves through its stages — Dispatch decides *who*, Workflow tracks *how far along*. The two stay in sync automatically.
Park the crew in bays
- 1
Set each worker's bay
The Crew strip on the Bay board has a dropdown per installer — pick which bay they're working at right now, or No bay for someone who's mobile or off the floor. The worker gets a Moved to [bay] ping so they know where to go.
- 2
Read the bay tiles
Each bay shows the crew standing in it and the active jobs sitting on it. It's your at-a-glance floor map: who's where, and what car is on which lift.
- 3
Shuffle a job between bays
Every job on a bay tile has its own Move job to bay dropdown. Use it to slide a car from one station to another without touching who's assigned to it.
A bay won't double-book itself
If you try to move a job onto a bay that's already taken for that time slot, the move is refused with "That bay is already booked for this time slot." That's the guard working — pick a different bay or a different time, don't fight it.
The Field view is for the mobile crew. On the left, Worker locations shows the latest GPS ping per clocked-in installer — coordinates, how long ago, and a Map link — but only when location tracking is switched on (see below). On the right, the Route optimizer takes one worker, pulls their geocoded mobile jobs for the selected day, orders them into a short drive, and hands back an Open in Google Maps link. The optimizer is read-only: it plans a route, it never saves one or changes an assignment.
At the bottom, Service areas are your coverage zones, drawn as a center point plus a radius in kilometres — no map needed. Add one with a name, latitude, longitude, radius and colour; toggle Active off to shelve a zone without deleting it. These define where your shop travels, which keeps mobile bookings honest about what's in range.
The date picker drives the whole board
The arrows and date field in the top-right set which day you're planning. Use ‹ and › to step a day at a time, or type a date. Every section — the pool, the columns, the route optimizer — rebuilds for the day you land on, so you can plan tomorrow this afternoon.
Troubleshooting
The worker columns are empty and say "No workers".
Why: You have no bookable staff, so there are no day columns to fill.
Fix: Add crew on the Team page and mark them bookable — the AI Scheduler and booking use the same roster, so it pays off everywhere.
The Bay board says "No bays".
Why: No stations are set up for the shop.
Fix: Add your bays under Services → Stations, then reload Dispatch — the crew strip and bay tiles appear.
Moving a job to a bay is refused as "already booked".
Why: Another job holds that bay for the same time slot; bays can't be double-booked.
Fix: Choose a different bay, or reschedule one of the two jobs so they don't overlap.
Worker locations says tracking is off.
Why: Location tracking is disabled for the shop, so no pings are collected.
Fix: Turn on Location tracking in Settings → Installer app — the live map fills in once a clocked-in worker's phone reports its position.
I assigned a job but the tech says they never saw it.
Why: That worker has a roster entry but no login, so there's no one to notify.
Fix: Invite them to sign in from their member page (Team → Access) — assignments only reach My Work and the phone once someone has an account.
Common questions
Can a tech assign their own jobs?
No. Dispatch is manager-only — it lives behind the manage gate. Installers see the jobs you assign them on My Work, but they can't open the board or hand work around.
Why is a worker listed as "not skilled" for a job?
They're missing one of the services that job requires. Skill comes from each person's setup on the Team page. You can still assign them as an override, but the tag is there so it's a deliberate choice, not an accident.
Does moving a worker to a bay reassign their jobs?
No — parking a worker in a bay and assigning a job are separate. Bay moves say where a person is standing; assignments say whose job it is. Move a specific car with the job's own "Move job to bay" dropdown.
Does the route optimizer save the route?
No. It's a planning aid — it orders the stops and gives you a Google Maps link, but it changes nothing on the board and stores no route. Run it fresh whenever you want the current best order.
The optimizer says there are no jobs for a worker.
It only routes mobile jobs that have a geocoded address for the selected day. In-shop jobs and any stop without an address aren't drivable, so they're skipped.