Set up Dispatch¶

Switch it on¶

Open Settings → Dispatch and switch on Use Dispatch. The first time, BaseCloud adds a Jobs table to your custom tables — that's where every job is kept. Dispatch then appears in the sidebar for everyone.

Everyone starts with View Dispatch and Edit Dispatch. Your technicians usually shouldn't book or move other people's jobs: turn Edit Dispatch off for them in Settings → Users (or on their Team). They still see the board and move their own jobs along — On the way, Working, Done.

Switching it off¶

Switching it off hides Dispatch. Nothing is deleted: the jobs, the Jobs table and the calendar entries all stay. While Dispatch is off, the Jobs table is an ordinary custom table — everyone sees it under the usual table rules, and you can rename it, change or delete its columns and options, or delete the table. No booking checks run on it, and changing a job no longer changes anyone's calendar.

Switching it back on¶

Dispatch takes its table back and puts right what it needs:

• If you deleted the Jobs table, a new, empty one is made.
• A column Dispatch needs that you deleted is added again — or, if you have a column with the same name and type (say you deleted Status and made your own Status choice column), that column is used, with what's in it. A column with the same name but another type is left alone, and Dispatch adds its own beside it.
• Options it needs (a Status of On the way, say) are added back the same way: one of yours with the same name is used.
• Columns you renamed stay renamed.
• Your upcoming jobs are written to their technicians' calendars again, so anything you changed while Dispatch was off shows there. A job with no Status reads as Unscheduled, and one with no technician or date waits in Needs a tech.

Mark your technicians¶

Open Settings → Users and click the person. In their Technician section:

• Switch on This person is a technician.
• Tick their Skills — the Skill options of your Jobs table. A job that needs a skill only goes to someone who has it.
• Switch on Senior technician for those who may do work you keep for seniors (a job type set to Senior technicians only).
• Fill in their Home base, where they start the day.

Set their hours in the Working hours section on the same page — see Users. Dispatch only fits jobs into the hours someone works.

Every change to someone's technician setup or working hours goes in the account's activity log, with who made it.

Arrival windows¶

The window promised to the customer — by default Morning (08:00–12:00) and Afternoon (12:00–17:00). Change the times in Settings → Dispatch. A job's start has to fall inside its window.

Job types¶

Dispatch starts you with four job types — Maintenance, Service, Return visit and Estimate — which you can rename. None of them is restricted to start with: any technician can take any of them, at any time of day. Return visit is marked as a return visit. For each Job type you can set:

When a booking breaks one of these, BaseCloud says which job type it is and where the rule is set — for example "Estimate jobs are set to senior technicians only (Settings › Dispatch › Job types), and Jaco is not a senior technician." Change the rule there, or mark the person as a senior technician.

Add your own job types and skills as options on the Jobs table — see Tables that belong to a feature.

Who goes first¶

Waiting jobs are put in order for you:

1. Priority — Emergency, then High, Normal and Low. Every job has one; a job booked without one is Normal. You can rename the four (call Emergency "No heat / no cooling", say) and add your own, which count as Normal.
2. Your queue rules — within a priority, a job that meets more of your rules goes first.
3. Return visits — a job type set as a return visit, or a follow-up of an earlier job.
4. The arrival window — morning before afternoon.
5. The date — sooner first; jobs with no date last.

Each job shows why it matters: its priority (Emergency or High), the badge of each rule it meets, and Return visit — in the queue, and once it's booked too, on the timeline and in the job.

Colours¶

Dispatch's options on the Jobs table come with colours, so jobs read at a glance: Priority Emergency red, High orange, Normal blue, Low grey; Status Unscheduled grey, Scheduled blue, Dispatched indigo, On the way amber, Working purple, Done green, Cancelled red; and soft colours for the job types and arrival windows. Change any of them on the Jobs table like any option's colour. Switching Dispatch back on gives a colour only to an option that has none, so yours stay.

What moves a job up the queue¶

In Settings → Dispatch, under What moves a job up the queue, add a rule for anything that should put a job first. A rule is built the same way as a team's client filter: pick a field, how to compare, and a value — then give it a badge (what the job shows, up to 40 characters) and a colour. You can have up to 20. Each rule is saved the moment you add, change or delete it — there's nothing else to save.

• About the client — a client field: status, Responsible Manager, origin, date added, a custom field, or a column of another custom table. For example: Plan is Gold → "Member"; System installed before 2010 → "Old system".
• About the job — a column of the Jobs table, yours or Dispatch's: Indoor temperature greater than 84 → "Too hot inside"; Job type is Service → "Breakdown".

A rule shown in red (danger) also makes a waiting job urgent: it's flagged in Needs your attention and ringed on the map, as are Emergency and High jobs. A rule can't use "me" (the current user): the queue is the same for everyone.

Set up for HVAC¶

Heating and cooling shops can click Set up for HVAC to add, in one step:

• two columns of your own on the Jobs table: At risk (Elderly, Baby, Medical need) and Indoor temperature;
• three red rules: At risk (any of the three), Too hot inside (above 84°) and Too cold inside (below 61°);
• two job-type rules: Maintenance mornings only, and Estimate senior technicians only — each only if that job type is still on your Jobs table. The rest of each job type's settings stay as they are.

They're ordinary columns and rules: rename them, change them or delete them as you like. Clicking it again adds nothing twice (a job-type rule you've switched off since is switched back on).

Job address¶

Pick the client field that holds the address — a Location field works best, but a text field does too. A new job takes its address from there unless you pick or type another, and a job whose address you clear goes back to the client's. The job's address is a location: search for the place as in any Location field, or type it. It's looked up once for the map.

Late jobs¶

When a job counts as late:

• After the planned start — nobody on the way this many minutes after the job's start, or
• Before the window closes — nobody on the way this many minutes before its arrival window ends.

Late jobs show in Needs your attention on the board. To also text the customer, see Jobs and automations.

Set it up by asking your AI¶

With an AI connection that may Make changes, someone with Manage Users can do all of this by asking — for example:

• "Switch Dispatch on and set it up for HVAC."
• "Make Ana a technician with the Electrical and Plumbing skills, 7 to 3 Monday to Friday."
• "Add a queue rule: members go first."
• "Which of my users are technicians?"

The AI changes only what you ask for, uses the same checks as this page, and asks you to confirm first. More examples are in What you can ask.