Use the dispatch board¶

Click Dispatch in the sidebar. It also opens full screen, for a dispatcher's wall screen.

What's on the board¶

• Needs a tech — the jobs waiting for someone, most urgent first, each with why it's there (Emergency, Return visit, and the badges of your queue rules) and who would fit best.
• The day — one row per technician, with their jobs on a timeline (each with the same badges), the morning and afternoon windows, their working hours, and how full their next 3 and 5 days are.
• Needs your attention — late jobs, urgent jobs still waiting (Emergency or High, or meeting a red rule), and technicians with nothing booked.

Switch between Today and Tomorrow, or step a day at a time.

The map¶

Switch from Board to Map to see the day on a map: each job at its address — ringed red when it's urgent, highlighted while it waits for a technician — and each technician at the job they're on or the last one they finished. Click a pin to open the job. A job shows on the map once its address has been looked up, which happens when it's booked; the map says how many jobs have no address yet.

Book a job¶

Click New job on the board, or Book a visit on a client. Fill in what needs doing, the day, the arrival window and its Priority (Normal unless you pick another), and any columns you've added to the Jobs table — they show in the same form. The address is a location — search for the place, or type it; leave it empty to use the client's.

Change a job¶

Click a job — waiting or booked — to open it, change what needs changing (what it is, the job type, skill, day, arrival window, start, duration, priority, address, notes, your own columns) and save. Only what you change is saved. Clearing the address puts the client's back. A booked job's calendar entry moves with it, and the same checks apply as when it was booked. The job also shows why it matters: its priority and the badges of the rules it meets.

Send someone¶

• Drag a waiting job onto a technician's row, at the time it should start.
• Or click the job and pick from Who should go — technicians who can take it come first, the one who did the first visit first for a return visit, then whoever can start soonest. Someone who can't take it is greyed out with the reason.
• Auto-assign gives every waiting job for the day its best fit, most urgent first, and tells you what it couldn't place. It books up to 50 jobs at a time; run it again for the rest.

BaseCloud won't book a job that can't work, and says why:

• the person isn't a technician, or doesn't have the skill;
• its job type is set to senior technicians only and they're not a senior, or to mornings only and it's not in the morning — the message names the job type and where to change the rule (Settings › Dispatch › Job types);
• the start is outside the arrival window;
• they already have a job at that time.

These checks apply however a job is booked — on the board, on the client, in bulk, by an automation, or by your AI connection ("Give the Bean There Café job to Ana at 10", "Who should go to Mrs. Alvarez?", "Book today's waiting jobs").

Move, take back or cancel¶

• Drag a job to another time or another technician. Its calendar entry moves with it.
• Drag it back to Needs a tech, or click it and choose Take off the tech, to put it back in the queue.
• Cancel it from the job; its calendar entry goes.

Follow the day¶

As the day goes on, a job moves through Scheduled → Dispatched → On the way → Working → Done. You can move it along from the job. A technician can move their own job along too, but only a dispatcher (Edit Dispatch) can cancel a job or take it off someone.

The board updates by itself when anyone changes a job, and keeps time on its own — the line showing now moves, late jobs are flagged as they become late, and a wall screen showing today moves to the new day at midnight.

When a technician leaves¶

When you remove a technician from your account, their jobs that haven't started yet go back to Needs a tech, so someone else can be sent. Jobs they already did stay as they were.