Coming Soon: ST-82
Overview
Minimum spacing keeps two related service agreement visits a set amount of time apart. Administrators set the rule once, between two visit templates. Every new service agreement built from that pair follows the rule automatically, with no setup on each agreement.
When visit dates land too close together, ServiceTitan moves the later visit's window start date to keep the required spacing. When that isn't possible, the visit is flagged for someone to review instead.
Who uses this feature
Administrators, dispatchers, and office managers
Primarily benefits Residential Recurring Service business types
Primarily benefits Pest, Lawn Care, and Water Treatment/Pool trades
Feature configuration
This feature is currently in Early Access and available for specific accounts. It is subject to change.
Account configuration is required to use this feature. Please contact Technical Support for details.
Things to know
A job cancellation reason must be selected on the Visit Template Relationships tab before you can create a relationship.
Minimum spacing applies only to service agreements created after a relationship is set up. Existing agreements don't get relationships added.
A relationship applies to every location on an agreement that uses both visit templates.
You can't edit or remove a relationship on an individual agreement. To use different spacing, build the agreement from a visit template pair set up that way.
When a series is built from a visit template with a relationship, its recurrence and visit window length are locked. You can still edit individual visit windows.
If a spacing change cancels a booked job, ServiceTitan uses the cancel reason you select on the Visit Template Relationships tab.
Minimum spacing never blocks you from saving an agreement or booking a visit. Visits that can't meet the spacing are flagged instead. The exception is Detach blocked: the job's invoice is posted or exported, so it needs manual resolution.
When an agreement renews, the relationships carry forward. Renewal shifts the previous term's visit dates forward rather than recalculating them.
Best practices
Set up your relationships before you sell agreements that use those visit templates, because relationships only apply to new agreements.
Choose a cancellation reason that clearly identifies spacing-related cancellations, so you can filter and report on them later.
Read any warnings before you save a relationship. A warning means some visits may be flagged for review. It doesn't mean the setup is wrong.
Use chained relationships when one treatment must follow another in sequence, for example A before B, and B before C.
Tell your office team how flags work, so they review flagged visits before they book jobs.
Use cases
A lawn care company keeps its fall overseeding visit a minimum number of weeks after its pre-emergent treatment. Applying overseed too soon after pre-emergent stops the seed from germinating.
A pest control company keeps its quarterly pest treatment and a separately scheduled rodent exclusion service from landing too close together.
A company keeps landscaping work from happening too soon after a termite soil treatment, so the treatment has time to bond.
Step 1: Select a job cancel reason for minimum spacing
When a spacing change means a booked job can no longer meet the rule, ServiceTitan can detach the visit and cancel the empty job. It uses this reason for those cancellations. You must select a reason before you can create your first relationship.
Note: This is one setting for your whole account. It applies to every minimum spacing relationship.
Go to the top toolbar and click Settings.
In the side panel, go to Operations > Service Agreement Templates.
Go to the Visit Template Relationships tab.
Select a Job Cancellation Reason then click Save.
Note: The dropdown lists the job cancel reasons already set up in your account. To add a new one, go to Settings > Operations > Cancel and Hold Reasons. For more, see Cancel a job.
After relationships exist, you can change the reason to a different one, but you can't clear it. Changing the reason affects future cancellations only. Jobs that were already canceled keep the reason recorded at the time.
Note: While relationships exist, you can't deactivate the selected reason on the Cancel and Hold Reasons screen. If the reason is deactivated, you can't edit your existing relationships until you select a new reason.
Step 2: Create a minimum spacing relationship
On the Visit Template Relationships tab, click Add to add a relationship.
In the drawer that opens, enter the following:
First Template: Select the visit template that must happen first.
Second Template: Select the visit template that must happen after the first.
Minimum distance: Enter the minimum time between the two visits, then select days, weeks, months, or years.
Review any messages in the drawer, then click Save.
Messages you might see
ServiceTitan checks each relationship before you save it. Some checks stop you from saving. Others are warnings only.
You can't save the relationship when:
A spacing rule already exists for this template pair: Each pair of visit templates can have only one relationship.
Spacing exceeds recurrence interval: The longest spacing you can enter is one day less than the shorter of the two intervals. The message tells you the most you can enter. This check doesn't apply when either template doesn't repeat
The relationship would create a loop: For example, A before B, B before C, and C before A has no valid order. Save is disabled, and the message names the chain of templates causing the loop.
Note: Only active relationships count when ServiceTitan checks for loops.
You can still save, but you'll see a warning, when:
Spacing may exceed a visit window: Some visits created from this pair may be flagged for review.
A start date offset is also configured: The spacing is applied in addition to the offset.
Edit a relationship
To change a relationship, click Edit next to it from the Visit Template Relationships tab, update it, and click Save. The same checks run again before the change is saved.
Note: Edits to relationships only apply to agreements created after the edits are made. Existing agreements are not affected.
Activate or deactivate relationships
You can turn relationships on and off in bulk from the Visit Template Relationships tab.
Select one or more relationships.
Click Activate or Deactivate.
When you activate relationships, ServiceTitan runs all of the checks above again. A template's recurrence may have changed while the relationship was inactive.
Relationships that pass are activated.
Relationships that fail are skipped. The message names each skipped relationship and why, for example the chain that would create a loop.
You don't need to reselect anything to activate the relationships that passed.
Deactivating relationships never requires a check.
Note: ServiceTitan also deactivates relationships automatically when a visit template in them is deactivated, or when a template edit makes the spacing invalid. These relationships show as Inactive with a reason. Hover over the icon next to the status to see why. They stay inactive until you reactivate them, even if the cause is fixed.
Deactivating a relationship doesn't change agreements that already use it. It stops applying to agreements you create afterward.
Want to learn more?
Visit ServiceTitan Academy and enroll in Creating & Managing Service Agreements
See Activate or deactivate a visit template for service agreements