Read the Dispatch Board faster and time notifications correctly with Dispatching Experience Improvements
These Dispatching Experience enhancements makes it clearer which work on the Dispatch Board belongs to which technician, renames a display setting so its purpose is obvious, and lets you choose whether appointment reminders go out in your account time zone or the time zone of the job location.
Available inCore
Feature type
Enhancement
Industry
Residential Service and ReplacementCommercial Service and ReplacementResidential ConstructionCommercial Construction
Roles
AdministratorsDispatchers
Region
All regions
What's changing
Before this release, technician activity lines on the Dispatch Board sat next to job bubbles with no visual link between them, so tracing a line back to its job meant selecting it and opening the details. The setting that controls what appears under a technician name was labeled Display Status, which did not describe what it does. Appointment reminders always went out in your account time zone, which sent the wrong time to your customers when a job sat in a different time zone from your office. Now, hovering over an activity line highlights the job or non-job event it belongs to, and hovering over a job or non-job event highlights its activity line. The setting is renamed Technician Status Details with clearer help text. If you’re using the new Notifications Experience, a new control in your reminder notification settings lets you send reminders in the time zone of the job location instead.
Workflow comparison — before & after
← Before
✓ After
1.Go to the Dispatch Board and turn on Show Technician Activity History in Dispatcher Preferences under View Options.
1.Go to the Dispatch Board with Show Technician Activity History turned on.
2.Look at a technician row with several activity lines and try to work out which line belongs to which job.
2.Hover over a technician activity line. The job or non-job event it belongs to highlights on the board.
3.Select an activity line to open its details, then close the details and repeat for the next line.
3.Hover over a job bubble or a non-job event. Its activity line highlights so it stands out from the other lines in that row.
4.Go to Settings, then Dispatch Board, and read the Display Status label without a clear sense of what it controls.
4.Go to Settings, then Dispatch Board, and find the setting now named Technician Status Details, with help text describing what appears under the technician name.
5.Accept that every appointment reminder goes out in your account time zone, even for a job two time zones away.
5.Go to Settings, then Communications, then Customer Notifications, select Reminder Notifications, and turn on the time zone control to send reminders in the job or location time zone.
⚠ Dispatchers lose time tracing lines one at a time, and businesses that work across time zones send reminder times that do not match the arrival time at the job location.
✓ Dispatchers confirm what belongs to whom without selecting anything, settings describe what they do, and businesses that work across time zones send reminder times that match the job location.
Resources
How it works for your industry
Residential Service and Replacement
- A dispatcher managing twelve technicians on a summer heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) day hovers over a long activity line and immediately sees which repair call it belongs to, without opening the job.
- A dispatcher checking why a technician is running behind hovers over the job bubble and watches the matching activity line light up, confirming the technician is still on site rather than in transit.
- A residential plumbing business with branches in two time zones turns on the time zone control so a homeowner in the second branch receives a reminder that matches the arrival time at their own address.
Commercial Service and Replacement
- A dispatcher covering a commercial account with several technicians on one property hovers across the activity lines to confirm which technician is assigned to which rooftop unit (RTU) service call.
- A dispatcher reviewing a non-job event such as a shop meeting hovers over it and sees the matching activity line, confirming the time is accounted for before assigning more work.
- A commercial mechanical contractor serving a multi-state territory sends appointment reminders in the time zone of each building rather than the head office, so site contacts receive the correct arrival time.
Residential Construction
- A dispatcher coordinating a multi-week remodel hovers over an activity line and sees which phase of the build it belongs to, without opening the job to check.
- A dispatcher scheduling a framing inspection hovers over a non-job event such as a material pickup and sees the matching activity line, confirming crew time is already accounted for that morning.
- A homebuilder working across a metro area that spans two time zones sends reminders in the time zone of the build site, so homeowners receive a walkthrough time that matches the clock at their lot.
Commercial Construction
- A dispatcher managing several crews on one commercial site hovers across the activity lines to confirm which crew is tied to which work order before assigning the next task.
- A project coordinator new to the office opens Settings, finds Technician Status Details, and understands what appears under each name on the board without asking a colleague.
- A general contractor running projects in three states sends appointment reminders in the local time zone of each site, so site superintendents are not planning around a time set by the head office.
How to prepare
01
Have an administrator reach out to Support or your Customer Success Manager (CSM) to have the Redesigned Dispatch Board and any prerequisite configurations enabled. The notification timing control also requires the new notification experience.
02
Confirm which of your business units operate in a different time zone from your office, and decide whether appointment reminders should follow the job location time zone before you turn the control on. The control is off by default, and leaving it off keeps your current behavior.
03
Train your dispatchers on the hover behavior so they stop selecting activity lines to confirm what a line belongs to.
04
Tell your team that the Display Status setting is now named Technician Status Details, so anyone following an older internal guide knows where to look. The options under it do not change.
05
Bookmark any knowledge base articles or Academy videos for team training.