Dispatch efficiently with Map 2.0

Overview

The Map gives you the geographical context you need to optimize technician routes, decrease drive time, and increase profitability. View multi-day route maps and pinpoint where you can be more effective in dispatching technicians.

Things to know

• The Map is color-coded by each technician and their assigned appointments. Colors are automatically assigned to make it easier for you to distinguish between different technicians and appointments on the map.
  • The appointments assigned to a technician are displayed in the same color as that technician.
  • Numbered squares represent appointments, and numbered rectangles represent technicians.
  • Appointment squares are numbered in the order of each technician's appointment, from the first to the last appointment of the day.
  • The number displayed on the right side of a technician rectangle represents the total number of appointments the technician has for the day.
  • Technician and appointment icons only display numbers when you're viewing a single day. If you're viewing a date range, no numbers are displayed.
• The map stays zoomed-in on the area of focus you were last viewing.
• Optimize Technician Route won't touch appointments marked as Confirmed. To optimize the rest of the route while keeping a particular appointment in place, mark it as Confirmed. For more, see Use Job Confirmations.
• When viewing the map in Date Range mode or on a date other than the current date, technicians are shown at their verified home address.
• Technicians are shown at their verified home address if they can't be reached by GPS.

Best practices

• With the Map, we recommend that you work with two screens or tabs open: one with Map 2.0 and one with the Dispatch Board.
• To get the most out of Map, be sure to verify all appointment locations and technician addresses. If a technician's home address isn't set in Settings > People > Technicians, you still see their route for the day on the map, but it won't be as precise.

Understand recurring service event and unassigned appointment icons

Aside from color-coded technician icons for assigned appointments, the other icons on the Map are for recurring service events and unassigned appointments. These icons come in four different colors, each representing a different priority level: dark red for urgent, red for high, black for normal, and gray for low.

Priority levels come from the job type. For more, see Set up and use job types.

When you hover over an appointment on the map, you see information about the appointment.

Reduce drive time

Use the single-day view of the map to optimize appointment assignments for technicians based on geographical efficiency:

1. Go to the navigation bar and click Dispatch.
2. Click the Daily dropdown and select Map.The route map opens in another tab.

Things to keep in mind:

• Keep the Dispatch Board open in another tab or window to quickly change or make technician assignments.
• If this is your first time using the map, it opens to the daily route for the current day by default.
• You can choose your view of the map using the zones and business units filters at the top of the screen. After your first time, the map saves your filter choices.
• You can also use the filters on the left side of the screen to filter by Priority Level, Technicians, Technician Skill Level, and Tag.
• Use the map's information on technician and appointment locations to optimize appointment assignments on the Dispatch Board.

Select an area and assign technicians

Use the area select tool to select each unassigned appointment in an area and reassign them to the best-suited technician. The technicians shown are those who have the required skills for the appointment at the top, and everyone else at the bottom.

Assign or reassign multiple appointments at once

1. Select the Daily Routes filter, then click Apply Filter. The appointments you scheduled for today are shown on the map.
2. Click a selection tool. You can choose from a polygon, rectangle, or circle.
3. If you're using the circle or rectangle selection tool, click and drag over the appointments you want to reassign. If you're using the polygon, click each point where you want the polygon to be drawn. When finished, click the first point you made again.
4. Right-click within your selection, then click Assign.
5. Scroll through the technicians list and select a new technician to assign to the appointments.

   Note: You can assign more than one technician. If you're using Technician Shifts, technicians with an Available shift are shown with a green dot next to their names.

   
6. When finished, click Assign.

The color of each appointment updates to indicate the newly assigned technician.

Assign or reassign a single appointment

1. Find the appointment you want to assign or reassign on the map.
2. Right-click the appointment icon, then click Assign.
3. Scroll through the list and click the name of the technician you want to reassign the appointment to. Available technicians are shown with a green dot next to their names.

   Note: You can select more than one technician to reassign the appointment to.

4. After choosing new technicians, click Assign.

The color of the reassigned appointment updates to indicate the newly assigned technician.

Strategize and adapt your dispatch strategy

The Map empowers you with the information you need to make better dispatching decisions, sending out the right technician to the right appointment at the right time.

If you're an advanced dispatcher or a dispatch manager, use the Date Range view to identify where on the map your customers are clustered to refine your overall dispatch strategy:

1. Go to the navigation bar and click Dispatch.
2. Click the Daily dropdown field and select Map.
3. Click Date Range and then click the Calendaricon to select the date range or days of the week you want to analyze.

   Note: Start with a single week's worth of appointments to limit the amount of content on the board, and then expand the range if you want to see more.

4. If you want to focus on specific zones, business units, priority levels, technicians, technician skill levels, or tags, select from those filters as well.
5. After selecting all the filters you want to use, click Apply Filter.The map refreshes to show appointments for the filters you selected.
6. Using the information about where the technicians and appointments are on the map, analyze the geographical distribution to uncover patterns and figure out better ways to dispatch technicians in the future. For example, if you notice that a certain technician is constantly driving back and forth between two faraway areas, you want to figure out a better way to dispatch that technician to avoid the long drive time.

Want to learn more?

• Visit the Academy and enroll in Dispatching Basics