Manage skills in the Skills settings

Overview

Skills help you match the right technician to the right work. In the Skills settings, you create and organize your business's skills, then associate them with technicians, job types, and cost codes. This gives dispatchers, operations managers, and project managers a single place to manage skills and see who is qualified for each job type, so the right people are assigned to the right work.

Things to know

• Skills are organized into four tabs in the Skills settings: Skills, Technicians, Job Types, and Cost Codes. They share the same skills data, so a skill you create or update in one place is reflected across the others.

• The Skills tab is the central list of all your skills. It shows each skill's status and a count of the technicians, job types, and cost codes it's associated with.

• On the Job Types tab, the Qualified Technicians column shows only the technicians who hold all of the skills required by that job type. If you add a required skill that a technician doesn't have, that technician is no longer shown as qualified until the skill is assigned to them.

• On the Cost Codes tab, skills can be inherited. When a parent cost code has required skills, its nested (child) cost codes inherit those skills, shown in the Inherited Skills column.

• Skills, job types, technicians, and cost codes can each also be managed from their own dedicated settings pages. Changes made there appear in the Skills settings, and vice versa.

• When you update the required skills on a job type, existing active job assignments are updated to reflect the new skill requirements.

Best practices

• Build your skills list first on the Skills tab, then assign skills to technicians, job types, and cost codes. Defining skills up front keeps your associations consistent.

• Give each skill a clear, specific name (and description) so dispatchers and managers can tell similar skills apart. For example, distinguishing skill levels such as HVAC Service Level 1 and HVAC Service Level 2.

• Assign required skills to every job type you book, so the Qualified Technicians column can surface the right people at assignment time.

• Keep technician skills current. When a technician completes training or earns a new qualification, update their assigned skills so they show as qualified for the appropriate job types.

• Deactivate skills you no longer use instead of leaving them in the list, so the active skills list stays relevant.

Use cases

• A dispatcher needs to assign a No heat call. On the Job Types tab, the required skills are HVAC Service Level 1 and Level 2, and the Qualified Technicians column shows only the technicians who hold both — so the dispatcher can confidently assign a qualified tech.

• A technician is promoted after additional training. An operations manager opens the Technicians tab, adds the higher-level skill, and the technician immediately becomes qualified for the job types that require it.

• A construction project manager maps required skills to cost codes so that nested cost codes inherit the parent's skill requirements, keeping skill requirements consistent across a cost code group.

Enable skills management

1. Go to the top toolbar and click Settings .

2. In the side panel, go to Dispatch Board > New & Upcoming Features.

3. Click the Skills Management toggle.

   Note: You must have the New & Upcoming Features permission enabled for your account.

Add and edit skills

Before you assign skills to technicians, job types, or cost codes, create the skills that apply to your business on the Skills tab. Each skill you add can then be associated across the other tabs.

1. Go to the top toolbar and click Settings .

2. In the side panel, go to Operations > Skills.

3. To add a new skill, click Add Skill. To edit an existing skill, click the Edit icon in the Action column next to that skill.

4. In the panel that opens, enter or update the skill's details:        

   • Name (required).

   • Description.

   • Status: Active or Inactive.

   • Technicians, Job Types, and Cost Codes: Search and select the records you want to associate with this skill.

5. When finished, click Save.

Deactivate a skill

Deactivate a skill you no longer use to keep it out of the active skills list while preserving its history.

1. Go to the top toolbar and click Settings .

2. In the side panel, go to Operations > Skills.

3. Click the Edit icon next to the skill you want to deactivate.

4. Set the Status to Inactive.

5. When finished, click Save.        

   Note: Use the status filter at the top of the Skills tab to switch between viewing Active and Inactive skills.

Assign skills to technicians

Use the Technicians tab to see each technician's assigned skills and the job types they're qualified for, and to update their skills.

1. Go to the top toolbar and click Settings .

2. In the side panel, go to Operations > Skills, then click the Technicians tab.

3. Use the filters and search bar to find a technician. You can filter by Business Unit, Role, Company Position, Qualified Job Types and Skill.

4. Click the Edit icon in the Action column next to the technician you want to update.

5. In the panel that opens, click the Assigned Skills field and select the skills that apply to this technician.

6. When finished, click Save.        

   Note: A technician appears in a job type's Qualified Technicians list only when they hold all of that job type's required skills.

Assign required skills to job types

Use the Job Types tab to set the skills a job type requires and to see which technicians are qualified for it.

1. Go to the top toolbar and click Settings .

2. In the side panel, go to Operations > Skills, then click the Job Types tab.

3. Use the filters and search at the top of the tab to find a job type. You can filter by Business Unit, Status, Required Skills, and Qualified Technicians.

4. Click the Edit icon in the Action column next to the job type you want to update.

5. In the panel that opens, click the Required Skills field and select the skills this job type requires.

6. When finished, click Save.        

   Note: After you save, the Qualified Technicians column updates to show only the technicians who hold all of the required skills you selected.

Assign required skills to cost codes

Use the Cost Codes tab to set the skills a cost code requires. Nested cost codes inherit the required skills of their parent cost code.

1. Go to the top toolbar and click Settings .

2. In the side panel, go to Operations > Skills, then click the Cost Codes tab.

3. To view nested cost codes, click Expand next to a parent cost code.

4. Click the Edit icon in the Action column next to the cost code you want to update.

5. In the panel that opens, click the Required Skills field and select the skills this cost code requires.

6. When finished, click Save.        

   Note: When you assign required skills to a parent cost code, its nested cost codes show those skills in the Inherited Skills column. A nested cost code can also have its own directly assigned required skills in addition to what it inherits.

   

Want to learn more?

• See Manage skills for technicians and job types

• See Filter the Dispatch Board

• See Use the Daily Dispatch Board