Dispatch alert management and settings guide in ServiceTitan Max

Overview

Dispatch Pro tries to assign every job that comes into ServiceTitan Max, but it still needs administrators and dispatchers to review and manage exceptions. When Dispatch Pro can't assign a job, it surfaces an alert in the Alerts tab of the Job Tray below the Dispatch Board. Every alert points back to a specific setting area: Prioritization, Routing, Technician Settings, Technician Ranking, Business Units, Locking Jobs, or Dispatch Pro Modes.

This guide brings those two surfaces together for the first time. It's a single reference for:

• Every documented Dispatch Pro alert, with the exact alert text, what it means, and the remediation Dispatch Pro itself recommends.

• The documented default settings and adjustment ranges for Prioritization, Business Units, and Technician Ranking — the values you can rely on as a starting point.

• A framework for moving from "I'm seeing this alert" to "I know which setting to adjust" — using the documented remediations as the bridge.

In ServiceTitan Max, the dispatch workflow runs alongside Contact Center, Scheduling, Field and Atlas, and Fleet. Alerts often reveal something about how data flows from those products into Dispatch, an arrival window that's too tight (Scheduling window configuration), or an unvalidated technician home address (Technician Settings + Fleet Pro). Reading alerts as configuration signals is the core of optimization in ServiceTitan Max.

Before you start

• The Access settings and Edit Dispatch Pro settings permissions are required to change any settings referenced in this guide. Contact your account administrator.

• This guide assumes Dispatch Pro is live and you've reviewed the Dispatch Pro Settings Reference Guide in ServiceTitan Max and Day-of Dispatching with Dispatch Pro: A Dispatcher's Guide in ServiceTitan Max.

• ServiceTitan recommends reviewing and adjusting Dispatch Pro settings during slow seasons to prepare for the busy season.

Things to know

• Dispatch Pro is as effective as the data it has access to. Expect an adjustment period while you manage and revise your data and settings.

• Jobs may go from assigned to unassigned or vice versa as Dispatch Pro runs every 10 minutes during business hours and every hour outside business hours. Every Dispatch-Pro-driven unassignment surfaces an alert explaining why.

• Dispatch Pro will not assign multi-technician jobs, multi-day jobs, or jobs to technicians who are on an on-call shift, on a time-off shift, or have a non-job event. It will not place a job on the Dispatch Board before or after its arrival window or business hours.

• If you dismiss an alert by clicking X without taking action, Dispatch Pro will reappear it on the next run. If you resolve the underlying issue or manually assign the job, the alert is cleared automatically.

Section 1 — Dispatch Pro alert reference

This is the complete list of documented Dispatch Pro alerts that appear in the Alerts tab of the Job Tray. The alert text shown is the exact wording Dispatch Pro surfaces. Each row maps to the setting area where you'd act on a recurring pattern of that alert.

How to read this table:

• Column 2 ("What Dispatch Pro tells you") is the exact information Dispatch Pro surfaces on hover.

• Column 3 ("What Dispatch Pro recommends") is the immediate dispatcher-facing remediation drawn from the alert text itself. It tells the dispatcher what to do right now with this one job.

• Column 4 ("Where to act on patterns") is for administrators reviewing alert patterns over time. If you're seeing Max Drive Time alerts once a week, the column 3 remediation handles them. If you're seeing them every day in the same zone, column 4 tells you which setting area to investigate.

Section 2 — Documented default settings and adjustment ranges

This section lists every Dispatch Pro setting with a documented default value or adjustment range. Where ServiceTitan has not published a default, that's noted explicitly. Use this as your starting baseline — adjust from these values only when an alert pattern (Section 1) gives you a reason to.

Prioritization Settings

Adjust Dispatch Pro Prioritization Settings

Documented tips and notes for Prioritization Settings:

• When using Bulk Edit, ServiceTitan recommends starting with service and maintenance job types. Job types with Dispatch Pro disabled are treated as locked calendar blocks.

• Job durations can extend past arrival windows, but Dispatch Pro never reschedules jobs outside the arrival window. The scheduled start time will always be within the arrival window.

• If a job type doesn't have Dispatch Pro enabled, the toggle can't be manually turned on at the job record. Enabling Dispatch Pro on a job type only affects jobs booked after that change.

• For top priority levels, Dispatch Pro tries to move appointments to the earliest possible time within the arrival window or business hours. Unranked or lower-level job types are more likely to be pushed to the end of the arrival window or left unassigned in overbooking situations.

Technician Ranking Settings

Adjust Dispatch Pro Technician Ranking Settings

Documented short-term and long-term windows:

• Short-term performance: Last 30 days

• Long-term performance: Last 12 months

Documented guidance for Setting 5.3:

• Large shops with strong per-job-type data should choose a higher number.

• Small shops or shops with many new job types should lower this to 5 (or 3 when necessary).

Business Units Settings

Adjust Dispatch Pro Business Units Settings

Documented guidance for Business Units Settings:

• The settings you configure apply to all jobs within the selected business units.

• Use case for Routing override: account uses Mostly Revenue but a business unit is set to Only Routing — jobs in that unit follow routing rules only. Example given in the docs: shop optimizes for revenue while the maintenance unit focuses on routing efficiency.

• When Fair Assignment is disabled, jobs are assigned based on technician performance and routing efficiency.

Section 3 — The settings optimization framework

The framework for moving from "I'm seeing this alert" to "I know which setting to change" follows directly from the alert reference in Section 1 of this article. Every documented alert tells you two things: an immediate remediation, and an implied configuration question for the administrator. This section turns those into a repeatable process.

Step 1 — Distinguish exceptions from patterns

Every alert in Section 1 is, in isolation, an exception that the dispatcher handles using the column 3 remediation. The optimization decision is whether the exception is occasional (handle it and move on) or recurring (change a setting). Use these rules:

• One-off occurrence: Apply the dispatcher remediation from Section 1, column 3. No setting change.

• Repeated occurrence within the same zone, business unit, or job type: Apply the dispatcher remediation, then investigate using Section 1, column 4.

The data you need to spot patterns is in two places: the Job Tray alert history itself, and the Dispatch Pro Technician Performance report referenced in the Settings Reference Guide.

Step 2 — Use the documented remediation as the diagnostic

Section 1 is structured so that each alert's column 3 ("What Dispatch Pro recommends") is the diagnostic question. Examples drawn straight from the alert reference:

• No Matching Technicians says "review the skills required for a job and your zone/business unit assignment." That's the optimization question: are the right skills assigned to the right technicians for the right zones? Open Technician Settings (Setting 4.1) and Prioritization Setting 3.1 (which lets you assign skills to job types). Run Generate Skills in either place to see ServiceTitan's recommendations.

• No Availability says "extend the arrival window or reschedule the job." If you're seeing this often, the question isn't whether to extend a single window — it's whether your arrival windows (configured in ServiceTitan Core / Scheduling Pro) are too narrow for your current capacity, or whether your capacity (Technician Settings, shifts) is insufficient for the booked volume.

• Urgent Job Conflict says "adjust job priorities or reschedule the job." That points to Prioritization Setting 3.2 (job type priority levels) and 3.3 (tag-based priority modifiers). If Urgent Job Conflict fires often, your priority levels may be too aggressive — too many job types ranked at the top means real urgent jobs can't fit.

• No Coordinates says "validate the customer's address." That's not a Dispatch Pro setting at all — it's a data-quality issue at the intake step (Contact Center CSR booking or Scheduling self-booking). The optimization here is process, not configuration.

Step 3 — Change one setting at a time

When an alert pattern justifies a setting change, only change one setting per investigation cycle. Stacking changes — adjusting Routing Setting 1.1 and Setting 1.2 and a per-BU override in Setting 6.1 in the same week — makes it impossible to attribute any change in alert volume to the right cause.

The Settings Reference Guide notes that Technician Ranking Settings only update once per hour, so allow at least an hour before changes are reflected on the Dispatch Board. Other settings take effect on Dispatch Pro's next run (every 10 minutes during business hours).

Step 4 — Use Bulk Edit and Generate Skills where the docs recommend them

Several settings have documented tools for making coordinated adjustments efficiently:

• Generate Skills (Prioritization Setting 3.1): ServiceTitan provides recommendations for Job Types & Skills based on your account data. Review the recommendations, edit if needed, then click Apply Generated Skills > Apply Skills. Generate Skills is also available in Technician Settings for Technicians & Skills recommendations.

• Bulk Edit (Prioritization Setting 3.1): Use the Business Units and Skills filters to select multiple job types at once, then apply Dispatch Pro on/off, skills, expected duration, and Tech Ranking changes in one action.

• Bulk Edit (Business Units Setting 6.1): Select multiple business units and configure Location Preferences, Routing, Fair Assignment, and Job Lock in one pop-up. Select the box at the top of the Business Unit column to update all BUs.

Step 5 — Time setting reviews to shoulder seasons

We recommend that you review and adjust your settings as needed during shoulder slow seasons to prepare for the busy season. Mid-busy-season setting changes risk destabilizing dispatch when alert volume is already high and isolating cause and effect is hardest.

Quick reference — alert-to-setting map

Want to learn more?

• See Dispatch Settings Reference Guide in ServiceTitan Max

• See Day-of-dispatching: A Dispatcher's Guide in ServiceTitan Max