Use Schedule Assistant

Overview

Schedule Assistant improves margins by suggesting a date, time, and technician for a given job that minimizes drive time. When used during call booking, Schedule Assistant shows your team the optimal day and time to schedule jobs based on drive time efficiency, reducing the amount of time it takes to search for the right technician.

You can also use Schedule Assistant from the Dispatch Board, job record, and on recurring service events. Technician skills, zones, and non-job events with timesheet codes are factored into Schedule Assistant’s recommendations.

Things to know

• Schedule Assistant requires Technician Shifts, which you can use to manage technician working hours and location. A technician must have an Available shift to be considered for results.

• If you book a job without using Schedule Assistant and now you want to use it, you can go to the job record, scroll to the appointment you want to use Schedule Assistant on, and then click More > Run Schedule Assistant.
  

• The first stop on each technician card in Schedule Assistant is from the technician’s home address to their first job. The last stop is from their last job to their home address.

• For best results, make sure all your customers have validated service location addresses. This attaches latitude and longitude coordinates to the job location. Schedule Assistant then uses the coordinates to calculate drive time. You can validate customer addresses from Schedule Assistant by clicking Verify:
  

• If a technician doesn’t have a validated address, the address of the technician’s main business unit (BU) is used to calculate drive time instead. If their main BU doesn’t have a validated address, the address of their first job is used. You can validate technician addresses from Schedule Assistant by clicking Verify Technician Address:
  

Schedule jobs using Schedule Assistant

1. Go to the navigation bar and click Calls .

2. Answer an incoming call and click the incoming call bubble.

3. Search for an existing customer or add a new customer, then click the location where the job will be performed.
   

4. Enter the job details, then click Schedule Assistant.
   

5. Schedule Assistant opens. Use the filters to refine the technicians you see. You can filter by:

   1. Date Range: Give a range of dates that Schedule Assistant can schedule the job on.

   2. (Optional) Arrival Time or Earliest Start Time: Give a time range Schedule Assistant can schedule the job.

      Note: If an arrival window was selected before running Schedule Assistant, the arrival window timeframe is prefilled. If needed, you can change this before running Schedule Assistant.

   3. Weekdays: If searching up to a week, this menu enables selecting specific days that you wish to filter on, such as only Thursdays and Fridays, due to homeowner availability.

   4. Job Type: The job type you selected when booking the job.

   5. Business Unit: Only technicians who are assigned to the selected BU will appear.

   6. Technicians: Filter to see specific technicians.

6. Use the Only Show Technicians filters to further refine the technicians you see. You can filter by:

   1. With the skill for this job: Shows technicians with skills required by job type.

   2. With unbooked availability: Shows technicians who have enough unbooked time to complete the job.

   3. In this zone: Shows technicians in the same zone as the job. To add additional zones to technicians, add technicians to All Zones from technician settings. For more on zones, see Set up and use zones.
      

7. When finished, click Search.
   
   If Schedule Assistant returns an error message instead of a list of technicians, it means one criteria in your filters failed. The error message will list parameters for you to check. If needed, you can go back and adjust your filters to widen your search results.
   
   For example, if you selected a specific BU, then at least one of your technicians must have that BU assigned to them for any results to populate.
   When your filter criteria are met, Schedule Assistant displays up to 52 technicians based on your filters, sorted by most efficient drive time.
   

   Tip: You can sort technicians by Driving Efficiency or First Available.

   

   Note: The + # min (# mi) listed at the top of a technician card represents the extra time and distance that would be added if the new appointment is added to the technician’s route. It does not measure the time and distance between two locations. The calculation Schedule Assistant uses for this is:
   [time and distance from previous appointment to new appointment] + [time and distance from new appointment to next appointment] - [time and distance from previous appointment to next appointment]

8. Click a technician card to select them for the job, and then click Save.

9. The technician, date, and time you selected appear on the Job Booking screen. Click Book job to complete booking the job.
   

Want to learn more?

• See Reschedule multiple appointments at once with Mass Reschedule

• See Dispatching

• See Use the Schedule Board