The dispatch board is your day at a glance. Every job is a card, and every card sits in a stage. Read the board left to right and you can see exactly where every piece of work stands — what's waiting, who's rolling, what's done.
The stages
- Needs Scheduled — the job exists but has no time on the calendar yet. This column is your to-do list: nothing should sit here long.
- Scheduled — booked. It has a date, a time, and a tech.
- On The Way — the tech is rolling. Moving a job here fires the on-the-way text to the customer automatically.
- On Site — the tech has arrived and the job is underway.
- In Progress — work continuing beyond the first visit window (a long install, a multi-day job).
- Needs Return Visit — the tech couldn't finish: waiting on a part, needs a second pair of hands, needs more time. Flagging this alerts your office so the return trip gets booked. See Return visits.
- Done — the work is finished. Moving a job here starts the close-out: service date stamped, working tags cleared, review request sent. The job history note is written once the invoice is paid, because it carries the amount. See What moves automatically.
- Cancelled — the job isn't happening. Keeps the board honest without deleting history.
Who moves the cards
- Booking moves cards for you — a new booking creates the job and puts it in Scheduled automatically.
- Techs move their own jobs through the day: On The Way → On Site → Done (or Needs Return Visit).
- Office watches the whole board, schedules anything in Needs Scheduled, and handles returns.
The habit that makes it work
🔴 On a sales or estimate visit — mark it Done BEFORE you send the estimate
Sending the estimate moves the job off the dispatch board. It goes to estimate follow-up, where the 30-day chase runs — which is correct, that is where a quote-awaiting-a-decision belongs. But once it leaves the board you can no longer move it to Done, and the close-out never runs: the appointment stays marked as upcoming, the working tags stay on the customer, and the visit is never recorded as having happened.
So the order on a sales call is: finish the visit → move it to Done → then send the estimate. Same destination, but the visit gets closed out on the way through. When the customer accepts, the job comes back to Needs Scheduled for the install.
It is worth being deliberate about, because sending the quote from the driveway is the natural instinct and that is exactly the wrong order.
The habit that makes it work
The board is only as true as the last person who touched it. The rule for techs is simple: when your status changes, change the stage. Heading out? On The Way. Pulling up? On Site. Wrapped up? Done. Each of those clicks triggers real things — customer texts, invoice drafts, review requests — so the clicks matter.