Service Requests & Dispatch
A Service Request is the job — what needs doing, for which customer, and at which site. A visit is one booking of that request with a technician for a specific time. You can book visits straight from the request while the customer is on the phone, or later on the Dispatch Board.
Taking a call
From Field Service → Service Request, click New. The New service request screen is laid out for a phone call, top to bottom, with less common fields folded under More:
- Customer — one search box: Search name, phone or asset serial. Matching customers and matching equipment appear in separate groups; picking a piece of equipment picks its customer and sets it as the request's asset. New customer at the bottom of the list creates one without leaving the call.
- Site — filled from the customer's address (shipping first, then billing), with the contact's name, phone, and email. Use Change to edit it, or Other site when the customer has more than one address.
- Agreement — filled in automatically when the customer has exactly one active agreement in force today. Otherwise choose one under More.
- What's wrong?, Priority, and Type — changing the type also switches the form template to that type's default.
- Schedule — Leave for dispatch board (the request waits in Pending Requests) or Book now.
- More — Service Agreement, Form Template, Billing Method, Project Code, Requested Date, Initial status (New or On Hold), Internal Notes, custom fields, and Add lines now, which saves the request and opens its Lines tab.
Book now
Pick a day, a Technician, a Start time, and a Duration (hours) — or just click one of the Next free suggestions, which show up to four technicians and the earliest time each is free that day, based on their work schedule, existing visits, and leave. If nobody is free, Next day moves the search forward. Picking a time that overlaps another of that technician's visits shows a double-booking warning.
Saving always saves the request first, then books the visit. If the slot was taken a moment earlier by someone else, the request stays saved, the screen shows Saved · visit not booked with the reason, and you simply pick another slot.
Save & new (Ctrl/Cmd+Shift+Enter) saves and starts a blank request for the next caller; Ctrl/Cmd+Enter saves.
The job view
Opening a saved request shows the job view: a progress bar across the top, tabs on the left, and a summary on the right.
The progress bar shows New, Scheduled, In Progress, Completed, and Billed, with an On hold or Cancelled badge when the request is paused or stopped. Its main button is the next thing to do; everything else is under Actions:
| Action | When it's offered |
|---|---|
| Schedule / Add visit | New, On Hold, Scheduled, or In Progress |
| Complete | Scheduled or In Progress |
| Put on hold | New |
| Release hold | On Hold — returns the request to New |
| Create Estimate / Sales Order / Invoice | The next document the billing method calls for |
| Reopen | Completed, and not yet on a sales order or invoice |
| Cancel request | Anything not yet Completed or Cancelled — its open visits are cancelled too |
| Open in dispatch board | Always |
The actions work on the saved request, so save any edits first.
Complete asks for the Completed date, Resolution, and Actual duration (hours) — pre-filled from the hours technicians logged on their visits. A request needs at least one completed visit, no visit still open, and every required form field filled in; Show missing fields takes you straight to the empty ones.
The tabs are Overview (the request fields), Visits (each visit with its technician, time, and status), Lines, Form (when a template is chosen, including the answers technicians submitted), Billing, and Activity (the change history). The summary shows the total, billing status, next visit, dates, the site contact, and — for a request under an agreement — Respond within N h, which turns red once the response time has passed.
Statuses
Service request — New, Scheduled, In Progress, Completed, Cancelled, On Hold.
- Booking a visit moves a New or On Hold request to Scheduled.
- When the technician starts travel or arrives, the request moves to In Progress.
- Completing a visit doesn't complete the request — use Complete once all visits are done.
- Reopen puts a completed request back to In Progress.
Visit — Assigned, En Route, On Site, Completed, Cancelled. Start travel (Assigned → En Route), Arrived (→ On Site), and Complete visit (On Site → Completed) move it forward; a visit can't be completed before arrival. Cancel visit is available until it's completed.
The Dispatch Board
The Field Service menu opens the Dispatch Board. The header has the date picker, previous/next/Today navigation, a Day / Week / Month toggle, and New Request. Times are shown in your company's time zone.
- Workforce (left) — your active technicians, searchable, each marked Employee or Contractor with the hours booked today and a status of Free today, Booked, En route, or On job. All Workforce shows a timeline with one row per person; selecting one person switches to their own calendar.
- Request lanes (right) — three lists:
- Pending Requests — New or On Hold requests, most urgent and longest-waiting first. Switch from All to Due by to see only those requested by the board date.
- Needs reschedule — requests still Scheduled or In Progress whose visits were all cancelled.
- Ready to complete — requests whose visits are all done, ready for you to open and complete.
- Map (bottom) — open requests plotted at their service address for the dates in view. Drag its handle to resize it, or hide it.
To book a visit, drag a request card onto a technician's row or time slot. The visit lasts as long as the request's Est. Duration (hrs), or 2 hours if that's empty; dropped on a whole day in the month view, it starts at 9:00 AM. To reschedule, drag a visit to another time or technician, or drag its edges to change its length. If the technician already has a visit at that time, the booking is refused and nothing changes. Completed and cancelled visits can't be moved.
Click a visit to see its details and its next step — Start travel, Arrived, or Complete visit — along with Reschedule (technician, start, and end), Cancel visit, and Open service request. Cancelling a visit leaves the request open, so it shows up under Needs reschedule.
The on-site form
If a request has a Form Template, a Form tab appears with that template's fields — text, numbers, dates, dropdowns, checkboxes, text areas, a signature pad, and photos. Some fields fill themselves from the request, such as the site contact or the customer's name. See Request Templates.
Defaults and list
The Service Request Settings dialog lets each user set a Default request type, Default priority, and Default billing method for new requests. The Service Requests list filters on status, type, priority, customer, service agreement, and requested and scheduled dates, and shows each request's Total and Billing status. Copying a request starts a fresh New request with a new number.