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Booking and changing visits

Put a one-off visit on the board, change it when the customer calls back, and remove one that should never have been booked.

Booking and changing visits on the Dispatch tab needs an admin account. Work that repeats is set up once as a recurring schedule instead — see Recurring schedules.

Book a visit

To book a visit:

  1. Open Dispatch and choose Add Visit.
  2. In Service location, pick the address the work happens at. The list is of addresses, not customers: a customer with several sites appears once per site.
  3. Set Date. It starts on the day the board is showing.
  4. Set Scheduled time. It starts at 09:00 — change it before saving.
  5. Adjust Duration (min) and Travel (min). They start at 30 and 15 on every booking.
  6. If you promised the customer a time, fill in Client-requested time.
  7. Add anything about this one visit under About this visit only — access details belong on the property.
  8. Choose Create.

What you'll see. The visit appears in the Open pool on its date. The booking form has no technician field, so every new visit starts unassigned — putting it on someone's day is the next step, covered in Moving work between people.

If you fill in Client-requested time. That time becomes the visit's scheduled time, whatever Scheduled time says, and the visit is treated as fixed: a lock icon on its card, and later moves on the board work around it rather than through it. See Visit length and arrival times.

If the property has access instructions. Once you pick the address, the form shows them read-only under Property access (already recorded). If it has none, the form asks for them under Access & standing instructions for this property; what you type there is saved to the address, for every visit there, not to this one visit.

If the visit is refused.

  • Select a service location for the visit — no address was picked.
  • Could not create the visit — this service location has no usable address to route to. — the address is missing or could not be found on a map. Correct the address on the service location, then book again. See Accounts and service locations.

Change a booked visit

To change a visit:

  1. On the Chart view, choose the visit's card to open it.
  2. Change any of Technician, Scheduled date, Scheduled time, Est. Duration (min), Travel Time (min) or the visit's note.
  3. Choose Save.

What you'll see. The board redraws with the visit in its new place. When you change the time, date or technician of a visit that is on someone's day, the rest of that day is laid out again around it, and Lupa names any other customers whose visits moved later to make room, or that no longer fit the day and went back to the open pool. Changing only the length, travel time or note lays the day out again without naming anyone.

If you change the date. A confirmation reads Move this visit from the old date to the new one. Choose Confirm to go ahead or Cancel to go back.

If the visit has a promised time. The Scheduled time field shows Client-committed: and the promised time. Saving while Scheduled time differs from the promised time asks you to confirm first — even if you changed only another field on a visit that had already been moved off its promise. The confirmation names the time that was promised to the client and says the new time overrides that promise. The promised time itself is kept on the visit.

If the time won't fit. Moving a visit into a gap before a fixed visit that is too small to hold it is refused with the gap it could not fit: Can't fit a 30-minute visit between one time and another. Moving a visit with a promised time onto another visit's promised time is refused, naming that visit and the time it was promised.

What the note field is for. The note is about this visit only. Skip and hand-back reasons are added to it automatically, so anything you type lands beneath them. Standing access instructions for the address are shown below the note, read-only; change them on the property. See Pets and site details.

Remove a visit

These steps are for visits booked with Add Visit. A visit that comes from a recurring schedule is removed differently — see Drop one visit from a recurring schedule.

There is no delete on the dispatch board. Deleting is done from the Tech schedule, which shows your own visits and the open pool.

To delete a visit:

  1. If the visit is on someone's day, open it on Dispatch and choose Move to open pool.
  2. From Dispatch, choose Tech schedule in the banner at the top.
  3. Find the visit and choose the trash button on it.
  4. Delete Visit asks Permanently delete this visit to the customer. Choose Delete.

Deleting is only offered on admin accounts; technician accounts have no trash button.

Delete work that was never real. Work that was real and didn't happen is skipped by the technician instead, so the record of it stays — see Working a visit.

Drop one visit from a recurring schedule

When a customer on a recurring schedule doesn't need one visit — they are away that week, for example — skip that visit on its day.

To drop one visit of a recurring schedule:

  1. On the day of the visit, open Dispatch and choose the visit's card.
  2. Put the visit on your own day. On a proposed card, pick yourself under Assign to technician and choose Assign. On a visit already on someone's day, pick yourself under Technician and choose Save.
  3. Choose Tech schedule in the banner at the top.
  4. Find the visit and choose Skip.
  5. Enter a Reason for skipping — for example "Customer away" — and choose Skip.

What you'll see. The visit moves to Skipped, and the reason is added to its note. A skipped visit stays on the record and is not billed. The schedule carries on as normal from its next visit.

To stop a schedule's visits for longer than one visit, pause it instead — see Pausing and ending a schedule.