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Moving work between people

Give a visit to someone else, put it back for anyone to take, assign work a recurring schedule has proposed, and tell a customer when their promised time moves.

All of this happens on the Chart view of the Dispatch tab and needs an admin account. Technicians can claim open work and turn down work they were given, but they cannot move work onto someone else's day.

Drag a visit to another lane

To move a visit by dragging:

  1. Drag the visit's card — from a lane or from the Open pool.
  2. Hold it over the destination lane at the time you want it to start. After a moment the board previews where the card, and the visits after it, will land.
  3. Release.

What you'll see. The card lands in the new lane and a message confirms Reassigned to and the person's name. That person's day is laid out again from the drop: visits after it that now overlap are pushed later, and any that no longer fit before the end of their day go back to the Open pool, marked couldn't fit (was their name). A message names the customers who were pushed later or sent back, so you know who to call.

Dragging within the same lane changes the time and, as with any drop, resets the visit's status as described below.

How visits with a promised time behave. A visit with a time promised to the customer (lock icon) never moves because of someone else's move — the day is laid out around it. When you drop an ordinary visit onto the time a promised visit needs (including the drive to it), the board places it just before or just after, whichever side you dropped on. It refuses the drop when:

  • the gap before the promised visit is too small — Can't fit a 30-minute visit between one time and another;
  • you drop a promised visit where it would collide with another promised visit — the message names that visit and its promised time.

The visit is not moved when a drop is refused.

What happens to the visit's status. A visit that was Confirmed, On the way or Declined goes back to Scheduled, waiting for the new person to confirm it. In progress, Completed and Skipped are kept as they are.

Every card can be dragged, including one that is in progress. Moving a started visit takes it off the phone of the technician standing on the job, without a confirmation step. Leave started work where it is.

To move a visit to another day, open it and change Scheduled date — dragging only moves work within the day on screen. See Booking and changing visits.

Give work back to the pool

Unassigned work in the Open pool is visible to every technician and can be claimed by any of them. A visit a technician declined stays off other technicians' schedules until you place it or return it to the pool.

To put a visit back in the pool, do one of:

  • Drag its card onto the Open pool. An empty pool reads No unassigned visits. Drop a card here to unassign.
  • Open the visit and choose Move to open pool.
  • Open the visit, set Technician to — Open pool —, and choose Save.

What you'll see. The card leaves the lane and appears in the pool. A drag confirms with Returned to pool; Move to open pool confirms with Moved to open pool. The technician who had it gets a notification. Its status goes back to Scheduled unless it was already in progress, completed or skipped.

On a phone-width screen held upright, the open pool collapses to an Open pool bar at the bottom of the board. Tap it to open the list.

Cover for someone who is out today

When someone calls in sick, move their routed work in one step, then place the rest of their day by hand.

To cover for someone who is out:

  1. Open Dispatch → Routes. On the card of each route they hold, pick the colleague under Reassign to…. The route's booked visits from today onward, and the visits its recurring schedules propose from now on, go to that person. See Hand a whole route to someone else.
  2. Back on the Chart view, for everything else left in the absent person's lane, drag each card to another lane, or open it and choose Move to open pool. Leave In progress work alone.

Handing the route over does not notify anyone. Tell the colleague and the person who is out. Visits moved one at a time on the board do send notifications.

When they are back, pick them under Reassign to… on the route's card again. The route's visits from that day on that are still with the stand-in move back to them; visits you gave to someone else by hand stay where they are.

Assign a visit without dragging

To assign from the visit itself:

  1. Choose the visit's card to open it.
  2. Pick a name under Technician. Admins are listed with (admin) after their name.
  3. Choose Save.

What you'll see. The visit moves to that person's lane at its scheduled time, and their day is laid out again exactly as for a drag — including the message naming anyone pushed later or sent back to the pool.

Assign a proposed visit

Visits a recurring schedule projects for a day, before they are saved as real visits, appear as faded proposed cards with the status Upcoming — in the lane of the schedule's or route's technician, or in the open pool. Opening one shows Proposed from a recurring schedule — not yet assigned. with the schedule's details, read-only.

To assign a proposed visit:

  1. Choose the card to open it.
  2. Under Assign to technician, pick a name.
  3. Choose Assign. Or drag the card onto a lane instead.

What you'll see. Visit assigned to and the name. The visit lands at its proposed time on that person's day, and their day is laid out again as for a drag. Assigning this way does not name the customers pushed later or sent back to the pool, so check the lane afterwards.

A proposed visit has no Save or Move to open pool: close it to leave it where it is. To change who a schedule's visits go to from now on, change the schedule — see Changing a schedule. At an address on a route, the route's technician takes the schedule's visits whoever the schedule names, so change the route instead — see Hand a whole route to someone else.

Tell a customer their time has moved

A visit with a promised time is flagged when you place it on someone's day at a time other than the one promised — by dragging it, or by saving a new time, date or technician on it — and the customer has Notify client when committed times shift turned on (see Visit length and arrival times). Moving it by drag says so straight away: Shifted the customer's commitment from one time to another — customer notification required. Lupa does not message the customer; somebody has to.

To deal with a flagged visit:

  1. Find the red bell icon on the visit's card. The Open pool header shows how many visits need client notification.
  2. Choose the bell. Client notification needed shows the Client-committed time, the time it is Now scheduled for, and the Time since shift. Show client notes opens the customer's notes, if they have any.
  3. Call or message the customer.
  4. Choose one:
    • I've notified the client — the customer knows. The promised time on the visit stays as it was.
    • Client agreed to new time — the new time becomes the promised time.

What you'll see. The flag clears and the bell goes from the card. The technician on the visit was also notified when it was flagged, and can clear it from their own schedule; whoever acts first clears it for both.