The Scheduling Planner turns next month's due maintenance and open work into a ready-to-go plan. The usual flow is: pick the period, choose what to include, group nearby sites, assign technicians and days, check the estimated day, then create the jobs.
1. Open the planner
Go to Dispatching and click the Scheduling Planner tab. The first time, it opens on next calendar month. After that it remembers your last view, grouping and period.
2. Choose the period
Set the start and end dates, or use the arrows to move back or forward by the same length (for example one month).
The refresh button reloads the items.
Limits are set per company: by default the period can start up to 30 days ago, end up to 180 days ahead, and cover at most 60 days.
Visit days can only be today or later. You can't schedule a visit in the past.
3. Choose what to include (Sources)
Source | What it brings in |
Assets due for maintenance | Assets whose next maintenance date falls in the period |
Unscheduled jobs | Jobs that have no date yet |
Unassigned jobs | Jobs that have no technician yet |
Rejected jobs | Jobs a technician rejected |
Job requests | Requests from customers. Choose Requested date up to the end of the period or All new job requests |
If a job request was created from an asset's maintenance task, that asset appears only once. If your user role can't see a source, the planner shows "No permission for" and the source name.
Some items arrive partly planned:
Job requests with a requested date in the period get that date. If the customer asked for morning, afternoon or evening, the start time comes from the planner settings.
Jobs that already have a date in the period keep that date and start time.
Assets with exactly one preferred technician are pre-assigned to that technician.
4. Read the summary and technician cards
The line above the cards shows how many items are in the period. The colored bar and the buttons on the right show the plan status of every item:
Plan status | Meaning |
Unplanned | No technician yet |
Needs day | Has a technician, but no visit day (or the day is in the past) |
Ready | Has a technician and a visit day. Ready items become jobs when you click Create jobs |
Missing client | The item's client isn't in Repair-CRM, so it can't become a job. Shown only when it happens |
Click a status button to show only those items. Click it again to show all.
Each technician card shows that person's planned visits, the number of days, and the estimated miles driven. If any of their days runs past working hours, the card says how many days are over. Click a card to show only that technician's items. The Unassigned card shows the items nobody has yet. You can also drop items onto any card (see step 7).
5. Group nearby sites
Use Group by to sort the list into groups:
Group by | How items are grouped |
Nearby area | Sites close to each other, labeled A, B, C and named after their main cities. Items without an address location go into a No location group |
ZIP prefix | The first three digits of the ZIP code |
Part # / type | The asset's part number, or the job type |
Technician | The assigned technician |
Visit day | The planned day |
Source | Asset, job request, job status or added customer |
No grouping | One list |
When you group by Nearby area, the Area within slider sets how far apart sites in one area can be (2 to 25 miles). A smaller distance gives more, tighter areas. Each group header lists its ZIP codes and how far apart its sites are.
Click the arrow on a group header to collapse it. Tick the group's checkbox to select all of its items.
6. Assign technicians and days
There are several ways to plan, and you can mix them:
One row at a time: pick a technician and a visit day in the row.
A whole area: click a technician's initials next to Assign group on the group header.
Several items at once: select rows (tick the checkboxes or click the row), then use the bar at the bottom of the screen.
Drag and drop: see step 7.
Auto-plan: see step 9.
The selection bar lets you assign the selected items to a technician, unassign them, set or clear their visit day, or clear their plan. The × deselects everything.
In the visit day list, days after an asset's due date are marked late, and weekend days are marked with an asterisk (*).
7. Drag and drop
Drag a row or card onto a technician card to assign it, or onto Unassigned to remove the technician. If the item you drag is selected, all selected items move together.
On the card board you can drop items into a technician's column, or (on the board by visit day) into a day's column. Dropping into No visit day clears the day.
8. Check start times, durations and the route
Once an item has a technician and a day, the planner estimates that technician's day:
The day starts at the working day start (8:00 AM by default) from the technician's address, or from the company address if the technician has none.
Visits are put in the shortest route order, nearest site first.
Travel time is the straight-line distance at the average speed in the planner settings, so treat it as an estimate. Start times are rounded up to the next 5 minutes.
In the table, the Start column shows the estimate under the field (for example ≈ 9:20–10:20). Type a time to fix the start of a visit; the other visits are planned around it. If the technician can't get there in time from the previous visit, the row says Cannot reach in time. If the day ends after the working day end, the technician card and the day show it as over.
Duration (min) comes from the planner's default duration (60 minutes), or from the job's own duration for existing jobs. Change it per row as needed.
9. Let Auto-plan do the first pass
Click Auto-plan to plan every item that has no visit day yet. It works like this:
It plans area by area, starting with the biggest area.
Each item keeps the technician it already has. Otherwise it goes to the asset's preferred technician, or to the technician who already has most of that area, or to the technician with the fewest visits.
Visits go on working days (Monday to Friday) from tomorrow, in route order. When a technician's working day is full, the next visit moves to their next working day.
Items you already planned keep their technician and day. Auto-plan is grayed out when every item already has a visit day. Click Undo if you don't like the result.
10. Plan on the card board
Click Cards to see each item as a card. Choose By technician (a column per technician plus Unassigned) or By visit day (a column per day plus No visit day). Inside each column, cards are grouped by your Group by choice. Each card shows the client, the asset or job, the area, the technician, the day with the estimated start time, and the duration.
The board by visit day shows the days that have visits plus the next ten working days, and warns when a day runs over working hours.
11. Plan on the map
Click Map to see every site on a map, with the list on the right.
Markers take the technician's color. A dashed outline means the item isn't planned yet. The number is the visit's order in that technician's day.
When you group by Nearby area, each area is drawn as a circle.
Each technician's day is drawn as a line from their starting point through their visits.
Click a marker to select it and see a short summary. Double-click it to open the details.
Click an item in the list to move the map to it.
12. See the details and history
Click the ⓘ icon next to a client name to open the details panel: client, address and contact, asset information (type, part number, serial number, next maintenance date), the plan, and the last completed visits for that asset (or for the client when there's no asset). The arrow icon next to it opens the asset, the job, or the job request in its own form.
13. Add a customer visit that isn't in the list
Click Add customer to plan a visit for any client, for example a callback. Choose the client, the contact, the location (the client's address or one of their saved locations), a short job description and the duration, then click Add to plan. The visit shows up with the source Customer and is planned like any other item.
14. Search, filters and Undo
Search looks in the client name, address, ZIP code, city, part number, description and job number.
Click a technician card or a plan status button to filter. Click again to clear the filter.
Undo (or Ctrl+Z / Cmd+Z) steps back through your last 50 changes.
Click anywhere on a row or card to select it.
15. Planner settings
Click the gear icon to open the planner settings.
Setting | Default | What it does |
Earliest period start (days from today) | −30 | How far back a period can start. Company-wide |
Latest period end (days from today) | 180 | How far ahead a period can end. Company-wide |
Working day start / end | 8:00 AM / 5:00 PM | Used for start times, the over-the-day warning and Auto-plan |
Default duration (min) | 60 | Length of a visit unless you change it |
Average speed | 19 mph | Used to estimate travel time between sites |
Requested morning / afternoon / evening start | 8:00 AM / 1:00 PM / 5:00 PM | Start time used when a job request asks for a part of the day |
Job type / subtype for new jobs | none | Set on every job the planner creates |
Description prefix for new jobs | none | Text added at the top of each new job's description |
Save as company default saves the settings for everyone. Use only in this browser keeps your changes on this computer only. The period limits always come from the company default.
16. Create the jobs
When the plan looks right, click Create jobs. The number on the button is how many items are Ready.
The window lists each technician's day in route order with the estimated times. Items marked New job get a new job; items marked Assign are existing jobs that get the technician, date and times. Then click Create jobs.
A new job gets the technician, visit day, start and end time, the site address and location, the job type and subtype from the settings, and a description built from the prefix, the asset name, part number, serial number and asset description. The asset is linked to the job, and a job request is linked to its new job.
Status and customer emails follow your normal job workflow settings.
Don't keep a new job form open in another tab while the jobs are being created. If there's an unsaved job draft, the planner asks you to save or cancel it first.
Each line shows a check mark when it's done, or the error if it failed. Created jobs can't be undone from the planner; change them in the job or the calendar.
Created items leave the plan, and the Calendar view and Planner tabs refresh. Items without a client in Repair-CRM are skipped.
Good to know
Your draft plan is saved in this browser. It's kept until you create the jobs, but it doesn't follow you to another computer or browser, and other users don't see it.
Locations. The planner uses the coordinates saved on the asset or client. Addresses without coordinates are looked up automatically. If an address can't be found, the item goes into No location; it can still be planned, but it isn't on the map or in the route estimate.
Distances are estimates. Travel times use straight-line distance and an average speed, not road routing. Raise or lower the average speed to match your area.