The Scheduling and Dispatch SOP

Purpose

Define how jobs get scheduled and assigned to technicians each day. A standard operating procedure (SOP) is the written, repeatable process everyone follows the same way, so the board holds together regardless of who is dispatching. Scheduling is where a shop wins or loses its day. A good board sends the right tech to the right job in a route that does not zigzag the county, with the customer expecting them. A bad one double-books a tech, sends a specialist to a basic call and a junior to a job over his head, and leaves customers waiting past a window nobody confirmed. This SOP makes the board a repeatable process instead of one dispatcher's memory.

Scope

Applies to building and running the daily job schedule:

• Assigning booked jobs to technicians
• Sequencing and routing each tech's day
• Handling reschedules, add-ons, and emergencies against a live board

Excludes taking the original booking (intake) and the long-range calendar for large planned installs, which are scheduled separately then fed into the daily board.

Roles and responsibilities

Procedure

Step 1: Build the board the day before

The next day's board is built before everyone goes home, not scrambled together at dawn. Lay out every booked job against the available techs and their working hours. Building ahead surfaces the gap, a job with no tech, or a tech with no work, while there is still time to fix it.

Step 2: Match each job to the right tech

Assign by fit, not just by who is open:

• Skill: the job's difficulty against the tech's level and certifications
• Territory: the tech already working that side of the map
• Continuity: the tech who has been to that customer before, when it helps
• Capacity: realistic job durations, not wishful ones

Sending an under-qualified tech to save a slot produces a callback that costs two visits.

Step 3: Sequence each route by geography and priority

Order each tech's stops to cut drive time, honor time-sensitive commitments, and front-load anything with a hard window. A tight route fits more work in the same day and burns less fuel. Leave slack between jobs so one overrun does not topple every stop behind it.

Step 4: Confirm windows with customers

Every customer gets a confirmed arrival window before the day starts, by the channel they prefer. An unconfirmed window is a no-access call waiting to happen: the tech arrives to an empty house because the customer never knew when to expect him. Confirmation also catches the cancellation before the truck rolls.

Step 5: Release the board to the techs

Push each tech their day: the stops, the sequence, the customer details, and any special notes (gate code, dog, access instructions). Confirm each tech has received and reviewed it. A board the dispatcher can see but the tech cannot is not dispatched.

Step 6: Manage the live board through the day

The board is never static. As the day moves:

• Update job status so the board reflects reality, not the morning plan
• Slot emergencies and add-ons into the nearest capable tech's route
• When a job overruns, reflow the stops behind it and re-confirm affected customers
• Escalate to the manager when the work will not fit without overtime or coverage

Step 7: Roll over and close the day

At day end, account for every job: completed, or moved with a reason. Incomplete jobs get rescheduled onto a future board, not left floating. A job that falls off the board without a decision is a customer who never gets called back.

Records and retention

Keep the daily board history: what was scheduled, what completed, and what moved. The pattern shows chronic overruns by job type, capacity gaps by day, and which reschedules trace back to bad time estimates.

Common dispatch failures

• Board built at dawn. No time to fix the gaps it reveals.
• Unconfirmed windows. No-access calls and wasted trips.
• No slack in the route. One overrun collapses the rest of the day.
• Incomplete jobs left floating. They vanish until the customer complains.

References

• Trade-standard practice for field-service scheduling and routing
• See related: The Lead Intake and Assignment SOP
• See related: The Emergency Call Triage SOP
• See related: The Vehicle Inspection and Maintenance SOP