Dispatch Board
The Dispatch Board is a single screen for assigning work across your team. It lays your technicians out as rows and the day or week as columns, so a dispatcher can see everyone's schedule, time off, on-call coverage, calendar events, and scheduled tickets side by side — and assign the waiting work to the right person in a couple of clicks.
Overview
The Dispatch Board lets you:
- See every technician's day or week at a glance — work schedule, approved time off, on-call windows, calendar events, and the tickets already scheduled for them
- Read each technician's capacity at a glance: how many open tickets they hold, and their booked hours versus their working hours
- Work through an Unassigned queue of tickets that still need an owner
- Assign and schedule a waiting ticket by dragging it onto a technician, or with an inline Assign to… picker
- Get a warning when you schedule a ticket onto someone who has approved time off during that window
- Watch the board update itself live as other dispatchers make assignments
Navigate to the Dispatch Board
Open the Dispatch item under the PSA section of the left sidebar (/dispatch). The board appears for anyone with permission to read tickets.
The board layout
The screen has two parts:
- Technicians — a grid with one row per technician and one column per day in the current window.
- Unassigned — a side panel listing tickets that have no owner yet, with a count badge.
Use the controls in the top-right to choose what you see:
| Control | What it does |
|---|---|
| Day / Week | Switch between a single-day view and a seven-day week view |
| < / > | Step backward or forward by one day or one week |
| Today | Jump back to the current date |
The label beside the controls shows the date range currently in view.
Reading a technician row
Each row starts with the technician's name and avatar, followed by a quick capacity summary:
- The number of open tickets they currently hold.
- Their booked hours / working hours for the visible window — for example
6h/8h. If their booked time exceeds their working time, the figure turns red to flag that they are overbooked.
Each day cell for that technician can show:
| Marker | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Time off badge | The technician has approved time off that day |
| On-call badge | The technician is on call during that day |
| Ticket chips | Tickets scheduled (or due) that day, shown as #number subject |
| Events count | How many calendar events the technician has that day |
Assigning a ticket
You can assign work straight from the Unassigned queue. Assigning a ticket also schedules it at the start of the window you are currently viewing.
You need permission to update tickets to assign work. Without it, the board is read-only — the drag handles and the Assign to… pickers do not appear.
Drag and drop
- Pick up a ticket card from the Unassigned panel using its grip handle.
- Drag it onto any day cell in the target technician's row. Cells highlight while you drag.
- Drop it. The ticket is assigned to that technician and scheduled, and the board refreshes.
Inline assign
If you would rather not drag, each unassigned ticket card has an Assign to… dropdown. Choose a technician from the list and the ticket is assigned and scheduled immediately.
Time-off conflicts
If you schedule a ticket onto a technician who has approved time off during that window, the assignment still goes through, but a warning tells you there is a conflict so you can decide whether to reassign. Assignments without a conflict show a simple confirmation.
Live updates
The board refreshes itself automatically. When any dispatcher assigns a ticket, every open Dispatch Board updates to reflect the change — so two people working the queue at once always see the same, current picture without having to reload.
Permissions
The Dispatch Board reuses your existing ticket permissions; there are no separate dispatch permissions to grant.
| Capability | Permission |
|---|---|
| View the board (and see the Dispatch nav item) | Tickets — read |
| Assign work from the board (drag-and-drop and the inline picker) | Tickets — update |
Tips
- Set work schedules and time off first. The board's capacity hints and time-off conflict warnings are only as accurate as each technician's My Schedule and approved time-off entries — see Schedule.
- Use Week view to balance load. Spotting an overbooked technician (the red booked/working figure) is easiest across a full week.
- Watch for the time-off warning. It does not block the assignment, so confirm it is what you intended before moving on.