This article covers the Dispatch Beta. If you’re using the original Dispatch Board, the steps here don’t apply.
A few minutes of setup makes routing much smoother. Start and end locations fill in automatically, capacity bars show the right numbers, and nobody hits a greyed-out option they can’t explain. Here’s what to check before you build your first route.
Before you start
Find the beta board. Open the Schedule group in the sidebar and click New Dispatch (it has a Beta badge).
Make sure your role has access. A user only sees the Dispatch Board if their role has the Dispatch Board access box checked. After changing a role, have the user log out and back in.
Clock-in users. If you’re required to clock in, you’ll land on the Clock In page first. Clock in and the board opens.
1. Set your company start and end locations
Routes start and end at your company location by default.
Go to Settings → Preferences → Maps & Routes.
Enter a Route Map start address and, if it’s different, an end address.
If you don’t set these, routes use your business address for both ends. You can still change the start or end on any individual route.
2. Set up crews and crew members
Crews and their members drive the lanes on the Board view, so check each one has the right people on it.
Crew locations (optional). If a crew starts or ends the day somewhere other than your company address (a yard or a shop, for example), add a route start and/or end address on the crew’s record. That crew’s routes can then start or end there with one click.
If a crew has no address on its record, the Crew location option still shows in the picker but is greyed out, with a note explaining why.
Employee locations (optional). If someone starts from home, add their street address to their employee record. The Employee location option works when all the stops on a route are assigned to that same employee.
3. Set capacity
Capacity is what powers the bars on the Board view, so you can see at a glance who’s under assigned Budgeted Hours and who’s over.
On each employee’s record, set:
Daily Budgeted Hour Capacity: how many budgeted hours they can take in a day.
Weekly Budgeted Hour Capacity: the most they can take in a week. A weekly cap of 0 means they have no capacity that week, not “unlimited.”
Excluded from capacity: turn this on for anyone who shouldn’t count toward a crew’s capacity.
Two company-wide settings also matter:
Event/Visit Days (Settings → Preferences): the days of the week your company works. Weekly capacity is counted over these days.
Per-day overrides: to change someone’s hours for one day, open the capacity breakdown on the Calendar and edit their hours for that day. The board picks it up automatically.
On the board, capacity reads like 7 / 14 (booked hours over capacity) with Available 7 beside it. When a lane goes over, it reads Over, and a day with zero capacity counts as over.
4. Check your visit locations
The map and drive times work from each visit’s location.
Visits with a usable address show on the map and get drive times.
Visits with no usable location can still be part of a route, but they don’t appear on the map and don’t add drive time. They go last when you Optimize, and the map shows a note counting them.
If a visit isn’t showing on the map, check its address first.
5. Know what the Routes add-on unlocks
Most of the board is available to everyone. The Routes add-on unlocks:
Optimize, which orders stops for you
Save and apply to future weeks, which repeats a route
Printing Directions and the Stops list (the Map prints without it)
Without the add-on, you can still build a route by hand and save it for today. The locked options show a lock.
6. Check permissions
To do this | A user needs |
Open the board | Dispatch Board access on their role |
Build, order, and save routes | Events & Calendar set to Complete, Invoice & Edit |
Pick crew or employee start/end locations | Permission to view Crews and Employees |
Print Directions and the Stops list | The Routes add-on and Complete & Invoice or higher |
Users who can see only their own assigned visits see only those visits on the board, in the lanes, and on the map.