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What does a dispatcher need from field service software?
A dispatcher needs one board that shows every technician's day, the unassigned jobs and a live map together, with drive time, skills or certifications and the parts on each van beside each name, so the right person gets each job in one drag. It must absorb an emergency into a full day and show what moves as a result, tell the customer the new arrival time without a phone call, and route after-hours calls to whoever is on call. AI can draft the assignments, the reshuffle and the customer texts; the dispatcher should still approve them, because the dispatcher knows things the system does not.
- Test the board with your busiest real day, not a sample company with six jobs.
- Skills, certifications and van stock must filter who is offered the job, not sit in a notes field.
- An emergency should show the knock-on effect on the rest of the day before you commit it.
- Every schedule change should update the technician's phone and the customer's ETA text on its own.
- AI suggestions are useful only if you can see why, accept or override, and undo.
If one owner books four technicians from a calendar and it works, you do not need a dispatch board yet. This page is for the person whose whole job is the board.
Facts checked as of November 2026. Sources at the end of the page.
Step by step
A dispatcher's day, and what the software has to do at each step
The order is the same in HVAC, plumbing, electrical, facilities and cleaning: plan, react, communicate, close out.
1. The morning re-plan (before 7am)
Check who is in, who is sick and what came in overnight. The software should show yesterday's unfinished jobs, today's unassigned work in a tray, and each technician's first job and start point (home or depot). A sick call should let you move one technician's whole day in one action, not twelve drags.
2. Matching jobs to people
For each job: who holds the skill or certificate (refrigerant, gas, high voltage, confined space), who is closest, who has the part on the van, and who already has work at the same site. The board should filter on these, not leave the dispatcher to remember them.
3. Routing the day
Order each technician's stops by real driving distance, keep fixed appointment windows fixed, and slot due preventive maintenance next to a breakdown call in the same area. Drive time should be visible per job and per day.
4. The emergency into a full day
A no-heat, a flood or a P1 commercial call arrives at 10am. The dispatcher needs the closest qualified technician, the jobs that would slip if they go, and which of those can move to another tech or another day without breaking an arrival window or an SLA.
5. Telling customers
Every change that moves an arrival time should text the customer the new window, and an on-the-way text with a tracking link should go when the technician sets off. The office should not be taking where-are-you calls.
6. Watching the day
Status from the technician's phone (on the way, on site, paused waiting for parts, complete) shows on the board in real time. Jobs running long, technicians idle and visits at risk of missing their window should be flagged, not discovered.
7. After hours and on call
Calls outside hours go to the on-call technician by rota, with a backup if they do not accept within a set time, and land on the board as jobs so the morning dispatcher sees what happened overnight.
Where it breaks
Why dispatchers outgrow their tools
These are the problems dispatchers and operations leads described on our sales calls, by trade and size.
Hours a day spent placing jobs
A commercial facility maintenance firm with about 20 self-performing technicians described someone spending three hours a day scheduling eight of them, exporting lists and checking maps by hand. A labour provider with 35 to 40 technicians ran everything from one person's master calendar, at about an hour a day per person scheduled.
The board cannot see what the dispatcher needs
A commercial electrical and low-voltage contractor could not see that two jobs were at the same site when booking them, so the same technician was sent twice. A commercial HVAC and refrigeration contractor running 40 to 50 jobs a day had no drive time on the board at all.
Breakdowns and PM planned separately
A printer service company with technicians across a city sent them to two breakdown calls in one area while the due preventive maintenance at the building next door was booked for another day.
One change rebuilds the whole day
A kitchen deep-cleaning company described reschedules cascading through the week. A residential cleaning company said one cleaner cancelling meant recalibrating the entire schedule by hand.
Manual call registration
An equipment service business with about 150 field engineers registered every complaint in its CRM and then assigned the nearest engineer by hand, call by call.
The options
How the main boards handle it
| Tool | Board and assignment | Routing | AI or assisted dispatch |
|---|---|---|---|
| ServiceTitan | Daily and Weekly Dispatch Boards with a Job Tray for unassigned work; dispatching is included with ServiceTitan. Skills for technicians and job types need account configuration through Technical Support. | Adaptive Capacity (in Core) offers booking windows from shifts, zones, skills and job load. | Dispatch Pro is a separately priced Pro product. Its Assist mode generates suggestions you review and approve; it will not suggest an on-call technician or multi-day jobs. |
| Jobber | Day and week schedule views with drag and drop; a map can sit beside the schedule. | Route optimization on Connect, Grow and Plus, admin users only, on Jobber.com not the app; it reorders anytime visits (no fixed start time) by driving distance, up to 7 days at once. | Not part of route optimization. |
| Housecall Pro | Drag and drop on a color-coded calendar; technician locations alongside scheduled jobs. | Says it routes techs by location automatically. | Dispatch the closest tech to no-cool emergencies from a live map, with On my way texts and GPS tracking. |
| FieldEdge | Drag a job to a technician; statuses pending, traveling, working, completed; dispatch priority, tags and locations on the board. | Not described on the dispatch board pages we read. | Not described on the dispatch board pages we read. |
| Fieldproxy | Dispatch board and map set up around your own job types, statuses and rules; skills, certifications and van stock used when suggesting who goes. | Route planning on the board. | AI agents draft the schedule and the reshuffle, a person approves, and changes can be undone. |
As of November 2026, from each vendor's own help center or product pages (sources below). Plans and features change; check them on the day you buy.
Worked example
A worked example: a sick call and an emergency on the same morning
Say a commercial HVAC contractor has 14 technicians and one dispatcher, and 58 jobs on today's board. These are made-up numbers to show the method.
6:40am: Tom calls in sick with six jobs booked, two of them quarterly PM visits on a contract with a 4-hour response SLA for breakdowns but flexible PM dates. A good board lets the dispatcher select Tom's day and ask for it to be spread: the four reactive jobs go to the two nearest technicians with the refrigerant certificate and room in their day, the two PM visits move to Thursday inside the contract window, and six customers get a text with the new window. The dispatcher reviews the proposal, swaps one job because she knows that site wants the same technician every time, and confirms.
10:15am: a supermarket reports a freezer alarm, a P1 with a 4-hour on-site SLA. The board shows three qualified technicians within 40 minutes. Sending the closest one means his 1pm and 3pm jobs slip past their windows; sending the second closest costs 15 minutes more driving but nothing slips. The dispatcher sends the second, and the supermarket gets an on-the-way text with a tracking link.
The test for any software: run exactly this in the demo, with your own technicians, skills and contract rules. Count the clicks and the phone calls it would take.
Before you buy
What to check before you buy
Good signs
- Unassigned jobs, every technician's day and the map are visible on one screen.
- Skills, certificates (with expiry), zones and van stock filter who is suggested.
- Moving one technician's whole day is one action, and you see what changes before you confirm.
- Drive time shows per job and per day, by real roads, not straight lines.
- Changes reach the technician's phone and the customer's ETA text automatically.
- AI suggestions show their reasons, can be overridden, and can be undone.
- An on-call rota with a backup for after-hours calls.
Red flags
- Skills or certificates are a free-text note the dispatcher has to read.
- Route optimization only works on visits with no fixed time, and most of yours have one.
- AI dispatch is a separate paid product, or changes the board with no review step.
- Customers are told about delays only when someone remembers to call.
- The demo board has six jobs on it.
In Fieldproxy
Setting it up in Fieldproxy
Fieldproxy's board is set up around your job types, statuses and rules during setup, live within a day, then changed on request.
The board and the map
Unassigned jobs, each technician's day and live locations together, with drag and drop and route planning (see /ai-scheduling-dispatch-software).
Who should go
The Dispatch agent (/agents/dispatch-agent) suggests the right technician by distance, skills and certifications, the stock on their van, and cost. Skills and certificate fields are set up as real fields, e.g. 'Refrigerant certified' with an expiry date.
Moving a day in one request
In Command Center (/agents/command-center) the dispatcher types or says 'Tom is off sick, spread his day', sees the proposal (who gets which job, which visits move, which customers are texted) and confirms. Every change can be undone.
Emergencies in their own lane
Emergency job types sit at the top of the board apart from routine work, and the Watcher agent (/agents/watcher-agent) flags jobs at risk of missing their SLA or arrival window.
Customers kept informed
Booking, on-the-way, arriving and completed texts with a tracking link, sent from the job's status. The Calling agent (/agents/calling-agent) can make outbound confirmations.
After hours
The Calling agent answers out-of-hours calls, books the on-call technician by rota with a backup, and leaves the job and a call summary on the board for the morning.
The morning briefing
The Scheduler agent (/agents/scheduler-agent) emails a daily standup: unassigned jobs, overdue visits, technicians off and yesterday's unfinished work.
How switching works
How switching to Fieldproxy works
We move your data over and set the system up to the way you already work. Fieldproxy replaces the old tool; it does not run alongside it.
Bring your busiest day
Send us a real day's jobs, technicians, skills, zones and contract rules, and tell us what goes wrong on that day.We set up the board around it
Your job types, statuses, skills, emergency lanes and customer texts are configured before the demo, so you dispatch your own day in it.Run it side by side
Dispatch a week in Fieldproxy with technicians on the app, while the old board stays as a reference.
FAQ
Questions people ask
- Should AI dispatch jobs on its own?
- For most service companies, not yet. Let AI draft the assignments, the reshuffle and the customer texts, and have the dispatcher approve them, because the dispatcher knows things the data does not, such as a customer who always wants the same technician. ServiceTitan's Dispatch Pro, for example, has an Assist mode where you review and approve suggestions.
- What is the difference between scheduling and dispatching?
- Scheduling puts work on the calendar ahead of time; dispatching sends a specific technician to a specific job today and adjusts as the day changes. A dispatcher does both, so the software should hold the plan and the live day on one board.
- How many technicians can one dispatcher handle?
- It depends on job length, how many emergencies come in and how much the board does for you. The useful test is how many minutes the dispatcher spends per job placed and per change made, measured on your own day in each tool you try.
- Does route optimization work with fixed appointment times?
- Check this in the demo. Some tools only reorder visits without a fixed start time; Jobber's route optimization, for example, applies to anytime visits only.
- How do I stop the same technician being sent to one site twice?
- Use software that shows every open job at a site when you book or assign, and that lets you combine visits at the same location.
- Can technicians see changes without the dispatcher calling them?
- They should. Every change on the board should update the technician's app straight away, with a notification, and the customer's arrival text if the time moved.
Sources
Competitor details on this page come from the vendors' own pages and documentation, checked as of November 2026. Plans and prices change, so check the vendor's current page before you decide.
- ServiceTitan Help: Dispatching home (boards, Job Tray, skills setup): https://help.servicetitan.com/docs/dispatching.md
- ServiceTitan Help: Plan your team's capacity (Adaptive Capacity): https://help.servicetitan.com/residential-s-r/docs/plan-your-team-s-capacity-1.md
- ServiceTitan Help: Use Dispatch Assist in Dispatch Pro: https://help.servicetitan.com/docs/use-dispatch-assist-in-dispatch-pro.md
- ServiceTitan: Dispatch Pro product page: https://www.servicetitan.com/features/pro/dispatch
- Jobber Help: Route optimization, new schedule: https://help.getjobber.com/en/articles/route-optimization-new-schedule/
- Housecall Pro: HVAC scheduling and dispatch software: https://www.housecallpro.com/industries/hvac-software-mech/
- Housecall Pro: GPS tracking and dispatch for HVAC teams with 10+ technicians: https://www.housecallpro.com/resources/hvac-gps-tracking-dispatch/
- FieldEdge: a closer look at the dispatch board: https://fieldedge.com/blog/closer-look-dispatch-board/
Related
Keep reading
- What an operations manager needs from field service software
- What a finance team needs from field service software
- Slotting a new job into a recurring route
- Tracking SLA response and fix times
- What is the best field service software for a 5-10 person HVAC team?
- Cheaper ServiceTitan alternatives for small plumbing and HVAC companies, without payment processor lock-in