Dispatch (preview): planning crews and checking them before they go

Clients and job sites

• Dispatch → Setup → Clients & sites: add the client the work is for, with a contact and the PPE notes the crew should read.
• Open the client to add its job sites. A job site is the client's pad, plant or lease, not one of your own Locations — but each one rolls up to one of your Locations for stats and wind limits.
• Say where a site is with an address, a GPS pin, an LSD, a note ("2 km past the Shell gate"), or Set on arrival. Set on arrival means the first FLHA filed there from a dispatch saves the site's pin — the site's, once, never a worker's track.
• Add the gate and access instructions, the muster point and the site rep. The dispatched crew sees these on their job card.

What a client requires

On the client's page, list the tickets it requires at every site; on a site's page, anything extra for that site. A site orientation is a certificate type too — set it up under Certificates with how long it lasts, and each worker's orientation then expires on its own like any ticket.

Hats and ticket rules

• Hats are the roles a job needs on the day — lead hand, first aider, signal person and so on. They are not job titles; anyone holding the ticket can wear one. The lead hand files the crew's FLHA.
• Ticket rules say which ticket a critical risk needs, which ticket a hat needs, and which operator ticket a type of unit needs.
• A worker's own position requirements are checked as they are set under Positions.

Planning a job

1. New job: the day, start and end, the client's site, and optionally the supervisor on the day. It is saved as a draft and nobody is told.
2. Tick the job's critical risks (only the ones your FLHA uses are offered), set how many of each hat it needs, add the crew and the hats each person wears, and add the units with who runs each one.
3. Read the compliance check. Fix what you can; anything else that blocks needs an override with a reason of at least five characters.
4. Send. The crew and the supervisor are told, each unit's daily check goes on its operator's FieldView for the day, and the check is kept exactly as it stood.

The compliance check

Tickets are judged on the job's day, not today. Weather isn't part of the check yet.

Changing, cancelling, deleting

• Change a sent job and send the changes. Only the people a change touches are told again, with a one-line summary of what changed.
• A draft that won't go ahead is deleted. A sent job is a record: it is cancelled with a reason, everyone on it is told, and it stays on the board.
• The board shows each job's status, its readiness, how many of the crew have seen it, and when it has changes that haven't been sent.

The desk: build the job by dragging

• Dispatch has three tabs: Board (one day's jobs side by side, with a 14-day strip to jump between days), Calendar (today and the next 30 days) and Setup (clients and sites, hats and ticket rules, the company's desk layout). People sit on the left by position and equipment on the right by type.
• Click a job to open its sheet over the middle of the desk. The people and equipment either side stay in reach, so you can keep dragging into the open sheet. ◀ ▶ step through the day's jobs; ✕, Esc or the browser's back button close it. On a phone the sheet fills the screen and the People and Equipment tabs stay one tap away.
• Everything on an open job sheet changes at once and waits for one Save: drop people and units, take them off, tick their days, edit Where (the site, its location, gate, muster point and contact — or + New site…), the stops, the route settings and the documents. The ring and the flags update as you go. The bar at the bottom says how many changes are waiting, with Discard and Save. Closing the sheet, stepping to another job or leaving the page asks Save, Discard or Keep editing first, and sending saves first. Where is the site's own details, so every job at the site shows them; a sent job shows Changes not sent until you send again.
• Calendar: a day's number opens that day's Board, a job opens its sheet, + makes a new job that day, and dragging a job to another day moves it and runs its checks again. Moving a sent job asks first and leaves it as Changes not sent.
• Drag a person onto a hat slot or the crew, a unit onto Equipment, or a person onto a unit to make them its operator. Drag a card from one job's column to another to move it. On a phone or tablet, tap the card, then tap where it goes.
• Each person shows Free, Busy (on another job that day, and which), Off (an inactive worker) or Ticket gap (what they'd be missing on the job that's open). Every drop is saved and checked straight away: the slot shows a missing ticket, a double booking, a tag-out or a unit with nobody to run it, and the readiness ring moves.
• Arrange: drag the position groups into your own order, ★ pin one to the top, move one under the equipment, or hide one. Save it for you, or as the company default every dispatcher starts from.

Sending: now, at a time, or on hold

• At the foot of the job sheet: Send now, Send at a time (the job is Scheduled and goes out by itself within five minutes after that time, as you), or Hold (checked and ready, but not sent until you release it — waiting on the client, say). A held job shows On hold on the board with Release & send.
• Before anything goes, the sheet says who will be told: the crew, the supervisor and the unit operators. The send button is press-and-hold: hold it about a second until it fills. On a keyboard, hold Space or Enter, or press Enter twice.
• A red gap still blocks all three until it's fixed or overridden with a reason. If a scheduled job can't go when its time comes, it is put on hold with the reason and you're told.

Attached documents

• Add drawings, permits, client specs, JSAs and photos to a job — as many as it needs. Give each a name and a note, put them in order, and switch on Supervisor only for anything the crew doesn't need.
• Add files with + Upload files or by dragging them from your computer onto Attached documents (each file shows its own progress), or + Link a document for a PDF kept elsewhere — a client portal, SharePoint, Drive. A link stores only its name and https address and opens in a new tab; in the Job sheet PDF it is listed as a clickable line.
• When the job is sent, the dispatch comes first and the documents follow: on the job card (each opens on the phone, with a way back to the card), and in the Job sheet PDF, where attached PDFs are added as pages after the summary and photos are listed by name. The phone keeps the files for offline, up to 60 MB in all and 15 MB a file.
• Adding, removing or renaming a document after the job is sent is a change: send the changes to tell the crew.

Routes, areas and a week at one site

• A job can have several stops: + Add a site or + Add a place under Where, then drag them into order (arrows on a phone). The board shows each stop as a dot and how far the crew has got — 3 of 8. Checks cover every stop: a ticket a stop's client requires, or a stop's critical risk, counts for the whole job and the gap names the stop.
• On the phone the crew sees the next stop first, with Arrived, Leaving, Skip (with a reason) and, when you allow it, Add a stop. Taps made with no signal are kept and sent when it comes back. A skipped stop or one added in the field tells the supervisor.
• A job can run several days. Pick who is on which day, and the checks run every day — a ticket that runs out before the last day is a gap. Each morning's FLHA starts from the day before's (What's different today?), read and signed fresh; switch that off on the job to start blank. Repeat copies a job to another day as a draft.

Exports and the job sheet

• On the board, Export jobs takes a From and a To day and gives every job between them, cancelled ones included: CSV, Excel, Word or PDF. CSV and Excel need the Enterprise plan, like every other spreadsheet export.
• On a job, Job sheet (PDF) is the crew card on paper: the day and times, the site, gate and access, muster point, site contact, PPE, critical risks, the crew and their hats, and the units with who runs them. Ticket gaps and overrides are left off.
• A draft prints DRAFT across the top and in the file name, a cancelled job prints CANCELLED with the reason, and a job changed since it was last sent says so — re-send before handing the sheet out.

Dispatch desks: one per headquarters

• A company with more than one headquarters gets a dispatch desk for each. Switch between them with the buttons at the top of Dispatch. Each desk has its own jobs and its own crew board.
• Setup, then Dispatch desks: turn a desk on or off, choose who it may send (everyone in the company, only the people under its headquarters, or only the locations you pick), and name its dispatchers. Only a Company Admin sets this up.
• A desk that is turned off keeps its history for a Company Admin to read, but nothing can be created, changed or sent on it, and its crew get no dispatch notices.
• Add a headquarters from the same screen and its desk is made for you. A dispatcher you name sees only their own desk.