Understanding the Dispatch Board

The dispatch board in PeopleSoft Integrated FieldService offers a graphical representation of the task assignments for technicians over a given period of time, together with a list of assigned and unassigned service orders in a business unit that have not been completed, closed, or canceled. With the dispatch board, dispatchers can manage the daily service order workload for field service business units, assign service orders to technicians, resolve scheduling conflicts, and escalate high-priority work.

A dispatcher can select a technician and enter the priority, status, and start dates and times for a service order activity without leaving the Dispatch Board page.

On the Dispatch Board page, you can view a bar graph that represents 24-hour work schedules and availability for a group of technicians, beginning with the date and start time that you enter on the page. On the bar graph header, click the Previous Day and Next Day links to scroll through days prior to or after the selected date.

You can also view all open service order activities for a selected business unit. Links provide access to each technician's daily work schedule calendars, where you can view details of scheduled tasks and events that are unrelated to service order assignments.

You can also change technician assignments, modify start and end times, and update current statuses directly from the Dispatch Board page through the grids. You can also access the Service Order page to complete these tasks as well as change technician assignments, modify start and end times, and update the current status for each assigned and unassigned service order activity in the business unit.

Before using the dispatch board, define a dispatch board configuration for each field service business unit on the Dispatch Board Setup page. Dispatch board configuration settings control the pattern that the system uses to represent the service order activity status, the number of technicians that are listed on each Dispatch Board page, the default start time of the dispatch board display, and the smallest increment of time that a task bar on the dispatch board represents.