How to Schedule Crews in Dspatch

Scheduling in field service breaks into three distinct tasks: setting up recurring work that repeats on a fixed cadence, adding one-off jobs that come in between, and adjusting assignments when someone calls out or a client needs a change. Each task lives in a different part of the system and follows its own logic.

Most scheduling software treats these as a single action. They are not. A recurring schedule is a template that generates future visits automatically. A one-off job is a single event you add to the calendar. A day-of adjustment is a reassignment of work already in progress. Confusing the three creates phantom visits that were never authorized or recurring work that stops generating because you edited the wrong screen.

Setting Up Recurring Schedules Per Site

Recurring work starts in the Recurring section. Each schedule attaches to one site and defines the cadence, the line items, the assigned crew, and any instructions or access notes the crew needs on arrival.

Open Customers, locate the customer record, and select the site. Click Add Schedule. Set the cadence: weekly on specific days, biweekly, monthly on a date or the first Monday, or custom intervals such as every ten days. Add line items that define the scope: vacuum all carpet, empty trash, clean restrooms. These appear on the generated visit and on the invoice if you bill per visit.

Assign the crew. You can assign a crew group or individual members. If you assign a group, any member of that group can check in. If you assign individuals, only those people see the visit in the crew app.

Instructions go in the schedule's instruction field: door codes, gate access, where supplies are stored, which areas are off-limits. The crew sees this text every time they open a visit generated from the schedule.

Once you save the schedule, it begins generating visits based on the cadence. Go to Recurring and click Generate Upcoming Visits to create the next batch. You control how far ahead the system generates: one week, two weeks, a month. Most operators generate two weeks ahead and run the action every Monday morning.

Adding One-Off Jobs and Quotes

One-off work that does not repeat goes in Jobs or Quotes, depending on whether the client has already agreed to the work.

For a quote: open Quotes, click New Quote, select the customer and site, add line items, and set the price. If you require a deposit, enter the amount and send the quote. The client receives a link to review, approve, and pay the deposit. When they accept, the quote converts to a job with a scheduled date.

For a job the client already authorized: open Jobs, click New Job, select the customer and site, set the date, add line items, and assign a crew. The job appears in the crew app on the scheduled date. The crew checks in, completes the checklist if you attached one, uploads required photos, and checks out. The job moves to completed status and becomes available to invoice.

One-off jobs do not generate future visits. If the client wants the same work done again, you add another job or convert it to a recurring schedule.

Adjusting Crew Assignments Day Of

When a crew member calls out or a client reschedules, you change the assignment in Jobs. Find the visit, click Edit, and reassign it to a different crew or individual. The visit disappears from the original crew's list in the app and appears on the new crew's list immediately.

If a crew member does not check in on time, the system sends a late check-in alert to the office if you enabled that rule in Settings. You see which visits are overdue and can call the crew or reassign the work before the client notices.

To learn how to handle a no show in Dspatch, mark the visit as canceled in Jobs, add a note with the reason, and decide whether to reschedule it or leave it off the invoice. If the no-show was the client's fault and you bill for the visit anyway, leave the status as completed and invoice it. If the no-show was your crew's fault, mark it canceled and do not bill.

Ending or Pausing a Recurring Schedule

To stop a recurring schedule permanently, open Recurring, find the schedule, and click End Schedule. This cancels all future visits that have not yet started. Visits already in progress or completed remain in Jobs and will invoice if you have not invoiced them yet.

To pause a schedule temporarily, open the schedule and change the cadence to a far future date, or delete upcoming visits individually in Jobs. There is no formal pause button. Most operators who pause a schedule for a client's vacation or construction project delete the generated visits manually and note the restart date in the schedule's instructions field.

How Scheduling Connects to Invoicing and Pay

Every visit you generate from a recurring schedule or add as a one-off job becomes a line on an invoice once the crew completes it. If you bill per visit, each completed visit creates its own invoice. If you bill on a cycle, the system combines all completed visits within the billing period into one invoice per customer.

When an invoice goes out, the system can charge a saved card automatically if the client authorized automatic payment in the client portal and you enabled that rule. To learn how to send invoice reminders in Dspatch, go to Invoices, find any unpaid invoice, and click Send Reminder. Reminders go out automatically on a schedule you set in Settings: three days after the due date, seven days, and so on.

Crew pay works the same way. Every completed visit records the crew member's time or the flat rate for that visit. To learn how to approve crew pay in Dspatch, open Payables, review the list of completed work, approve the amounts, and run payouts. The system does not file payroll taxes or withholdings; it tracks what you owe each crew member for the work they completed.

What Operations Managers See Across Companies

The most common scheduling mistake across companies on the system is editing a recurring schedule and expecting the change to apply backward to visits already generated. It does not. Changes to a schedule apply only to visits generated after you save the change. If you need to update instructions or line items on visits already in Jobs, you edit those visits individually.

The second mistake is assigning a crew group to a visit and then wondering why a crew member who is not in that group cannot see the visit in the app. Group assignments are strict. If the Monday night team is assigned and a crew member is not in that group, they do not see the visit. Reassign the visit to the individual or add the individual to the group.

The third mistake is generating visits too far ahead. When you generate months of visits at once, every schedule change requires you to edit dozens of individual visits in Jobs. Generate two weeks ahead, adjust schedules as clients change, and let the system create the next batch on your weekly schedule.

Questions Managers Ask About Crew Scheduling

Can I assign two crews to the same visit?

No. Each visit allows one crew assignment, either a group or individuals. If two crews work the same site on the same night, create two separate visits and assign each crew to its own visit. Both visits can bill to the same customer.

What happens if I delete a recurring schedule?

Deleting a schedule does not delete visits already generated from it. Those visits remain in Jobs until you cancel them individually. The schedule stops generating new visits, but past and current work stays on the calendar and will invoice unless you cancel it.

How do I change the crew assignment for an entire week at once?

Open Jobs, filter by crew or by date range, select the visits you want to reassign, and use the bulk edit action to change the crew assignment. This works for any status except completed or invoiced. Once a visit is invoiced, you cannot change the crew assignment because it affects the pay records.

Scheduling on paper or in a shared calendar works until you have more than a handful of crews or a few dozen sites. Past that threshold, you need a system that generates recurring work automatically, tracks which visits are completed and which are waiting to invoice, and connects crew assignments to pay. Dspatch is the new industry standard for service businesses. Join the waitlist for the operating system that handles schedules, proof, invoicing, crew pay, and the client portal in one place.