Forgotten Features

Did you know that there is more than one way to view your schedule?  During recent conversations with several of our customers, it came to my attention that a large number of people are not aware that Electronic Service Control (ESC) has a time block dispatch board.

This board allows you to see not only the order of scheduled jobs, but the times involved as well.  While this does require you to use actual times instead of vague time ranges, it also offers the following advantages over our classic dispatch board.

To activate this board click SETUP DISPATCH BOARD from the DISPATCH pull-down menu.  Select one of the boards you are currently using.  Select TIME BLOCKS in the DISPATCH STYLE section, save and exit.

Now return to the Electronic Dispatch Board (Press F5) and note the changes (If nothing has changed you will need to click the Exit button in the upper right-hand corner and then reload the board by pressing F5 again).  In addition to the features you are familiar with, you will now see times going down the left-hand side of the screen in one-hour increments.  If you have associated estimated completion times with the complaint codes you use, you will probably notice that some of the dispatches are larger than others.  This happens because the size of the dispatch now corresponds directly with the amount of time needed to complete the job!

Before we go any farther, let’s take a moment to look at some options that will make this view even more usable.  Click the OPTIONS button at the top of the Electronic Dispatch Board (EDB).  Look at your options under the DISPLAY MODE heading.  Since we can now graphically see how long a dispatch should take and what our promised time is, we can pretty much ignore any of the options that display the time.  Go ahead and select one of the first three options, then click SAVE.

Next, click SYSTEM SETUP from the UTILITY pull-down menu.  Click the DISPATCH button on the resulting screen and look at the MINIMUM HEIGHT FOR DISPATCH BLOCKS setting.  This controls the minimum size of the dispatch on the EDB.  You may want to play with this setting later, but leaving it at 45 minutes usually ensures that you will be able to easily see the customer’s name on the dispatch.  Click EXIT to return to the EDB.

Finally, click the magnification setting located at the bottom left-hand corner of the EDB.  Change the magnification to 200%.

We are now ready to adjust our schedule.  With the traditional style dispatch board you could drag a dispatch anywhere in a technician’s column and it would automatically be sorted by promised date and time.  The time blocks board is more sensitive, wherever you drag the call is where it stays.  Try it.  Take an existing dispatch and drag it to the technician that will perform the work.  Be sure to drag the dispatch to the appropriate time.  Do the same thing with the other dispatches assigned to that technician.

Now stand back and admire your handiwork.  Not only can you see the technician’s entire workload at a glance, you can also see the location of every job scheduled.  Did you leave enough time for the technician to get from one job to the next?  If not a quick drag of the dispatch can easily change that.

Let’s expand on this concept by creating another dispatch.  Go to the DISPATCH ENTRY screen (Press F4) and create a dispatch normally.  Use complaint codes and note the total amount of estimated time.  When you get to the DATE PROMISED field switch over to the EDB by pressing F5.  Look over your new schedule and see where you have openings of the appropriate length – be sure to allow some extra time for travel.  You can use the scroll bar on the right-hand side of the screen to see your schedule for the next two weeks.  Once you find the technician you want to assign to the dispatch, click the EXIT button to return to the DISPATCH ENTRY screen.  Enter the desired date and time and assign the dispatch to the appropriate technician.  Save the dispatch and you’re done.  That’s all there is to it.

So now you know most of the details of the new dispatch style.  You can dispatch on the fly, see your schedule for the next two weeks, and ensure you have enough time between jobs.  There are a few added features like dispatch color-coding and completed dispatch viewing that I haven’t explained.  See if you can figure out how they work through experimentation.  If you get stumped you can always access our on-line help menu by pressing F1 on any screen.

Happy dispatching!

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