ElectricalBossPro Blog — Scheduling & Dispatch

Crew GPS on the Office Map: Which Electrical Van Is Closest to the New Call

“Where are you right now?” is a question electrical dispatchers ask their techs all day. A new call comes in, a customer wants to know how long, the owner wonders whether the install crew is still on site. Every one of those questions means a phone call or a text to a tech who is in the middle of a job, sometimes with both hands inside a panel. Crew GPS on the office map answers the question without interrupting anyone.

The Office Side of the Customer Texts

The last few guides covered what customers hear, ending with Night-Before Reminders and Customer Alert Choices for Electrical Appointments. Crew GPS is the office's view of the same day. While customers see their place in line, the office sees every van at once.

In ElectricalBossPro, techs working from the tech app show up on the office map. The dispatcher opens the map and sees where each van is.

Sending the Closest Van

The biggest use of crew GPS is deciding who gets a new call. A customer on the east side calls with a breaker that will not reset. The map shows:

• The service van is two miles away, between stops.
• The install van is on the east side too, but in the middle of a panel upgrade.
• The maintenance van is across town on generator visits.

The answer is obvious: the service van. The dispatcher adds the call to that van for today, places it in the route, and the tech's phone shows it. Without GPS, the dispatcher would have called two techs to find out the same thing. For the rest of that process, see Fitting Same-Day Service Calls Into an Electrician's Route.

Answering Customer Questions

When a customer calls to ask how long, the office can look at the map, look at the van's route on the dispatch board, and give a real answer: “He's two stops away, probably within the hour.” Customers using the customer app can see that themselves on the live route map, but plenty of people still pick up the phone.

Seeing the Day Unfold

Crew GPS together with the dispatch board gives the office a running picture of the day. The board shows which jobs are started, completed or skipped. The map shows where each van is. A van that has been at one address a long time might mean a job running long, which might mean the rest of the route needs a look. That is the moment to text a customer further down the line, or move a flexible stop to tomorrow, before anyone is left waiting.

Re-Routing Around Where the Van Is

Auto-routing measures from the shop. Mid-day, the van is not at the shop. When the day changes enough to re-route, the map helps decide how. If the van is already at the far end of the territory, it may make sense to set the remaining order by hand, working back toward the shop. For more on that, see Setting Route Order by Hand When the Auto-Route Needs a Human Touch.

Checking on Install Crews

Install days are long, and the office does not need a play-by-play. But it helps to know the crew is on site and whether they are still there late in the afternoon. A quick look at the map answers both without a phone call that interrupts the work. If the install van is still at the house near the end of the day, that is a cue to check tomorrow's plan for that van and text any customer who might be affected.

Storm Days and Busy Days

Crew GPS matters most when the phone will not stop. After a storm or a power outage, calls pour in from all over. The office can look at the map, see which vans are where, and send new calls to the nearest van that has room instead of guessing. The next guide covers those days in detail.

Talking to Your Crew About It

Some techs are wary of GPS at first. It helps to be plain about why it is there: so the office can send the closest van to a new call, answer customers without phoning the tech, and spread work fairly. Techs often come around once they notice how many fewer “where are you?” calls they get during a job.

Every tech logs in with the company login and a personal PIN, so the van on the map is tied to the right person.

Fewer Calls to the Field

The real value of crew GPS is the interruptions it saves. Every call the office does not have to make to a tech is a few minutes that tech spends working instead of talking. To see how crew GPS fits with the dispatch board, routing and customer texts, visit the ElectricalBossPro electrician scheduling software page.