ElectricalBossPro Blog — Scheduling & Dispatch

Not Due, Due Now, Overdue: Reading the Pin Colors on the Electrician's Waiting List

A map full of pins is only useful if you can read it at a glance. The Waiting List in ElectricalBossPro colors every recurring visit by where it stands, so the office can open the map on a Monday morning and know in a few seconds what needs to be scheduled this week, what can wait and what is already late.

Where the Pins Come From

The previous guide, Scheduling Yearly Generator Maintenance Without a Wall Calendar, covered setting up generator plans at 365 days. Every recurring service works the same way: a minimum number of days between visits, counted from the last completed visit. The pin color tells you where each property is in that count.

Not Due Yet

A not-due-yet pin is a property on a recurring plan whose minimum days have not passed. A yearly safety inspection done four months ago shows as not due yet. So does a commercial relamping visit done last week on a 30-day cycle.

These pins are useful for planning. If a cluster of not-due-yet generator visits sits in one area and will all come due next month, the office knows a full day of generator work is coming for that neighborhood. They also show the shape of your recurring customer base on a map, which is handy when deciding which areas to market to.

Due Now

A due-now pin is a visit whose minimum days have passed and which is ready to be scheduled. This is the working color. When the office sits down to schedule recurring work, due-now pins are the ones to assign to a van and a day.

The best way to schedule them is by group. Look for due-now pins near each other, assign them to the same van and day, and auto-route. A day of inspections or generator visits in one part of town is far less driving than the same visits spread across the week.

Overdue

An overdue pin is a visit that came due and has not been scheduled within a 7-day grace. It is the color that says “somebody forgot.”

Overdue does not mean disaster. A yearly generator visit a couple of weeks late is still a visit. But a growing number of overdue pins is a sign the office is falling behind on recurring work, and for a plan customer, a visit that never happens is a reason to cancel. Treat overdue pins as the first thing to clear each week:

• Text the customer through two-way texting to offer a day.
• Fit the visit onto a van already working in that area.
• If the customer has moved or no longer wants the plan, update the client so the pin stops coming back.

Reading the Map as a Whole

The colors together tell a story. A map that is mostly not-due-yet with a few due-now pins is a recurring schedule under control. A map with a band of due-now pins in one area means a busy stretch for that part of town. A map scattered with overdue pins means recurring work is losing out to service calls and installs.

That last situation is common in electrical companies. Service calls ring the phone. Installs come with a signed estimate. Recurring visits are quiet, so they lose. The Waiting List makes them loud again. For a walk-through of the map itself, see The Waiting List Map: Seeing Every Electrical Visit That Has Come Due.

The List Next to the Map

The Waiting List is a map and a list. The list shows the same visits with the client, address and service, which is useful when the office wants to work through due visits in order rather than by area. Some dispatchers use the map to build route days and the list to make sure nothing was missed.

Once a Visit Is Done

When the tech taps Complete on a recurring visit, the count starts over. The pin goes back to not due yet and will turn due now when the minimum days pass again. The office does not have to set a reminder or update a spreadsheet. The cycle runs itself as long as visits are getting done.

Three Colors, One Habit

The pin colors work best with a simple weekly routine: clear the overdue pins first, then schedule the due-now pins by area, then glance at not-due-yet clusters to see what is coming. To see how the Waiting List fits with the dispatch board and routing, visit the ElectricalBossPro electrician scheduling software page.