PlumbingBossPro Blog — Dispatch & Scheduling

Filtering the Plumbing Dispatch Board by Van

A dispatch board with every job for every van is great for seeing the whole day. It is terrible for answering a simple question like “can Mike take one more call this afternoon?” For that you need to see one van and nothing else. That is what the van filter is for.

From Emergencies to Everyday Decisions

In Same-Day Plumbing Emergencies: Dispatching Burst Pipes, No Hot Water and Backed-Up Sewers, the key question was which van could take the call. Filtering by van is how you answer that question on the board, and it is just as useful on a calm Tuesday as during a flood.

In PlumbingBossPro, every job is assigned to a van. The dispatch board can be filtered to a single van so you see only that tech's calls for the day, in route order.

What the Filter Answers

With one van on screen, a lot of questions get easy:

• How full is this van today? Count the stops and look for long jobs.
• Where is this van going? Are the stops clustered or scattered across town?
• What is left? Which stops are done, which are next, which were skipped?
• Can this van take one more? If the remaining stops are short and nearby, probably.
• Is the order sensible? Does the route zigzag, or flow outward or back toward the shop?

All of those are hard to answer when three vans are mixed on one screen.

Filtering When Vans Do Different Work

The van filter matters most when your vans specialize. A common plumbing setup is one van on repairs and drains and another on water heaters and maintenance. When a customer calls about a clogged main line, you filter to the drain van. When someone approves a water heater replacement, you filter to the water heater van.

Filtering by van stops you from booking a jetting job on the van that does not carry the jetter, or loading a water heater swap onto the van already running eight short calls. The setup itself is covered in Splitting the Repair & Drain Van From the Water Heater Van.

Filtering Before You Route

Routing happens per van. Each van starts at the shop and runs its own stops, so it only makes sense to auto-route one van's day at a time. Filter to the van, run Closest First or Furthest First, then look at the order and adjust by hand.

The tech's phone shows the same order. Whatever you see on the filtered board is what the tech sees on their list.

Filtering for Check-Ins During the Day

Midday is when the van filter earns its keep. Instead of calling a tech to ask how it is going, filter to their van and look:

• Completed stops show the tech has been working through the list.
• Skipped stops arrive with the tech's note about why, so you can rebook.
• The current stop tells you where they are in the day.

Pair that with crew GPS on the office map and you know where the van is and what it has left without picking up the phone. Techs appreciate not getting a call every hour.

Saving the Filters You Use Every Day

If you filter to the same vans every morning, save those as views. “Van 1 today,” “Van 2 today” and “All vans tomorrow” are the kind of views most dispatchers open a dozen times a day. Saved views make each one a single click.

Saved views are especially handy when more than one person in the office touches dispatch. Everyone opens the same views and sees the board the same way.

Filtering and Printed Route Sheets

Once a van's day is filtered and in order, that is also the moment to print a route sheet if the tech wants one for the dashboard. The sheet shows that van's day as it stands. Remember that the phone stays current through the day while the paper does not.

When to Look at All Vans

The filter is not a replacement for the full board. There are times you want every van on screen:

• Balancing the week. If one van has twice the stops of another, move some work.
• Emergencies. Check every van's load alongside the GPS map before you choose.
• End of day. Make sure nothing is left unassigned or stranded.

Switching between one van and all vans is quick, and good dispatchers do it constantly.

One Van at a Time

Filtering by van is a small feature that makes dispatch decisions much easier. It turns a crowded board into one tech's day, which is the level most decisions happen at. To see how the filter fits with routing, saved views and crew GPS, visit the PlumbingBossPro plumbing dispatch software page.