To add a new Technician there are a few important details that should be set up correctly, here you will find a deep dive into all the features we offer when setting up your Technicians into the Power Dispatch system.
To add a new Technician go to Settings - Technicians - click on +Add Technician.
What to fill out:
Under Technician section:
Name: type in the technician display name - mandatory.
Address: Save the technician's address
Timezone: You can set a timezone for each technician if you want the Zone 1-3 rates to be chosen according to the technician's time zone. This is less recommended than using Job Timezone, which I will show you in a minute.
Metros: Choose all the metros you want the technician to work at. The technician will only appear in your technician list for jobs in those areas. If you want the technician to work in all metros, leave this field blank and don’t choose any metro.
Avatar: set an image for your technician using Gravatar.com. The technician will need to open his own Gravatar account and upload an image to associate with his email address. Once you set the technician’s email address in the technician’s Notification settings the image will be displayed automatically.
Under the Notification options section:
This is a mandatory section: You cannot save a technician without filling in his Phone number, Mobile Provider, and Email address.
Exchange: This field can be used as a secondary email field for messaging only. If the technician has his own Powerdispatch account, you can set his PD account email address here, and he will be able to get jobs from you directly to his messages tab.
You can set default notification by marking the checkboxes on the left. This means that the technician will be set to receive an SMS/Email notification for every Appointment or In Progress job that you assign to him. You will be able to cancel the notification manually before you save each job if needed.
Under Technician Companies & Rates section:
Select a Company:
If the technician will receive jobs from all your companies and if he gets the same rates regardless of the company, you should choose All Companies from this dropdown.
If the technician works at different rates and only for some companies, you will need to choose one company, set the technician rates, hit Apply and move on to the next company.
You can also set All companies first and then modify some of them separately if needed.
To remove a company after it was saved: Choose the company from the list, mark the checkbox: Remove Company, and hit the save or apply buttons.
When you add a referral company after your technicians are already set, you will need to repeat this step for each technician and add for him the new company. If you don’t do this, you will not be able to assign any technician for jobs received from the new referral company.
The easiest way to do this is to first choose one of the companies that are already set for the technician, which will populate all the rate fields. Then switch to all companies and modify what you need and save your changes, however this will only work if the customer pays the technicians the same for all the companies which isn't always the case.
Technicians Rates
Start setting rates only after you choose a company.
If you decide to use the Zone system or the Flat Rate system for your companies, continue to use the same system for your technicians.
Zone 1: how much do you pay the technician for jobs he completed during the Day? (%)
Zone 2: how much do you pay the technician for jobs he completed during the Night? (%)
Zone 3: another option for technicians using more than 2 zones.(%)
Start Time: set here the start time of the zone.
End Time: set here the end time of the zone.
The total time in zones used must cover 24 hours for best results.
Use Job Timezone: Make sure this checkbox is marked especially if you work with the system in real time. This means that when you close a job the job’s timezone will be chosen automatically for you according to the time zone of the job address at the time that the job moved to status In Progress.
Hourly: If you pay your technician by the hour, you can enter his rate here. When you close a job, you will only need to type the number of hours he worked.
Flat Rate: Use only if all your technicians and referral companies receive the same rates throughout the whole day and if you don’t want the Zone to be chosen automatically by the system when you close a job.
Additional Fees: enter a dollar amount if you take any additional fees from your technician for each job that you give him.
Special Rate: set the rate that this technician will get for special rate jobs (for all the job descriptions that are classified as special rates job type)
Credit Rate & Check Rate: If you charge the technician fees (%) for running credit cards or accepting checks, enter the rates here
Save Vs. Apply: Hit Apply if you want to save your changes and stay on this page to continue editing the technician's settings and other companies. Hit Save if you are ready to leave this page and move on.
Under the Technician’s Permissions section:
Tech Portal - Enables the technician to receive the technician portal link (will arrive inside the job message.) Click to see the full explanation on the Tech portal
Jobs Menu - Enables the technician to view all his open jobs and manage them from the tech portal and from the IVR, (where he will also be able to listen to all his open jobs.)
This permission is NOT recommended when your technicians transfer their jobs to someone else.
Receive Client Info - Displays the client address and phone number (if call recording is off) in the tech portal and allows the technician to use Navigation and Direction buttons.
Close Jobs - Allows the technician to close jobs from his portal and input all the closing information including invoice number, payment method, parts and so on.
After the technician closes his jobs in the portal, the jobs status will change to Pending Close on your Job Board. Now, all you’ll need to do is verify the information and change the job status to Close so the job will be registered in the report.
Once the technician closes a job, he will no longer be able to edit or see it in his portal.
Record Phone Calls - This enables you to record the technician-client conversation and hides the client’s phone number from the technician.
When this permission is checked, the permission of the tech portal or call link must be marked as well in order to allow the technician to make calls.
The technician will be able to call the client via the Call button in his Tech Portal, via the Call Link if applicable, or by calling the system Twilio number if IVR is on in Twilio Settings.
If the technician transfers the job to someone else, this person will need to enter his phone number in the tech portal before clicking on the Call button. This step needs to happen only once and then the tech portal will save the phone number for future calls.
The phone number that the client sees is the Twilio number that is set in your PowerDispatch account under Settings > Integration > Twilio.
If the client calls back this number within 24 hours, he will be connected to the last person who called him (the technician.)
If the client calls back after 24 hours he will be connected to the company’s forwarding phone number (Settings>Integration>Twilio>Forward Phone Calls) or to the company’s IVR (Settings>Integration>Twilio> Voice Menu (IVR)), whichever applies.
Still need assistance?
Please reach out to us via the Jobox app chat, or email us at Powerdispatch@jobox.ai
We will be happy to help!