The night before
- Every appointment tomorrow has an assigned technician or crew.
- Every appointment has a job type, duration and confirmed address.
- Confirmation messages sent; unconfirmed customers flagged for a morning call.
- Materials and equipment for each job confirmed available or ordered.
- Gaps larger than one job identified and offered to the waitlist.
The morning board
- Route order set per crew, with drive time between consecutive stops checked.
- Emergency and same-day reserve slots protected, not already filled.
- Absences and late starts reallocated before the first appointment window opens.
- First on-the-way notifications queued.
- Any capacity override from yesterday reviewed and closed out.
The mid-day recheck
- Jobs running long identified and the affected customers contacted before the window is missed.
- Afternoon stops re-sequenced if the morning slipped.
- Same-day requests placed into reserve capacity or booked forward, never wedged in.
- Parts runs consolidated instead of made individually.
End of day close
- Every stop marked complete, rescheduled or cancelled — no ambiguous states.
- Actual duration recorded against scheduled duration.
- Incomplete jobs rebooked before the crew leaves, not tomorrow morning.
- Tomorrow's board reviewed once, while today's context is still fresh.
The weekly scheduling routine
- Compare sold capacity against the weekly ceiling for the next three weeks.
- Review scheduled vs actual durations by job type and correct the worst offender.
- Check drive minutes per billable hour by territory.
- Review cancellations and reschedules for a repeating cause.
- Decide whether next week needs overtime, a subcontractor, or nothing.
Capacity planning template
- Crews available: ___ | Working hours per crew per day: ___ | Working days per week: ___
- Available hours per week = crews × hours × days = ___
- Utilization rate (billable ÷ available, from real data): ___
- Billable hours per week = available hours × utilization = ___
- Average job duration including travel, by job type: ___
- Jobs per day per crew = daily billable hours ÷ average duration = ___
- Weekly job ceiling = jobs per day × crews × days = ___
- Currently sold next week: ___ | Load = sold ÷ ceiling = ___%
- Constraint skill (lowest-capacity job type): ___ | Its weekly ceiling: ___
- Reserve held for same-day and emergency work: ___ slots per day