How to dispatch from the board#

Audience: both — dispatch is the dispatcher's surface and every technician's morning board read.

The Dispatch board (/dispatch) gives dispatchers and technicians a single view of who is booked where, which tickets are waiting for an owner, and how much drive time sits between on-site visits.

Prerequisites#

• A signed-in session with Dispatch (/dispatch) open.
• Team members assigned to your service boards (such as Service Desk or Field Service).

1. Read the dispatch board layout#

Reading from left to right:

• Team Roster: Lists every technician along with their booked hours for the day (0:00 / 8h capacity bar) and utilization percentage.
• Day Grid (06:00–19:00): Shows each technician's timeline with booked appointments, travel time blocks, and ticket SLA deadline markers.
• Unassigned Queue (right column): Tickets that still need an owner or a scheduled slot. Click the P1–P4 chips at the top of the queue to filter by priority.
• Status Footer (bottom bar): Quick toggles for Queue, Conflicts, and live team Presence, plus the Auto-assign indicator (Off by default) and the active timezone axis.

2. Assign a ticket to a technician's schedule#

To schedule a job:

1. Find the ticket in the Unassigned queue on the right.
2. Drag the ticket card onto a technician's row at the hour you want them to work it (or use the card's Move menu if you prefer working from the keyboard).
3. The booking snaps into place on the timeline alongside any existing appointments and SLA deadline chips for that day.

3. Spot and fix scheduling conflicts#

The bottom bar helps you catch problems before a technician is double-booked:

• Queue: Shows how many unassigned tickets are still waiting.
• Conflicts: Highlights any overlapping bookings on a technician's timeline. Click the conflict indicator to jump to the overlap and drag one of the appointments to an open window.
• Presence: Shows which teammates are currently active in the workspace.
• Auto-assign: Stays Off unless your administrator explicitly enables automatic routing for a scheduling group. Marula never moves tickets behind a dispatcher's back.

4. Related scheduling and travel views#

Under the Dispatch section you can also open:

• Scheduling (/dispatch/scheduling): Set up appointment types (duration, buffer minutes before/after, booking window, and active status) and scheduling groups (the technician pools used when a client books a slot).
• Planning and Travel (/dispatch/planning and /dispatch/travel): Check multi-day capacity, review route drive times between stops, and approve technician mileage drafts (see Turn on travel time & mileage reconciliation).
• Client booking links: Clients can pick an open slot using your published scheduling links or from the Schedule tab in the client portal. If someone opens an expired or disabled booking link, Marula shows a clear "This scheduling link is not available." message.

5. Moving from Dispatch to working the ticket#

Once a job is on the calendar, the technician opens the ticket in the workbench (or on the mobile app's Today screen) to run the timer and post notes. See How to work a ticket and How to run a service day from the phone.

What you learned#

• The Dispatch board puts technician capacity, the 06:00–19:00 timeline, the unassigned queue, and double-booking conflict alerts on one screen.
• You can schedule work by dragging a ticket onto a slot or by using the keyboard Move menu.
• Appointment types and technician pools live under /dispatch/scheduling.