Maps and Unscheduled Side by Side
In our last post, we looked at assembling field teams on a single screen, with traffic-aware drive times and certification checks built in. This follow-up covers a smaller but powerful enhancement to the same workflow: showing the Google Maps view and the Unscheduled Appointments sidebar side by side, instead of toggling between them.
One of our customers loved the unscheduled appointments list in DayBack, but realized that she was primarily interested in the appointment’s proximity to existing routes: something she could only see on the map. She asked if we could make the map and unschedule list appear side by side, and this new feature was born.
You can now see each truck’s planned route on the map, and at the same time scan the list of jobs that haven’t been assigned yet. You’ll find opportunities to schedule work or deliveries earlier, when you’re already passing by a job site.
Reading the Day at a Glance
On the left, you see the day’s schedule grouped by service truck. In the middle, the Unscheduled Appointments sidebar lists every job that has been requested but not yet assigned to a crew. Each unscheduled item shows an estimated duration based on its appointment type, so dispatchers can size up the work without opening the record.
On the right, the map plots the planned route for each truck along with pins for the unscheduled work. The pins represent local jobs that haven’t been assigned yet but fall within the area a crew is already going to be working in. That visual overlap is where the scheduling opportunities live.
Example: Morning for Truck 1
Looking at Truck 1’s planned route for Truck 1, we can see it passes near several unscheduled appointments. One of them is a Warranty Service Call that falls almost directly along the route. The truck’s first scheduled job isn’t until 12:15 PM, which leaves a clear opening to handle that warranty call earlier in the morning without pushing anything else back.
The afternoon for Truck 1 is more fully booked, but there’s still a 30-minute Parts Delivery nearby that could be tacked on at the end of the day before the crew returns to the home location. Without the side-by-side view, that opportunity is easy to miss.
Example: Truck 3’s Open Block
Truck 3 tells a different story. The schedule shows a large open block in the middle of the day, between the first and second scheduled jobs. On the map, there’s a nearby unscheduled appointment that fits cleanly into that gap. Dragging it onto the schedule fills the underutilized block and keeps the crew productive without adding drive time to the day.
These are the kinds of decisions that used to require flipping between screens, mentally overlaying routes onto a list of pending jobs, and guessing at distances. With everything visible at once, the decision takes seconds.
Powered by Drive Times and Validation Rules
The map view isn’t just a visual layer. It’s tied into the same traffic-aware drive time calculations described in the previous post, along with customizable validation rules and related automation. When a dispatcher schedules an appointment from the unscheduled sidebar, the workflow can check whether the new stop fits within the crew’s working window, whether it pushes the return time too late, or whether it conflicts with anything else.
That means the side-by-side view isn’t just easier to look at, it’s also safer to act on. Dispatchers get immediate feedback when a scheduling decision would create a conflict, instead of finding out later in the day when a truck is running behind.
Turning On the Combined View
Both the Maps view and the Unscheduled Appointments sidebar are already included in DayBack. The new piece is the ability to display them as columns instead of tabs. To enable the combined layout:
- Open Admin Settings from the gear icon in the sidebar.
- Go to the Views section.
- Turn on “Show Side View as Columns Instead of Tabs.”
That’s it. The next time you open a view that includes both the map and the unscheduled sidebar, they’ll appear side by side instead of stacking behind tabs.
Best on wider screens. The columns can be resized by dragging their borders until your view is optimized. However, it shines on larger displays where there’s room for the schedule, the unscheduled list, and the map without anything feeling cramped. On narrower screens, the tabbed layout may still be the better choice.
Why This Matters
Dispatching field teams is a visual pattern-matching job where the route is usually invisible. The faster a dispatcher can see where crews are going, what’s left to schedule, and which open jobs sit along an existing route, the more efficient the day becomes. The combined Maps and Unscheduled view collapses that pattern matching into a single glance.
Combined with the team assembly workflow from the previous post, dispatchers can go from a list of pending jobs to a fully assigned, traffic-aware schedule in just a few minutes, all on one screen.
Want Help Customizing This?
If you’d like assistance enabling this view, tuning the validation rules around it, or building a similar workflow tailored to your operations, please reach out to our team. We’re happy to walk through how DayBack can support the way your dispatchers actually work.
Leave a Reply