The Scheduler is where you assign tasks to technicians, plan their routes, and manage appointments. This guide walks through the screen area by area: the toolbar and settings across the top, the task pane on the left, the calendar in the middle, and the route map on the right.
The toolbar and settings
The toolbar runs across the top of the Scheduler and holds the controls for what you see and how it's displayed.
If your browser is zoomed in and these settings aren't visible, open the dropdown in the top-right corner of the Scheduler to have the same options settings available.
Hide the task pane and filters
Two icons in the top-left corner give the calendar more room:
The left arrow with a vertical bar hides the entire task pane on the left (Hide task pane).
The up arrow with a horizontal bar hides just the filters card at the top of the task pane (Hide task filters card).
Scheduler configurations
The settings (sliders) icon opens the Scheduler Configuration panel. Most options control how the AI Scheduler builds routes; there is also an option for how appointment cards display on the calendar:
Optimisation Recipe - the strategy the AI Scheduler uses when it builds a schedule. There's rarely one single "best" answer — it has to balance things like efficiency, timeliness and, over longer periods, spreading work out sensibly. Choose the recipe that matches what you're trying to do:
Balanced (default) — optimises a technician's single day at a time, finding a good middle ground between route efficiency, tight scheduling, prompt arrivals and cost (less travelling, more performing). It's the right choice for day-by-day scheduling. It can be used over a longer period too, but because it optimises each day on its own, results can be less consistent across the period.
Long Schedule — built for scheduling a week or month at a time. It looks across the whole period to finish work in as few days as possible while keeping each day's task timing sensible — packing work in efficiently with no awkward gaps.
Auto-estimate task durations - the AI Scheduler applies a task's historic estimate (from similar past work) where a manually set duration isn't available. This applies only to routine-generated tasks.
Work breaks - reserves a break within a technician's day (for example lunch) that the AI scheduler won't book over. You set the earliest it can start, the latest it must finish, and how long it runs, and the scheduler fits it into the day within that window.
Depot start & end travel - For technicians with a depot location set, this controls how the AI Scheduler treats the first trip of the day (depot to first task) and the last trip (last task to depot). For each, you choose whether it counts as within or outside work hours:
First travel (start of day) — Outside work hours (default) lets the technician start driving to their first task before the work day begins, arriving right as it starts. Within work hours counts the travel as part of the work day, so they leave the depot once the day has started.
Last travel (end of day) — Outside work hours (default) means the trip back to the depot isn't counted in the work day and can run past its end time. Within work hours means the return trip must finish inside the work day.
Ignore depot locations - builds the route without treating the depot as a fixed start and end point, so the technician doesn't need to start or finish there. Handy when scheduling a group of tasks far from where the technician usually works.
Ignore accreditation requirements - normally the AI Scheduler only assigns a task to a technician who holds the right accreditations. Turning this on allows tasks to be assigned regardless.
Group appointments by property - combines multiple tasks at the same property into a single visit. You can limit this to specific properties and cap how many appointments group together at once.
Appointment preferences - selecting a default category automatically applies it to every appointment the AI Scheduler creates, so you don't need to set it manually each time.
Appointment cards display - customises what's shown on each appointment card in the calendar:
Choose the font size (compact by default, or normal).
Choose which fields are visible — the task reference and label are always shown, and all other rows (for example client name instead of property name) can be toggled on or off.
These display preferences are set per user and don't change what anyone else sees.
Presets
A preset saves a combination of task filters, selected technicians and view so you can reapply that setup in one click. There are two types:
User presets — visible only to you.
Site-wide presets — available to everyone in your company; useful for enterprise teams who want a standard set of views across the scheduling team.
To create a preset:
Click the calendar "+" icon in the top-right. If a preset is already selected, click the dropdown next to it, then + Create preset or + Create sitewide preset on the relevant tab.
Give it a Name, for example "Sprinkler inspections".
Choose the Calendar View (Day, Week, Month) and Orientation (Vertical or Horizontal).
Set the visibility — Only me, or your organisation's name.
Pick an optional Colour for easy identification.
Add the Task filters to apply automatically, for example Service Group, Task Status or Assigned Technician.
Switch from Details to the Technicians tab and select whose calendars to show.
Click Create.
To enable or edit a preset: open the dropdown next to the calendar "+" icon or the selected preset, switch between the Sitewide and My presets tabs, then click a preset to apply it, or hover over its name and click the pencil icon to edit it.
Choose which technician calendars to view
Click the technician selector (the avatar near the top-left) to choose whose calendars appear. To narrow the list:
Use Filter by service group, Filter by accreditation type, or Filter by name.
Enable Also show contractors to include Contractor App users.
Vertical and Horizontal view
The Vertical / Horizontal toggle sets how the calendar is laid out:
Vertical — time runs top to bottom, so earlier appointments appear higher.
Horizontal — time runs left to right, so earlier appointments appear further left, with each technician on their own row. If you click the dropdown next to the Horizontal button, you will see Horizontal view options: Show weekends, and a 24h window or 12h window
Difference between horizontal and vertical view
| Horizontal | Vertical |
Spot availability gaps | ✓ Easier | day view only |
View many technicians at once | ✓ More visible per screen | — |
See appointment detail | — | ✓ More detail visible |
Day/week views | ✓ | ✓ |
Month view (full representation) | ✓ | Heat map only |
Adjustable time window | ✓ (12h / 24h) | — |
Option to hide weekends | ✓ | — |
Benefits of Horizontal view
Horizontal view shows technician availability at a glance, ideal for planning installation or project work across longer periods. For detailed day-to-day scheduling, the vertical views are the best option. Compared with vertical, horizontal adds:
More technicians on screen — each technician sits on a single row, so you see more full schedules without scrolling.
A full month view — a true month layout for availability planning (vertical shows only a heat map at month scale).
Expandable rows — click the chevron on a technician's header to expand their row and see overlapping events.
An adjustable time window — switch between 12-hour and 24-hour views, and show or hide weekends.
Send notifications
The paper plane icon in the top-right opens the appointments list, where you can send appointment notifications to clients and property contacts. For the full steps, see Schedule tasks and send notifications.
The task pane and filters
The task pane on the left is where you find the work that needs scheduling.
Filters card
At the top of the task pane:
Search for a task by its key details.
Add filter to narrow the list, for example by Status, Service Group or Parts Status.
Use Favourites to save and reapply filter combinations.
Sort tasks by to order the list, for example by due date or priority.
List and Map
Toggle between List and Map to show tasks as a list of cards or as pins on a map. Each task card shows its reference, type, property, client, estimate, due date and tolerance, and priority. The bar at the bottom shows how many tasks are selected and the total workload.
Schedule with AI
Tick individual tasks (or Select all) and choose AI schedule X tasks to let the AI Scheduler build efficient, route-optimised appointments that you can review and accept. For the full steps, see How to use the AI Scheduler.
The Create Appointment window
When you drag a task from the list (or a pin from the Map) onto the calendar, the Create Appointment window opens on the left. This is where you set the appointment's details — summary, category, technicians, timing and notes — with the task's own details shown below for context. For the full step-by-step, see Schedule tasks and send notifications.
The calendar
The calendar in the middle shows each selected technician's day, including their work hours and booked appointments. Drag a task onto a technician's day to schedule it, and drag or resize an appointment to change its timing when creating a new appointment in Vertical view.
Create leave and other events
Hover over a technician's column on the day you want and click the + Create task session to add a non-task event such as leave, a toolbox meeting, a break or an RDO. For the full steps, see Scheduling leave and other events.
Note: the + Create task session isn't available while the Create Appointment window is open.
View and update a technician's details
Click a technician's name in the calendar to open their details popup. Each section expands or collapses with the arrow icon:
Depot location — where the technician starts and finishes the day, used by the AI Scheduler to plan routes. Start typing the address and pick it from the dropdown.
Work Hours — when the technician is available; the AI Scheduler only books tasks in these hours. Use standard branch or company hours, or set custom hours for the user.
Active Accreditations — the accreditations the user currently holds. To change them, go to People > Accreditations — see How to manage Accreditations.
Any changes in this pop-up window will automatically apply to the user details and be used for any future appointments.
The route map
When you create or open an appointment, the route map appears on the right. It plots the technician's stops for the day in order, numbering each one, so you can see the route and the travel between jobs and adjust the schedule to cut down driving. Drag the vertical divider between the map and the panel to make either side wider.
Hover over the map for its controls in the top-right corner:
Show depots — show each technician's depot location on the map.
Show excluded — show tasks excluded from the schedule; hover a pin to see why it was excluded. For excluded tasks within an AI Scheduler proposal, see How to use the AI Scheduler.
Zoom to fit — zoom and centre the map so all stops fit in view.
Video: AI Scheduler Webinar
For a visual walkthrough, watch the Understanding Scheduler Functionality section of the video below, starting at 5 min 25 seconds.