Scheduling & Routes

7. Scheduling & Route Optimization

Scheduling is where you plan which technician visits which pool on which day.

7.1 How Scheduling Works

The scheduling system is built around weekly route plans:

1. Services are generated from active subscriptions (e.g., a weekly subscription creates a service for each week).
2. Services land in the scheduling calendar as unassigned stops.
3. You (or the optimizer) assign each service to a technician and a day of the week.
4. The plan is activated, and technicians see their schedule in the mobile app.

7.2 The Weekly Calendar View

The scheduling page shows a week-at-a-glance calendar:

• Columns represent days of the week (Monday through Friday, or Monday through Sunday).
• Rows represent technicians.
• Service chips represent individual service stops — each chip shows the customer name, location, and service type.
• Color coding matches the technician's assigned color.

Use the week navigation arrows to move between weeks. You can also jump to any specific week using the date picker.

7.3 Draft vs. Active Plans

EZ Pool Biller uses a Draft → Active workflow to prevent accidental changes from reaching technicians:

Draft Plan:

• Your "scratch pad" for making changes.
• Drag services around, reassign technicians, reorder stops — nothing is visible to technicians yet.
• You can have one Draft and one Active plan for the same week simultaneously.

Active Plan:

• The "live" plan that technicians see in their mobile app.
• Once you're satisfied with your Draft, click Activate (also called "Finalize") to make it live.
• The previous Active plan is archived for historical reference.

This two-step process ensures you can plan and adjust without disrupting technicians who are already in the field.

7.4 Assigning Services to Technicians & Days

Manual Assignment:

• Drag and drop a service chip from one day/technician to another.
• Click a service chip to open a popover where you can:
  • Change the assigned technician
  • Change the assigned day
  • Change the stop order (position in the route)
  • Lock the stop (prevent the optimizer from moving it)

Overflow Queue:

• Services that haven't been assigned to a technician appear in the Overflow area.
• Drag them from overflow into a technician's day to assign them.

7.5 Route Optimization

The route optimizer automatically arranges service stops to minimize drive time and balance workloads.

Running the Optimizer:

1. Open the scheduling page and switch to your Draft plan.
2. Click Optimize (or open the Optimizer panel).
3. Choose an optimization mode:
   • Single Split Route — optimizes stop order for each technician independently.
   • Equal Distribution — distributes stops evenly across technicians.
   • Concentrate — groups nearby stops on the same technician to minimize travel.
   • Even Out Workload — balances the number of stops per technician per day.
4. Click Run. The optimizer calculates the best arrangement and updates the Draft plan.
5. Review the results on the calendar and map.
6. If satisfied, Activate the plan.

Locked Stops: If you want to keep a specific service on a specific day/technician (e.g., a customer who only allows service on Tuesdays), lock that stop before running the optimizer. The optimizer will respect locked stops and work around them.

Optimization Respects:

• Technician work schedules (start/end times, break windows)
• Technician capacity limits (max jobs, max miles, max drive time)
• Location service windows (allowed service hours per day)
• Technician qualifications (only assigns qualified techs)
• Locked stops (doesn't move them)

7.6 The Route Map

Click the Map view to see all service stops plotted on an interactive map:

• Each stop is a colored pin matching the technician's color.
• Click a pin to see customer name, address, and service details.
• The map shows the route path connecting stops in order.
• Use this view to visually verify that routes make geographic sense and identify any outliers.

You can view the map for a specific day and technician to see their individual route.

7.7 Mid-Week Changes

Things change — a customer calls to reschedule, a technician calls in sick, or a new one-time service needs to be added.

Making mid-week changes:

1. Open the scheduling page.
2. Create a new Draft for the current week (or edit the existing Draft).
3. Make your changes (move services, reassign technicians, add/remove stops).
4. Activate the updated plan.
5. Changes are pushed to technicians' mobile apps in real time.

Technicians will see the updated schedule immediately — no need to refresh or re-login.