# Dispatch

> Field-service scheduling, a technician app, a live map and field billing, inside the CRM you already own.

Seedly Dispatch is a field-service add-on. It installs into your CRM and adds jobs, service locations, a dispatch board, a technician app, a live map and field billing alongside everything you already run. Your contacts, automations, estimates, invoices and logins stay exactly where they are.

Dispatch is a separate purchase and does not ship with the CRM. Once installed, it appears as a **Dispatch** row in the sidebar.

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## In this section

| Page | What it covers |
|------|----------------|
| [Setting up Dispatch](/docs/help/dispatch/setup) | The seven first-run steps, in order |
| [The board, jobs and locations](/docs/help/dispatch/board) | Scheduling, the service address vs the bill-to, repeating work, route sheets |
| [My Day, the technician app](/docs/help/dispatch/technician-app) | The field screen, offline behaviour, capturing a measurement |
| [The live map and route history](/docs/help/dispatch/map) | Positions, trails, consent and arrival stamps |
| [What the customer sees](/docs/help/dispatch/customers) | Visit messages, the tracking page, the photo gallery |
| [Billing from the field](/docs/help/dispatch/billing) | On-site estimates and payments, equipment days, adjuster approval |
| [The dispatch dashboard](/docs/help/dispatch/reporting) | The numbers on the first screen |
| [Dispatch in your workflows](/docs/help/dispatch/automations) | Triggers and the job fields added to your existing ones |
| [Settings reference](/docs/help/dispatch/settings) | Every card on the Settings page |
| [How Dispatch fits into your CRM](/docs/help/dispatch/integration) | What the add-on plugs into |
| [Troubleshooting](/docs/help/dispatch/troubleshooting) | What each refusal actually means |

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## Before you start

Three things decide whether Dispatch can do what you want on day one.

| You want | You need |
|----------|----------|
| Payments and signed estimates in the field | A Stripe connection in the CRM. Dispatch reuses your CRM's billing and has no payment system of its own. |
| Customer text messages | An SMS connection under **Settings, Integrations**. Dispatch hands every message to the CRM, which is also what enforces Do Not Disturb and STOP opt-outs. |
| Customer emails | Nothing extra beyond your CRM's normal sending setup. |

> With no SMS connection a text is **not refused, it is simply never sent**. The message is still written into the customer's conversation thread, so your office reads a text that never left the building. Send one real message to your own phone before you rely on texting anybody.

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## What Dispatch does not do

Deliberate limits rather than bugs. Worth knowing before you build a shop's day around one of them.

- **No overnight shifts.** Working hours have to end after they start, and route planning works one calendar day at a time. A night shop can run Dispatch by treating each night as its own day, but the optimizer will not plan across midnight.
- **Day and week views only.** The board shows a day or a week. Planning a month of contract work happens on the jobs list instead.
- **Two people per visit.** A lead technician and one helper. A third person needs a second visit on the same job.
- **One billing rhythm per location.** Monthly consolidated billing and multi-part deposit billing cannot both be on at once for the same location. Different locations can run different rhythms.
- **Times follow the dispatcher's own computer.** The board and suggested booking windows use whatever timezone the dispatcher's browser is set to. Correct whenever the dispatcher sits in the shop's timezone, and it drifts if they do not.

Dispatch is an operational tool, not a compliance system. Job checklists, equipment records and photos are for running work, not for satisfying regulatory recordkeeping. If your trade has statutory record requirements, keep those records in a system built for them.

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Source: https://seedlycrm.com/docs/help/dispatch