# Settings reference

> Every card on the dispatch Settings page and what each one changes.

## Settings reference

Everything below lives on **Dispatch, then Settings**. Opening the page needs **Jobs read**; saving anything on it needs an update key, so a read-only role can look and not change. Editing the roster, working hours and location history additionally needs **Dispatch Board**.

### Trade preset

Pick the trade you are and the settings that shape that trade's day are written for you: service types, customer messages, reminders, the billing rhythm, and where the trade calls for them, finish rules and the adjuster gate. Three ready-made dispatch workflows join your template gallery at the same time.

> A preset is a **starting point with no memory**. It overwrites only the settings it names and everything stays yours to change afterwards - but it does **replace** the whole Customer Experience card, events and reminders alike. Apply the preset first, then tune. Applying one later undoes tuning you did by hand.

### Technicians and working hours

Turn someone on and they become a row on the board that work can be assigned to. Everyone with access to the location is listed, because being a technician is a job rather than a permission.

Set working days and hours per person. The board shades time outside them, and smart scheduling and recurring auto-assignment skip it. Removing someone keeps their finished visits intact and their name stays on the work they did.

**Time off** is entered here or requested from the field. Approved days are shaded on the board and skipped by smart scheduling and recurring auto-assignment. Whole days only.

### Home base and territory

Latitude, longitude and a service radius in miles. This drives drive-time slot suggestions and the out-of-territory notice at booking time. The notice is advisory, never a block, and it can only fire on a property that already has coordinates.

### Service types

The kinds of work your trade actually does. Service types drive the trade presets, can gate the adjuster approval, and can force which estimate template the field sheet offers.

### Customer Experience

Five events you can text or email: **visit scheduled**, **visit rescheduled**, **technician on the way**, **visit complete**, **visit cancelled**. Each has its own channel.

**Reminders** adds up to three heads-up messages before a visit, each independently set to text, email, or both, with its own email template chosen from **Settings, Email Templates**.

**Quiet hours** hold a message that comes due overnight until they end. Set the evening start and morning end, or switch on **Send notifications around the clock** to disable them. The on-the-way message ignores quiet hours entirely, because holding "I am on my way" makes it a lie.

### Tracking page

**Tracking phone** and **what to expect** are the two fields your customer sees on the tracking page beside their visit status. The phone number is the one they will actually ring, so make it the one somebody answers.

### Finish rules

Two switches decide when a technician is allowed to finish a visit.

| Setting | What it does |
|---------|--------------|
| **Required checklist items block Finish** | A worklist item marked Required must be done before the technician can finish |
| **Require a photo before finishing** | At least one photo on the visit |
| **Photo categories** | Narrows what the photo requirement asks for, e.g. "before", "after" |

> **Photo categories are not a third switch.** They only apply while "Require a photo before finishing" is on, and turning that switch off stops the photo gate whatever is typed in the categories box. The box stays editable regardless, because those labels are also what the crew picks from when labelling a photo.

The office can always finish anyway from the board. That override is logged and names the work that was skipped.

**Customer-facing photo labels** decides which categories appear in the gallery link your customer opens. Anything not listed stays internal.

### Billing

| Setting | What it does |
|---------|--------------|
| **On-site billing** | Lets the assigned roster technician present an estimate and record a payment on their own job without the CRM's Invoices permission |
| **Default bill-to** | Whether a new job bills the service location's contact or a separate bill-to by default |
| **Estimate template policy** | Either the technician picks any template freely, or the service type forces which template the field sheet offers |
| **Invoice send channel** | How an invoice raised from a job reaches the customer |
| **Default equipment day rate** | The fallback daily rate for equipment-days billing, used when a placement has no rate of its own |
| **Billing cadence** | Per visit, or monthly consolidated for a whole route |
| **Billing close day of month** | Which day the consolidated draft cuts, clamped on short months |

> A location runs **one** billing rhythm. Monthly consolidated and multi-part deposit billing cannot both be on for the same location. Different locations can run different rhythms.

Switching to monthly billing asks for confirmation, and the page offers a **Run the monthly close now** action rather than waiting for the close day.

### Adjuster approval

**Adjuster approval gate** switches on the approval requirement, and **Gated service types** decides which work it applies to. Gated work cannot be scheduled until the adjuster approves through their own link. Clearing an approval is always an office action.

### Recurring work

| Setting | What it does |
|---------|--------------|
| **Recurring horizon in days** | How far ahead the schedule materialises visits. Defaults to 14 and is clamped between 3 and 60 |
| **Recurring conflict behaviour** | What happens when a generated visit lands on a day the technician cannot work: keep the date and leave it unassigned, or move it to their next free day |
| **Cascade reschedule** | Whether moving one visit on a multi-visit job moves the rest of the job with it |

### Route history

Off by default. On, the map draws where a technician actually went. Trails are kept for 30 days in this version, measured from a server timestamp rather than the phone's clock. Position is only ever recorded between "on my way" and "arrived", and only with that technician's own consent, which they grant and revoke on their own screen.

Arrival stamps are separate and do not expire - see [The live map and route history](/docs/help/dispatch/map).

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