A dispatcher is the person that is in charge of operations. Everything from new incoming bookings and packages, to building optimized tours, assigning them to drivers and dealing with ongoing operations is part of the job. In MotionTools there are two user roles that have access to features related to dispatching: the admin and the org manager. While the admin manage the operations for all customers, services areas and organizations and org manager is usually only responsible for some regions.
This article will explain how to get started with MotionTools as a dispatcher.
Most important features
There are multiple important features that a dispatchers should be able to work with:
Operations page: the central place to manage operations for each service area
Import tools: a collection of features that help to import data, e.g. to create new packages or bookings on behalf of customers
Dispatch tools: the most important features that help dispatcher to do their job.
Please check out the linked pages and familiarize yourself with these tools. Experiment with your MotionTools tenant to understand these features and know how to use them before creating real bookings from customers.
Monitoring operations
A dispatcher’s role in tracking daily operations is important in ensuring things are in order. This person is usually keeping an eye on incoming bookings, already planned tours, available drivers and so on. They also are in charge of planning ahead and building optimized tours based on bookings and packages. Therefore understanding how to navigate the platform, customize the various views and identifying the features that are important in everyday operations will help dispatchers become more efficient at their job.
Learn more about how to enhance the dispatcher’s monitoring experience here.
Tour building basics
Tour building without packages
Next, the dispatcher may identify relevant bookings using various filters and bundle them into tours so that drivers are handed only one job that consists of multiple stops and customers. In order to maximize a driver’s time on the road and making sure that the bundled bookings meet the customer’s promised time, the dispatcher needs to understand the various tour building options MotionTools offers to make the best decision.
Read Get started with tour building to learn more about how to use the various tour building features to support your use case.
Tour building with packages
Besides building tours with incoming bookings, MotionTools also allows to build complex, multi-legged journey based on packages. Please check out our section Packages and Dispatching Packages — a Handbook.
Assigning tours to drivers
Finally, tours need to be manually or automatically assigned to drivers. Tours can be automatically assigned with drivers depending on certain criteria such as by Service area and Capability.
Please read Intro to manual assignin as well as Introduction to auto-assigning features to learn more.