Field Service Automation Software

Intelligent scheduling that matches every incoming job to the right technician based on required skills and certifications (a gas-safe registered engineer for boiler work, an electrician with an NICEIC certification for periodic inspection), current GPS location to minimise travel, available time slots accounting for existing commitments and travel buffer, and priority tier (SLA-contracted emergency, planned maintenance, or standard request). The scheduling engine evaluates the full day's job list simultaneously, not one job at a time, to produce an optimised assignment plan that a dispatcher working manually could not replicate in reasonable time. New jobs arriving mid-day slot into the existing schedule with a recalculation that surfaces the lowest-disruption assignment: the technician who can absorb the job without pushing a later SLA-contracted job past its response window. When a job overruns, the system calculates the downstream impact and flags the affected jobs with the options: reallocate to a nearby technician, notify the customer of a revised arrival window, or escalate if the delay would breach an SLA. Dispatchers work the exception queue, the jobs that require human judgement, rather than manually building every schedule from scratch each morning. Emergency jobs bypass the queue and are assigned and notified to the technician within seconds of booking.

A native or progressive web app on the technician's phone or tablet that gives them everything they need for each job before they arrive and a structured workflow for capturing what happened after. Before arrival: job details including customer name, site address, access instructions, equipment make/model and service history, parts and tools needed, and any previous job notes from the last visit. On-site: structured digital checklists tailored to the job type (HVAC service inspection has different steps than electrical fault diagnosis), time recording (clock-in on arrival, clock-out on departure captured automatically from GPS), parts used logged against the van stock, and a free-text or voice-to-text notes field for findings and recommendations. Photo capture attached to specific checklist items, a photo of the fault, the repair, and the completed work, timestamped and geotagged and stored on the job record. Customer signature captured on-screen for job sign-off, generating a PDF job completion certificate sent to the customer immediately. When the technician marks the job complete, the office team sees the status change in real time, invoice generation triggers automatically, and parts consumption updates the inventory system, no paper to transfer, no data to re-key.

Turn-by-turn navigation from job to job via Google Maps or Here Maps, integrated directly into the mobile app so technicians do not need to switch between applications. Routes calculated with real-time traffic data and updated when conditions change, a 40-minute drive that becomes an 80-minute drive due to an incident is recalculated before it makes the technician late, with the affected customer notified automatically of the revised ETA. Multi-stop route optimisation runs at the start of each day and when the schedule changes: given six jobs across a city, the optimal visit order minimises total drive time rather than following the sequence they were booked. Technician GPS location tracked throughout the day and visible to the dispatch team on a map view showing all active technicians, their current job, their next job, and their estimated arrival times. Location data used for three purposes: calculating live ETAs for customer notifications, identifying the nearest available technician when an emergency job is created, and generating a time-and-location audit trail for each job visit. Geofencing options for automatic clock-in when a technician's phone enters a job site radius and clock-out when they leave, removing the need for manual time recording on every job.

Automated customer communication across the full job lifecycle, via SMS (Twilio) and email (SendGrid), eliminating the call volume that occupies your front desk with customers asking for updates they should have received automatically. Booking confirmation sent within seconds of job creation, including job reference, appointment window, and a link to reschedule or cancel without calling the office. Day-before reminder with appointment window and a contact number for last-minute changes. Technician-on-the-way notification triggered when the technician starts travel to the job, including the technician's name, photo, and a live tracking link showing their current location and ETA, the equivalent of the delivery tracking experience that customers now expect from service providers. Arrival confirmation and job-in-progress update when the technician clocks in on-site. Job completion notification with a summary of work completed and a link to the invoice. Each notification template is configurable by job type: an emergency response job has different timing and content than a planned maintenance visit. Customer notification preferences (SMS, email, or both) stored per contact and respected automatically. Notification delivery status tracked: undelivered SMS triggers an email fallback, ensuring customers receive updates even when mobile numbers change.

Invoices generated automatically the moment a technician marks a job complete, using the labour time recorded (actual clock-in to clock-out), parts used at the current catalogue price, any call-out fee configured for the job type, and any agreed rates from the customer's contract or price list. The invoice is formatted, emailed to the customer, and a copy filed to the job record, all without dispatcher involvement. Payment link embedded in the invoice email pointing to a Stripe-hosted payment page, reducing the payment cycle from weeks to days for customers who would otherwise wait to receive a paper invoice before paying. For contract customers with monthly billing, invoice items accumulate across the billing period and a consolidated statement generates automatically at month-end. Accounting system integration pushes invoice data to QuickBooks, Xero, or Sage in real time: no double entry, no batch export at month-end, no reconciliation discrepancies. For service businesses currently invoicing an average of 2-5 days after job completion, immediate invoicing typically produces a 30-50% reduction in debtor days in the first 3 months of operation. Overdue invoice escalation: automatic reminders at 7, 14, and 30 days past due with escalating urgency, with an escalation flag to the accounts team for invoices past 45 days.

Real-time SLA monitoring for every open job, tracking three time metrics against the contracted targets: response time (from job creation to technician en route), on-site time (from technician arrival to resolution), and total resolution time (from job creation to completion). SLA parameters configured per customer, job priority tier, and job type, an emergency call-out contract specifies 2-hour response; a planned maintenance contract might specify next-business-day. A visual dashboard shows every open job with its current status colour-coded against its SLA: green (on track), amber (at risk, within 20% of the target window), and red (breached or imminent breach). Amber-status jobs surface automatically to the dispatch team for intervention: reassign to a closer technician, notify the customer of a delay, or escalate to the duty manager. Escalation rules configurable per contract: some customers require a phone call from a manager if a job breaches the response SLA; others require a written incident report within 24 hours of resolution. SLA performance reports delivered to service managers weekly: breach rate by job type, technician, geographic area, and time of day, the data that drives staffing decisions, route territory design, and contract renewal conversations. For service contracts with financial SLA penalties, the real-time breach alert is direct revenue protection that pays for the system in the first avoided penalty event.