Scheduling work that happens on your own premises and scheduling work that happens at a customer address are different disciplines, and the differences are specific rather than a matter of degree. Three things change, and every awkward feature in field scheduling software exists because of one of them.
Travel becomes a fifth of your capacity
On the worked example this site publishes, 22% of the working day goes on driving, which is 144 jobs a month worth $41,081 of capacity. On premises that time does not exist. Off premises it is the largest single deduction from what your team can do, it is paid time under the Department of Labor position, and most boards quietly pretend it is free.
The record is made by somebody you cannot see
On site, a supervisor can check the work before it is signed off. In the field, the record is whatever the technician captured, and its quality is decided by how easy the app made it. That is why the app matters more than the board in the long run: the board is fed by it.
The office is blind between visits
Where somebody is and how the job is going are unknown unless the technician says so. Every field scheduling feature about status, tracking and notifications is an attempt to reduce that blindness, and the cheapest of them by far is a status the technician can change in one tap.
The promise is made to somebody who is waiting
A customer who has taken a morning off is a different constraint from an internal deadline. Windows, confirmations and being told when something changes are not niceties in field work, they are the product. This is where field scheduling differs most from rostering people into a building.
Questions people ask about field scheduling
Is field scheduling the same as rostering?
No. Rostering decides who works when. Field scheduling decides who goes where, which is a different question with a customer attached to it.
How do we measure travel honestly?
From arrival and departure times on jobs, not from an estimate. The gap between them is the driving, and it is usually larger than people guess.
Does the technician have to be tracked?
A status is enough for most businesses. Continuous location is a bigger decision than a settings toggle and changes how a team feels about the software.