Scheduling technicians goes wrong in a predictable way: the office books against the number of jobs it wishes a technician could do, and the day corrects the estimate for them, one apologetic phone call at a time. Everything else about this software matters less than getting the capacity number honest first, because every other decision is downstream of it.
Count completions, not intentions
The input that matters is what a technician actually finishes in a day, counted across a normal week including the day that went badly. On the worked example this site publishes it is 5.2, which is deliberately not a round number, because round numbers are always somebody good day. Six technicians at 5.2 is 31.2 a day and 655 a month, and that is the ceiling.
Travel is a fifth of the day and it is paid
On the same example, 22% of the working day goes on driving, which is 144 jobs a month worth $41,081 of capacity sitting in a van. Nobody teleports, so that figure is not a promise. It is the size of the prize for clustering work by area, and it is paid time either way under the Department of Labor rules on travel within the working day.
Skills and certification narrow the choice
Not every technician can take every job, and the constraint is usually invisible until the person holding it in their head is away. Where certification is a legal condition of the work, the board that assigns jobs is the right place for it to live: it is checked at the moment the decision is made rather than remembered afterwards.
Overtime is a scheduling decision
A day that overruns is a payroll cost as well as a customer problem. Overtime obligations under the Fair Labor Standards Act are set out plainly by the Department of Labor, and a schedule that regularly runs past the working day is choosing that cost without pricing it. The fix is capacity, not effort.
Questions people ask about service technician scheduling software
What if different technicians complete very different numbers?
Then schedule against each person real number rather than a team average. Averages hide the fact that one van is always late and another finishes at three.
Should travel be booked as a job?
It does not need its own row, but it does need to be inside the time allowed for each job, or the board is quietly pretending the driving is free.
Does the software decide who goes?
It shows you who can and what each has on. The choice stays with the dispatcher, which is where it belongs.