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Assign a technician and set a completion date

Putting a repair in someone's hands, and telling the customer when to expect their equipment back.

A repair with nobody's name against it belongs to everybody, which in practice means it belongs to no one. Assignment answers who is doing this, and the completion date answers when it will be done, which together are most of what a customer rings up to ask.

Highlights

  • Assignment is per row, so three repairs on one ticket can go to three people.
  • A technician is a real user account, not a name typed into a box.
  • Est. Completion is the date you are promising, and the ageing report measures against it.
  • Lead time is what you tell the customer, in plain words rather than a fixed unit.
  • Reassigning is logged, so a job that moved between benches has a trail.

Assign the work

  1. Open the ticket and select the edit control

    The pencil in the ticket header reopens the form.

  2. Find the Assigned To column on the service row

    Each row has its own picker. A ticket with several repairs on it does not have to send them all to one person.

  3. Choose a technician

    The list holds the people set up as technicians in your organisation. Someone missing from it needs a technician record before they can be assigned work.

  4. Set the lead time on the row

    Write it the way you would say it: Same day, 1 week, 3 to 5 working days.

  5. Set Est. Completion in the ticket details

    This is the ticket-level promise, and the date your reporting treats as the deadline.

  6. Select Save

The Services panel of a ticket showing three repair rows, each with its own Repair Status set to Repaired, its own Assigned To value reading Graham Whitfield, and its own Lead Time reading 3 to 5 working days, Same day and 1 week respectively.
Assignment and lead time sit on the row, not on the ticket, so each repair can be given its own owner and its own promise.

Why a technician is a user account

Technicians are not free text. Each one is tied to a person who can sign in, which is what makes the rest of the app work.

Their work is countable
The technician performance report can only add up jobs that point at a real person.
Their name goes on the report
A work report names the technician who wrote it, and the customer may well read it.
The change is attributable
The activity log records who reassigned a job as well as who it went to.

Two dates, and what each is for

Lead time compared with estimated completion
FieldWhere it livesWhat it is for
Lead TimeOn each service rowTelling the customer how long this particular repair takes. It is free text, so it can say Same day or Awaiting supplier confirmation
Est. CompletionOn the ticketThe date the whole job is promised for. Reporting measures lateness against it, so an empty one leaves the job invisible to the ageing report

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