Dispatch: Schedule Staff and Vehicles in One Place

Drag available employees onto the right vehicle – Jobilino checks qualifications, seat capacity and availability as you go. Anyone who lacks the required authorisation simply cannot be assigned as a driver.

  • One board per customer and day, operated by drag and drop
  • Exactly one driver per vehicle – enforced technically
  • Everyone assigned is notified when the plan is closed

The dispatch board is a daily board: for a given client and date, you define who travels in which vehicle. Because dispatch and shift planning share the same assignments, every allocation automatically appears in the weekly and monthly views as well – there is no second planning world to maintain.

Why scheduling with vehicles is so complex

As soon as employees are not travelling independently but vehicles and carpooling arrangements come into play, a standard shift plan is no longer enough:

  • Who is free today is in one list, who is on leave in another, and who called in sick you learn by phone in the morning
  • A vehicle gets double-booked because two people are planning at the same time
  • On the day it turns out the assigned driver does not hold the required authorisation
  • More people than seats – noticed only in the car park
  • The plan goes out by WhatsApp; whoever does not reply may or may not have seen it
  • If something changes the night before, nobody knows who has the old version and who the new one

How the dispatch board works

One board per client and day, available resources on the left, vehicles on the right – and rules running in the background that prevent incorrect scheduling.

You select a client and date and see two pools: the available staff and the available vehicles for that day. The staff pool automatically factors out anyone already assigned elsewhere, anyone on approved leave, anyone signed off sick, and anyone on a fixed schedule. You only dispatch with people who are genuinely free.

Via drag-and-drop you assign staff to a vehicle. Each vehicle has a defined seat count, capacity utilisation is visible at all times, and the system checks capacity when you finalise the plan. There is exactly one driver per vehicle per plan — enforced by the system, not just a convention.

The decisive element is qualifications. Staff members hold qualifications, and both vehicles and clients can require them. If a staff member lacks a qualification required by the vehicle, the driver toggle cannot be switched — with the reason shown clearly. Matching qualifications are highlighted as a positive match; missing ones are flagged just as prominently. Individual staff members can also be excluded from specific clients.

A daily plan starts as a draft and is then finalised. If a finalised plan is edited again, the system recognises it as an update. New daily plans are pre-filled from the most recently finalised plan for the same client — making recurring runs a matter of seconds rather than minutes.

What Scheduling Delivers Day to Day

Plan only with people who are genuinely free

The pool filters out leave, sickness, fixed working hours and existing assignments. Anyone booked elsewhere appears greyed out with where and why – rather than not at all, so you can still reschedule if you need to.

Mistakes prevented, not logged

Seat count, one driver per vehicle, a missing driving authorisation, excluded employees: all of these are checked while planning and again when closing. A plan that does not add up cannot be closed.

Everyone knows what to expect

On closing, each assigned person receives exactly one notification – customer, date, start, vehicle and driver. The driver instead receives their driver briefing including the list of passengers.

Changes are recognisable as changes

If a closed plan is changed again, the system does not resend an identical message but shows each recipient what has changed compared with the version they last received.

Recurring runs in seconds

A new day plan is pre-filled from the last closed plan for the same customer. Anyone unavailable today drops out automatically – you only correct the differences.

The supervisor sees the status

On the day a dashboard card shows who has already clocked in and who is still missing, refreshed automatically. A supervisor sees their own team, not the whole company.

Five Steps to a Finished Daily Plan

  1. Pick the customer and the day

    The board opens on tomorrow by default – in practice planning happens the day before. Any board can be shared straight from the address bar.

  2. Start the day plan

    On starting, the last closed plan for the same customer is carried over as far as those people and vehicles are available today. With nothing to carry over you begin with empty vehicles.

  3. Drag people onto vehicles

    From the pool of free employees onto a vehicle by drag and drop. The load per vehicle is visible, as is which qualifications somebody brings and which are missing.

  4. Set the driver

    Exactly one driver is set per vehicle. Anyone without the authorisation the vehicle requires cannot be made driver – with the missing certificate named. Where a regular driver is stored, they are proposed automatically.

  5. Close the plan

    On closing, the system checks capacity, driver and crew composition. Only then do the notifications go out – a draft sends nothing.

Features at a Glance

Two pools instead of searching

On the left the employees free today, next to them the free vehicles. People already booked appear greyed out with the reason – another customer, leave or sickness.

Drag and drop

Drag employees onto a vehicle, move them between vehicles, drag them back to the pool. A without vehicle group is available too, for anyone travelling under their own steam.

One driver per vehicle

The rule is anchored in the database, not just in the interface. When a new driver is set, the previous one loses the role automatically.

Qualifications on vehicle and customer

A vehicle can require that at least a given number of the crew hold a qualification – and that the driver holds it personally. Customers can set requirements too.

Customer exclusions

Individual employees can be blocked for particular customers. They then never appear as plannable, instead of being rejected at closing.

Delivery report

After closing you can see who the notification reached and who it did not. If somebody signs in later, they drop off the list by themselves.

Export as PDF, Excel or CSV

The finished day plan can be output – for the noticeboard, for the client or for the archive. Driver rows are highlighted in it.

Drafts clean themselves up

Drafts that were never closed are deleted once their planning day lies more than seven days in the past. Closed plans are left untouched.

What dispatch looks like

Two views explain more than a description: the board itself – and the rule that stops anyone without the required licence from getting behind the wheel.

Dispatch day board: the pool of available staff on the left, two vehicles with their crews on the right. Exactly one person per vehicle is marked as driver; one employee is unavailable because of leave.

One board per client and day

On the left are the employees who are genuinely free that day; anyone on leave or off sick appears greyed out with the reason. On the right, the vehicles with their crews, the seat counter and exactly one marked driver per vehicle. Employees are dragged onto a vehicle, moved between vehicles or dropped back into the pool.

Two employees compared: Lukas P. holds the category C licence the vehicle requires and can be set as driver; Jonas B. does not, so the switch stays off.

The driver check

A vehicle can require a licence – a particular category, for instance. Anyone who does not hold it cannot be set as driver in the first place, and the interface names the missing document. That is the difference between a warning you click away and a rule that holds: the mistake surfaces while planning, not on the day in the car park.

Connected to What You Already Use

Scheduling is not a standalone island — it is another view of the same data:

Shift planning

A dispatched assignment is the same assignment as in the weekly plan. No second planning world appears that would have to be maintained in parallel.

Time tracking

On the day, the people assigned clock in as usual. The live status compares plan and entries and shows who has already started.

Vehicles

The vehicles are the same ones kept in the mileage log. Seats, registration and regular driver exist in one place only.

Qualifications

The same certificates held in the qualification matrix govern eligibility to drive here. When one expires, it immediately affects who can be planned.

Notifications

Delivery runs through the same channels as every other message – in the system and as a push to the phone.

Frequently Asked Questions about Scheduling

Does the dispatch board plan day by day, or can I also plan monthly?

The dispatch board itself is a daily board: one plan per client and date, because vehicles, seat capacity and drivers are decided on a day-by-day basis. Weekly and monthly planning takes place in the shift-planning view. Both work from the same assignments – whatever you dispatch appears automatically in the weekly and monthly views, with no duplicate data entry required.

How does Jobilino prevent someone without the right qualification from driving?

Vehicles can require specific qualifications, and employees hold qualifications. If a required qualification is missing, that employee cannot be set as the driver for that vehicle – the toggle remains locked and displays the reason. Conversely, matching qualifications are highlighted as a positive match during planning. Clients can also require qualifications.

What qualifications can I set up?

You define the qualifications yourself – for example, a forklift licence or a specific driving permit. They are not predefined; instead, they reflect what is genuinely required in your organisation. They are assigned to employees, and required by vehicles and clients.

How does the system know which employees are available?

The pool of available employees automatically excludes anyone who is already scheduled that day, has approved leave, has called in sick, or is committed to fixed work. You only see people who are genuinely available to be dispatched – no cross-referencing with other lists needed.

Can a vehicle be overbooked?

Every vehicle has a stored seat count, and current utilisation is visible during planning. When the daily plan is finalised, the system checks capacity, so an overbooking cannot go unnoticed.

Can I exclude specific employees from specific clients?

Yes. Individual employees can be blocked for a particular client. The rule is enforced during planning and does not rely on the scheduler remembering it – which makes all the difference when handling cover shifts or onboarding new schedulers.

Do I have to rebuild recurring runs from scratch every day?

No. A new daily plan is pre-filled from the most recently finalised plan for the same client – not necessarily yesterday's, but the latest available one. Absent employees are skipped automatically. You only need to adjust the differences; the suggestion is non-binding and fully editable.

What do "draft" and "finalised" mean?

A daily plan starts as a draft and is deliberately finalised. Even in draft status, scheduled employees and vehicles are treated as reserved and no longer appear in the available pool. If you edit a plan that has already been finalised, the system recognises this as an update.

Does dispatch replace shift planning?

No, it complements it. Shift planning remains the weekly and monthly view across all employees; dispatch is the day-precise view of clients, vehicles and drivers. Because both use the same assignments, there is no second source of truth about who is working when.

Is dispatch included automatically?

No, it is a standalone module that is specifically activated for your organisation, as it is not relevant for every business. You also control who is permitted to dispatch through user permissions. The quickest way to sort this out is in a short demo.

See Scheduling in Action

The scheduling module is activated for your organisation. In a short demo we will show you a real daily board — complete with vehicles, pools, and the driver qualification check.

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