A spreadsheet and a group chat genuinely work.
Until a second person needs to change the plan.
OkPilot is dispatch software that keeps every assignment, change and reason in one place that more than one person can write to. The field app shows each worker only their own next job, and the history of who moved what, and when, is on the record rather than in a chat scroll.
The line is writers, not headcount.
A sheet and a group chat are not a stopgap. They work. A single dispatcher with twenty drivers can run a clean day that way, because there is exactly one copy of the plan and one person editing it. Headcount is not what breaks it.
What breaks it is the second writer. The moment a supervisor can also move a job, or a driver swaps two stops between themselves in the chat, the plan exists in two places and neither is authoritative. Assignment state stops living in the sheet and starts living half in the dispatcher's head and half in a chat scroll nobody can search. Ask on Thursday why the Monday job went to the other van and the answer is a person's memory.
The symptom is specific and easy to check. Your dispatcher cannot take a day off. Not because there is nobody to cover, but because the plan cannot be handed over. If covering for one person means a two-hour briefing, the plan is not written down.
What happens when you type "Move Dan's afternoon"
“Dan's van is off the road from 1pm. Move his afternoon.”
Dan has five jobs after 1pm. Three fit Priya's run with under ten minutes added each. The 2:30 at Fairview needs the long ladder, which only Dan and Marcus carry, so that one goes to Marcus and pushes his last job to 4:45. The fifth is a two-hour install with no slack left today. Rebook it, or run it Thursday morning?
It tells you what you were about to find out at 4pm
Three jobs were reassigned in chat this morning and never changed on the board. The board still shows them with Alex. Sync them?
The 11:40 at Benton has been moved four times since Friday and is still unassigned. Nobody is holding it. Assign it or call the customer?
Priya is carrying nine jobs today and Marcus four. Both finish on time on paper, but Priya has no room for anything that runs long. Move two?
The driver gets one next job, not a scroll
Most dispatch failures are read failures, not plan failures. The plan was fine; the person in the van read the wrong message. The app replaces the scroll with a short list the office can change under them.
- One screen with the next job on it. When dispatch moves something, the list changes; nothing has to be re-read.
- Accept, start, complete. Three states, and the time on each comes from the device rather than a text message sent later.
- A reason attached to every reassignment, so Thursday's question about Monday has an answer that is not somebody's memory.
- Works with no signal. Changes queue in both directions and reconcile when the phone finds a bar.
Describe how you dispatch now
“We run eighteen vans out of one depot. I build tomorrow at about 4pm and it changes all morning. Two supervisors can move jobs. Anything needing a gas ticket only goes to four of the drivers. If a job slips past 5pm I want to know before the customer does.”
That is the setup. OkPilot creates:
- One board both supervisors can write to, with every change attributed
- Skill and certification rules, so a gas job cannot be assigned to someone without the ticket
- A handover view: tomorrow's plan readable by someone who was not in the room
- An alert when a job's projected finish crosses its promised window
Since 2018
In market
2,000,000+ tasks
Handled
48 hours
To full setup
Dispatch software questions
We are eight people and the sheet works. Is this early?
Probably, if one person is the only one who edits the plan. The question is not how many jobs you run, it is how many people need to change the plan during the day. At one writer, a sheet is fine and cheaper. At two or more, you are already paying for this in rework and phone calls, just not on an invoice.
Does the AI reassign jobs on its own?
No. It suggests, you approve. It will tell you that moving three stops to Priya costs ten minutes and that one of them needs a ladder only two drivers carry, then wait. It does not message a customer or move a job without a person clicking yes.
Can the dispatcher actually take a day off after this?
That is the test we would use. The plan, the reasons and the change history are on the board rather than in someone's head, so a competent stand-in can read tomorrow and run it. What software cannot hand over is the judgement about which customer tolerates a late arrival. Write that down as a site note and it travels too.
How long does it take to get our dispatch into it?
About 48 hours for a working setup: your jobs, your people, your rules, your windows. We have been running this since 2018 and have put over 2,000,000 tasks through it ourselves, so the first day is configuration rather than discovery. The harder part is the fortnight after, when people stop assigning in the chat.
OkPilot also handles what dispatch software does, board or map, dispatch scheduling. See the whole platform.
See it running your board
Book a demo. Bring one real day, including the reassignments, and we will rebuild it on the board so you can see which of this morning's phone calls would not have happened.