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View Dispatch Calendar from App

Rick Allen

Hello Team,

It would be great for our team to be able to view the Dispatch Calendar from the App.  

Thanks,

5

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  • Siobhan Tabatabai

    Hi Rick,

    Thanks for reaching out with this feedback! This is a great request.

    I put myself into your shoes for a moment and tried to find a way to access the Dispatch Calendar on my iPhone, so I logged in through the GoCanvas website using Safari. When I got to it after logging in, I noticed that it might help me view appointments if I'm really in a pinch, but it isn't as easy to use as it is on the computer. I could see it being useful in those "pinch" moments, as a bookmarked page in Safari that I can quickly log in and access. But of course, integrating it into the mobile app experience is ideal.

    Thanks again for sharing your awesome idea!

    All the best,

    Siobhan

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  • it would be beneficial to be able to select the date and view the dispatches scheduled for that day the be able to tap the customer and go to the customer page in the App..  So a Daily or All calendar view option would be great as I sometimes have 30+ appointments a week and it is difficult to scroll through all the customers to find the right one.

     

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  • Hi Rick! A couple questions for you:

    • Do you ideally want this within the GoCanvas app or would you like an easier way to add dispatches to any device calendar of the employee's picking?
    • How far in advance would you like to see dispatches?  For example, do you only need your employees to see a week's worth or are there times they need to see even further out?
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  • I would like the ability to add user's dispatch schedule to their google calendars.  I think this would be very beneficial.

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  • Tara, This is actually a fairly simple integration using Zapier. There are a few different ways depending on how you create your dispatches. Tell me what method you use to create your dispatches and I'll put together something to help you.

    (Edited )
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  • We are utilizing the app for inbound/outbound shipments.  We are having each of our facilities use the Business Insights tool to upload all the dispatches (inbound/outbound shipments), but they can't see them in calendar form after they've been uploaded.  I don't want to give them Admin security rights just to see the calendar, so I would love for there to be an additional level of security that would allow our facilities to log on and just see the dispatch calendar.  If they could add their dispatches there, it would be an added benefit too!

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  • Keith, we are integrated with Softbase and GoCanvas - Softbase is our business software which is a sql database program.  In Softbase we dispatch work orders to our techs using their user names as the service van name and we are beginning to schedule the dispatch for the time the tech should begin the job and how long it should take.  Ideally we would like to have a google calendar for each tech that we can share with the individual tech and then we could use a big display monitor that will show all of the tech's calendars on it so it will show where each tech is throughout the day.  Currently, when we dispatch and schedule the work order in Softbase it does show on the GoCanvas dispatch calendar, but it isn't very easy to view when you have 15+ techs and the individual techs can't view their own calendar.  I am hoping that our scheduler can have the tech's tentatively scheduled out for a week in advance so the techs have an idea of where they will be, and if something changes where we have to change it - ideally the scheduler will remove the dispatch in Softbase which will remove it from GoCanvas which will remove it from Google Calendar .  Clear as mud?  ;)

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  • I will throw something together and get back to you soon..

    (Edited )
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  • Awesome, thanks a bunch for any help

     

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  • Keith, Do you think this is a possible request and if so can you give me some pointers to begin trying to get something to experiment with it.

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  • Keith McQuait - I was wondering if you still think it is possible to get something that would work with the GoCanvas calendar being sent to Google calendars?  Thanks so much,  I have made some attempts but am not having much luck. Any help would be appreciated.

     

     

    (Edited )
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  • Hello Tara, So sorry for not getting back to you sooner. I got beat up pretty badly by our IT Security folks (about GoCanvas and Zapier) and I've been on a hiatus.

    Since then, I've learned to not get myself involved in this as much. Situations like yours for example, are very complicated and extremely difficult to show/demonstrate and take a lot of hours to set up. I do these very complicated sorts of things for my company and nobody really appreciates it and I get accused of violating company security protocols. So, I am usually very sorry that I wasted my time on such things. haha.

    I am going to paraphrase myself from earlier "This is a fairly simple integration depending on how you create your dispatches"...

    If you were adding the information to a dispatch sheets and uploading to GoCanvas, this is easy.. However..

    Since you have a custom integration using Softbase already (which I am not familiar with), it makes this a lot more complicated. The trigger mechanism (Softbase) I really can't help you with. If you don't know how to do it yourself, (which I am assuming you don't since we are having this exchange) you are going to need your in-house programming folks or GoCanvas Professional Services to help you with this.

    That being said, when your DBMS (Softbase) triggers to create or remove the dispatches into/from GoCanvas, you need a script which also sends the (dispatched) information out in some manner so you can use it for a subsequent action. For example, we use a DBMS called EMPAC (ancient technology) which will send out an email at 11 am and 11 pm every day (only) when a Work Request has been converted to a Work Order by our planning department. The email(s) can then be used as a trigger for Zapier to create a Zap which creates, modifies, or deletes a row or rows in a google sheet, Excel Online worksheet, or an AirTable record. Note: What you are trying to accomplish may actually involve using two different sheets (databases) and Zaps bouncing information off of each other in order to completely accomplish everything you are trying to do.

    Once this information is out there in the database of your choosing, you have some options. You could directly use Zapier and setup Zaps to create, modify, or delete Google Calendar events.

    or

    (So this is the part where I sound like an AirTable salesman. I assure you that I am not.) 

    Airtable has a Kanban board and also a calendar that can be setup by using different views. Once you have this setup correctly, you can actually setup different views which will trigger zaps to delete or re-dispatch (previously dispatched) GoCanvas apps by dragging and dropping them on the Kanban board and/or calendar. Different calendar views can be shared with lots of different users. If the AirTable calendar isn't to your liking or doesn't meet all your needs (which I can't imagine it not working for you), it could also be setup to add, remove, or modify Google Calendar events.

    Like I said, this is all very complicated and I haven't probably helped you out one bit here and I am very sorry if I didn't.

    (Edited )
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  • Keith, I appreciate your response and I believe it will be very helpful. I'll let ya know when I have something. Again thanks so much for your time.

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