I am trying to create a dispatch and leave the "Assign to" field as blank so that the dispatch would appear in the pool of "Available Tasks" (ie. an unassigned dispatch) from the app. Then, whichever user was working at that job can find the appropriate form in the "Available Tasks" window, assign it to themselves and complete the form.
Unfortunately, after creating a dispatch that is unassigned, it will not show up anywhere on the app. On desktop, if you edit the Dispatch and update "Assign to" and select a worker, then it shows up to the specific user under tasks today (if date is set to today). Only at that point can the user unassign from the app. Once a user has unassigned the task, only then will it show up under the available task window (in a pool of unassigned dispatches if there are multiple) for someone else to assign themselves.
Is there anyway for us to create an unassigned dispatch that a user can then assign themselves to at a later date? It seems that all of the tools are there, since once assigned you can unassign yourself and then put the unassigned dispatch into the pool. The unassigned pool exists, just not when creating the dispatch.
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2025 Update:
The Community is getting cleaned up! If you are stumbling across this post after June of 2025, this is the most recent solution or answer to the request in this post.
This is not planned at this time. This post will be updated if anything changes.
However, there is a workaround in the meantime. First, assign the dispatch(s) to yourself, or the admin/dispatcher who is managing dispatches, and then that admin/dispatcher need to open the dispatch on mobile, edit at least one field value, then "Save & Close" the submission to "activate" the submission on mobile. This is an important step for registering the dispatch as an active submission that can be claimed. Then using Work Hub, all dispatches can be unassigned as a bulk action to add them to the unassigned queue.
I recognize that this is a clunky solution but hope that it can be helpful in the interim. I also encourage anyone to reach out to our Product team via beta@gocanvas.com, they love hearing feedback directly from customers!
Hi Dan!
My name is Mae and I'm one of the Managers on our Customer Success Team. Thank you for inquiring and for the in-depth description of what you're looking to accomplish. Let me check on this - I'll reply to this post once I've got some information for you.
Best,
Mae Bouley
Manager, Customer Success
Hi Dan!
Following up here - we don't currently offer the ability to directly dispatch to a pool of unassigned dispatches. I have relayed this feature request to our product development team for considerations for future enhancements.
As a workaround, we recommend dispatching the form to a designated user, such as yourself, and having a field notating that it should be unassigned right away so that you can un-assign it every time you receive it. It will then be available to any of your other users to pick up.
Hope that helps! Let us know if there's anything else we can help with.
Thanks,
Mae
Hi Mae,
Thank you for the response. The workaround may work. For clarification, what do you mean by having a field notating that it should be unassinged right away? Do you just mean to act as a reminder to unassign? Will I still have to manually unassign?
Thank you,
Hi Dan,
Good questions! You don't have to add it, but I meant adding a checkbox field, as an example, in the form, so that the dispatcher would pre-populate with a check to remind the user that it should be unassigned right away.
You would still have to manually un-assign. The field would just act as a reminder for you once you got the dispatched form with the checkbox selected, to manually un-assign it.
Best,
Mae
Hi Dan,
Adding to what Mae said, you can also use the Dispatch Name or Description to tell the admin to unassign the submission. If they plan to use Work Hub, the Dispatch Name will be the best place to share that instruction. If they plan to use the mobile application, then the Description is the best place.
This would be a very helpful feature. Perfect summary Dan.
Also it would be nice if the "Unassign" could be done via the API instead of having someone manually turn the submission back to the group.
Hey Chris!
Thank you for your contribution to this post. We hear you and appreciate your feedback. While this feature is not currently available, hopefully the workarounds above will be helpful. We will leave this post available so others can upvote for the chance to be added to future development mapping.
Troi Coleman, Learning and Education Specialist
I would also like this feature - our users have too many tasks to feasibly unassign themselves from everyday, and if implemented, we could easily add this to our automated processes.