Run a trade business on Scheduley (Jobs & Field Service)

Scheduley for trades: jobs, not just appointments

Plumbing, HVAC, electrical, roofing, landscaping: trade businesses need to capture what the customer needs and where to go. You can start free: your AI receptionist and booking page answer calls and book visits as appointments for any trade. Jobs & Field Service (Premium, $39/month) adds job intake, scheduling, status tracking, assignments, and dispatch.

Turn it on

Activate Premium first, then go to Settings → How your business works and choose Jobs & Field Service. Choosing a trade business during setup does not activate Jobs mode or allow testing on Free. Click Save changes to apply the workflow. Your records are preserved. While Premium is active, finish dispatched or in-progress jobs before switching back to Appointments. If Premium ends, you can return to basic appointments while your saved job records are kept.

What changes

• Your AI books jobs, not services. Callers describe problems (“my water heater is leaking”); your agent asks what’s going on, captures the job details and symptoms, always collects the service address, and treats emergencies with urgency: soonest same-day slot, or a transfer to you when nothing’s open soon.
• Every booking becomes a job. Online, phone or text, with any photos the customer sent. A job is the work record: named after the problem (“Water heater replacement”), tied to the client, carrying details, photos & documents, and its visit history. The calendar shows the visits; the job holds everything else. Same model the big field-service platforms use, without the ceremony.
• A Jobs tab for the work you owe people. Every job shows one stage and its next step: Quote sent, Needs scheduling, Scheduled, To invoice, Awaiting payment, Done. Tabs across the top filter by stage, and each card has a button for what comes next.
• Approved work tells you to book it. Once a client approves a quote (or pays the deposit, if you require one), the job moves to Needs scheduling and Scheduley texts you, right away or after a delay you choose in Settings. Tap Schedule to pick the time yourself, or Text booking link so the client chooses from your open times. Either way they get a confirmation text.
• An AI status summary on every job. List rows and the job drawer show a short AI summary (what’s booked, what’s waiting, money and quote state) so you can skim the board without opening every record. Tap Refresh AI when notes or visits changed and you want a fresh read (daily generation limits apply).
• The whole conversation, right on the job. The job view shows the client’s text thread and recent calls at a glance, each tagged with how it stands (AI handling, needs attention, resolved), whether it led to a booking, and a red urgent flag when a caller mentioned something serious. One tap opens the full thread in your inbox. No more “wait, what did they say on the phone?” before you knock.
• Work can exist before a time does. Tap New job to create one with no schedule (“Maria approved the remodel, dates TBD”) and it waits behind the Unscheduled filter until you add a visit. Need another trip on the same work? Tap + Follow-up (or + Schedule visit if nothing’s booked yet): client and job stay locked, Repeats and Service stay out of the way, and you pick the day, duration, and who’s going. Follow-ups show as Follow-up on the calendar and can add a priced invoice line (e.g. “Follow-up: Trim”) without replacing the original service. A diagnostic visit and the repair a week later share one history, one quote trail, one set of photos.
• Your calendar becomes a job board. Every visit carries a status: Booked → Dispatched → In progress → Done. Tap through the statuses right on the job, or flip the Schedule / Board toggle for a dispatch board: the whole team’s jobs for the day in status columns, each card showing the time, client, address, problem, assigned tech (or an Unassigned flag), and quote state. The board is always team-wide: it shows everyone’s work, not just one person’s, so the Solo/Team switch doesn’t apply here. Drag a card between columns or use the one-tap dispatch, start, and complete buttons, and a small ← steps a card back a stage if you moved too fast. A Dispatch setting (in Settings) controls what actually gets dispatched: All jobs (every visit gets the status board and on-my-way texts), or Only mobile jobs: just the ones at a client’s location you travel to (services set to “Client’s location”), which is what you dispatch a truck for. With Only mobile jobs on, in-shop and phone/video visits skip the dispatch board and statuses entirely and get a simple Open → Done instead, since there’s no truck to send.

Dispatching, step by step

Each status is a real moment in the job’s life, and two of them trigger texts on their own:

• Booked: the job as it lands, from a call, text, or your booking page, with the problem and address already captured. On teams, a card with no tech assigned shows a red Unassigned flag; open the job to assign someone, and they’re texted their assignment instantly. (Solo? No flags, no assignments. Every job is yours.)
• Dispatched: tap Dispatch (or drag the card over) when the tech heads out. This is the trigger step: the client automatically gets the on-my-way text (once per visit, so moving a card back and forth never re-texts them), and from this moment your agent tells anyone who calls to check that the tech is on the way.
• In progress: work has started. Mostly bookkeeping, but it keeps callbacks honest: a client checking in now hears “work is in progress.”
• Done: wrap it up. Text the invoice if there’s one, settle in person, and Mark paid on the job (payment lives on the job, not each visit). The job shows Amount collected and a balance due when they’ve only paid part, or a red OVERDUE chip if an invoice slips past its due date. Done visits are also when review invites make sense.

Cancelled jobs leave the board and can refill themselves: the waitlist texts clients waiting on that day the moment the slot frees. And every move is confirmed on screen, so you always know a text actually went out.

• Follow-up calls answered with real answers. When a client calls back asking “when’s my tech coming?” or “are they on the way?”, your agent looks up the actual job and answers from it: the arrival window, the status (dispatched, in progress, done), even whether a quote is awaiting their approval. And if they say “tell him the gate code is 1234” or “I’m running late”, the agent attaches the note to the job and texts it to the assigned tech.
• On-my-way texts. The moment you mark a job Dispatched, the client gets a text from your business number: “Good news! Jake from Ace Plumbing is on the way for your water heater repair.” The single most-loved feature in field service, built in.
• Arrival windows. Jobs mode starts with 2-hour windows. Change it (30 minutes up to 4 hours) in Settings → Booking → Online booking & pricing. Customers pick a window online and hear “between 9 and 11” on the phone, in confirmations and in reminders, while your job board keeps the exact time.
• Job details everywhere. What the caller described travels with the job. Open any job to see the problem before you knock on the door.
• Quotes & invoices, by text. Build line items on the job, generate a quote and text it for one-tap online approval, then convert it to an invoice (the button lights up the moment the client approves) and text that (with due dates, overdue tracking, and an automatic reminder built in) and settle in person with Mark paid. See Quotes & invoices.
• Standing jobs. Weekly mowing, monthly maintenance: set a job to repeat and the next visit books itself. See Recurring appointments.
• Your crew knows instantly. Whoever’s assigned gets a text the moment a job lands on their schedule, moves, or is reassigned.

Everything else comes along

All of Scheduley works the same in Jobs mode: the AI Receptionist, travel range and fees, reminders, review requests, your booking page and website. One platform, tuned to how your business actually runs.