Using the Calendar

Overview

The ServiceCortex calendar gives you a real-time view of your team's schedule. Appointments, calendar events, and resource availability are displayed together so you can spot open slots, identify conflicts, and make scheduling decisions without leaving the page. Changes made anywhere in the system are pushed to the calendar instantly via WebSocket updates.

Calendar Views

The calendar supports multiple viewing modes to fit different planning needs:

• Day view -- See every appointment and event for a single day, broken down by time slot. Useful for dispatchers managing the current day's work.
• Week view -- A seven-day overview showing how appointments are distributed across the week. Helpful for balancing workloads.
• Month view -- A high-level look at the entire month, showing appointment counts per day. Good for long-range planning and spotting busy periods.

Filtering the Calendar

Use filters to focus on the schedule that matters to you:

• By team member -- Show only appointments assigned to a specific technician or crew. Use the assignedToUserId filter to narrow results.
• By status -- Filter by appointment status (Unscheduled, Scheduled, In Progress, Completed, Cancelled). By default, cancelled appointments are hidden.
• By job -- View all appointments related to a specific job.
• By date range -- Set a from and to date to load appointments within a specific window. The calendar fetches events within the visible range automatically.

Calendar Events

In addition to appointments, the calendar displays calendar events -- standalone entries that are not tied to a job. Use calendar events for:

• Company holidays or office closures
• Training days or team meetings
• Personal time off for team members
• Any other date that affects scheduling

Each calendar event includes:

• Title and optional description
• Start date and optional end date
• All day toggle -- when enabled, the event spans the full day without specific times
• Color -- a custom color to visually distinguish different event types on the calendar
• Blocks scheduling -- when enabled, the scheduling engine treats this event as a conflict and will not suggest overlapping time slots

Calendar events are managed by administrators and are visible to all team members within the account.

Color Coding

ServiceCortex uses color to make the calendar easy to scan at a glance:

• Resource display colors -- Each team member can have a custom display color set on their resource profile. All of their appointments appear in that color on the calendar.
• Calendar event colors -- Standalone events use their own configurable color, making holidays, training, and blocked time visually distinct from appointments.

Finding Available Time Slots

The Find Available Slots feature automates the process of finding open time on your calendar:

1. Select the job you need to schedule
2. Optionally specify a duration (or let the system calculate it from the job's pricing and line items)
3. The system searches forward from today, evaluating each slot interval (configurable, default 30 minutes) across all capable team members
4. Results show available time slots with the list of resources free during each window, sorted by score

The slot finder considers:

• Work hours -- Only suggests times within each team member's configured schedule
• Existing appointments -- Checks for conflicts including travel buffer time
• Buffer time -- A configurable gap between appointments (set in Schedule Settings)
• Service capabilities -- Only includes team members who can perform all required services on the job
• Job requirements -- Respects minimum crew size and specific resource requirements defined on the job
• Equipment availability -- For jobs that require specific assets or vehicles, verifies they are not booked elsewhere

For multi-day jobs, use Find Multi-Day Slots which searches for consecutive days where the same resources are available for every day of the project.

Schedule Settings

Administrators can configure scheduling behavior from Settings > Schedule Settings:

• Slot interval -- The time increment for searching available slots (default: 30 minutes)
• Search window -- How far into the future the system looks for availability (default: 30 days)
• Buffer minutes -- Required gap between back-to-back appointments (default: 0)
• Travel time enabled -- Whether to factor in drive time between appointments using Google Routes
• Return to base -- Whether to include drive time back to the technician's base at the end of the day
• First appointment constraints -- Maximum travel time or distance for the first appointment of the day, preventing long drives for early-morning bookings

Syncing with External Calendars

ServiceCortex provides calendar subscription feeds that sync your schedule with external calendar applications like Google Calendar, Apple Calendar, or Microsoft Outlook:

1. Navigate to your profile or resource settings and select Calendar Subscription
2. Copy the generated .ics subscription URL
3. In your external calendar app, add a new calendar subscription using the copied URL

The feed includes all appointments assigned to the team member, updated automatically as the schedule changes. Each team member has their own unique subscription link secured by a private token. If you suspect your link has been compromised, use Revoke and Regenerate to create a new URL and invalidate the old one.

Appointment Calendar Files

When confirmation emails are sent to customers, ServiceCortex attaches a downloadable .ics calendar file. Customers can add the appointment to their personal calendar with a single click. The calendar file includes the appointment title, date and time, property address, and a link back to the appointment details.