When To Use What | Hold, Pause, Separate Appointments, Separate Jobs, And Projects

What's going on, everybody? It's Richard kohberger here, the McClaw nerd. So pausing an appointment versus putting an appointment on hold versus booking a separate appointment versus booking a separate job entirely. What's the difference? And when should you do each? Also, what about projects? Well, in this video, we're going to get all that straightened out. So first, let's start with pause. Now, pause is meant for short same day trips. For example, if a technician just needs to go to the hardware store or supply house to grab some parts and they're going to be right back. Now, on the mobile side, technicians can only see five paused appointments at a time. So if a technician has more than five paused appointments, they will not see all of them. Also, in the jobs tray, which is underneath the dispatch board, there is a paused tab where you can see all of your paused appointments. But paused appointments will only remain there for 30 days. By the way, that 30 day limit also applies to the unassigned tab. But we'll talk about the jobs tray in a separate video. So why are those limitations there? Well, two reasons. Reason number one is simply the intent of what paused means. Paused is meant for short same day trips, and so a single technician shouldn't have more than five appointments paused at one time, nor should a job be remaining in the paused status for more than 30 days. Really, they shouldn't be staying paused for more than one day. And the second reason is for technical performance issues. It just helps the dispatch board and the mobile side work better and load faster if there aren't so many jobs to be loading. And since a single job can have up to 365 appointments on it, it's possible to really bog those tabs down with a whole bunch of appointments. Okay, but what if you need to pause an appointment longer than that? Well, that is where hold comes in. For example, if you go out to an appointment and it turns out you're going to need a special order part and you have two choices there. Choice number one is the technician goes ahead and sells the estimate and chooses do work later. Then you completely close out that first job and you book the installation job once the part comes in. And that is actually the service titan recommended best practice for a special order part scenario. But you could also put the job on hold and then reschedule it later once the part comes in. So you could use hold there, and a lot of people do, but it's not actually the recommended best practice. Okay, so then in what situation is using hold the best practice? Well, it's great for scenarios where you have some work scheduled, but then something comes up that's going to delay that work and you're not sure for how long. So you don't want to reschedule it yet, but you're still planning on doing the work. So you don't want to completely cancel the job. For example, let's say you have an install, it's scheduled, it's on the board, but the permit is taking longer than expected. Well then you could put that job on hold with the hold reason waiting on permit. Now, once a job enters the hold status, technicians will no longer see it on their schedules. So it is the office's responsibility to make sure that any jobs put on hold do get rescheduled when the time comes. So it should be part of somebody's regular duties in the office to be keeping an eye on that hold tab. And they should know exactly why every job is there. I also recommend utilizing Service Titan's built in task manager to help keep track of on hold appointments. And that applies whether you are using hold or whether you are booking separate jobs. The task manager is a great place to help make sure that things don't fall through the cracks. Now, I also want to point out that in that jobs tray underneath the dispatch board on the hold tab, which somebody in the office needs to be watching, that tab does not have the 30 day limit that paused and unassigned do. So when a job is put on hold, it does not leave that tab unless it leaves the hold status. Because hold is intended to be used that way. It is intended to be longer term. Okay, so we understand the difference between paused and hold. What about booking separate appointments? When should we do that? Well, separate appointments are intended for a single job that's going to span multiple days. For example, an installation job that's going to take three days, you would want to book that as one job with three separate appointments. All right, so then what about projects? Well, projects are an organizational tool. They group related jobs together. For example, let's go back to our special order part scenario. So I told you that the best practice there was to say do work later and then book a totally separate job. So you have one job where you sold something and then a totally separate job where you went to install it. As soon as you convert the estimate that you built on the first job to convert it into the second job that is going to create a project, it's going to group those two jobs together. The same applies anytime you choose do work later. If a consultant goes out and sells an install and then the install is done later, those two jobs are going to be grouped together automatically in a project. Another use case for projects might be a multi trades project where you're going to one home, but maybe you're doing some H Vac work and some plumbing work. Well, the H Vac and plumbing work are going to be booked as separate jobs, but those jobs will be together in a project. Or they're useful for commercial projects where you're doing a lot of jobs on one property. Okay, so to recap, pausing appointments is for short same day trips like a parts run. Putting appointments on hold is for longer term stuff. Like if you're waiting for a permit, you could use hold for special order parts, but the recommended workflow is to just book a totally separate job. Booking separate appointments within a single job is for jobs that are just going to take multiple days, like a long install. And projects are like folders that group related jobs together. Anyways, that's all I got for today. Be sure to hit like if you liked the video and found it valuable, be sure to subscribe to Service Titan's YouTube channel. If you haven't done that already, hit that bell icon so that YouTube notifies you. Anytime we upload a new video, subscribe and leave me a comment down below and let me know what you think I should make a video on next. Please remember that your engagement through likes, comments and subscriber numbers are the ways in which my success is measured. 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