How Do I Post Service Agreement Dispatches to the EDB?

Once you have your Service Agreements entered into ESC, you'll be able to start posting dispatches to the Electronic Dispatch Board (EDB) for your customers.  But don't worry, ESC won't start piling dispatches on there without your permission.  You have full control over when your dispatches will post and who they will post for.  

Once you're ready to get down to business, you'll head to the Agreements menu and select Post Schedule to Dispatch.  A small window will appear and allow you to select what dispatches you want to post.  The only required field is the Post all agreements through field, which is asking for a cut off date.  Here's how it works:

• Every agreement that will be posting dispatches will need to have the Schedule tab filled out with a Recurrence Pattern.  This Recurrence Pattern will tell ESC when an appointment will need to be scheduled, what Task the technician will need to perform and can even add specific notes to the dispatch. The Next Service Date field will show when the next dispatch is due to be posted.
  
  
  
  
• In the Post Schedule to Dispatch screen (under the Agreements menu), you'll select the cut-off date for the dispatches you want to post in the Post all agreements through field.  This will post all dispatches with a Next Service Date that falls on or before that date.  No dispatches with a Next Service Date that falls after that date will be posted.  You'll notice that there is no beginning date - this is to ensure that no agreement gets left out, even if the date was entered incorrectly or the agreement was previously skipped.
• If you only want to print specific dispatches, you'll also have fields in this screen that will allow you to narrow down which agreements are posted to the EDB.  You can choose to post agreements by Service Agreement Type, Task or for a specific Customer.
  
  
  
  
• If you choose the Pause for each agreement box, then a separate screen will appear for every agreement dispatch that is due to be posted.  This screen will show you the customer and location of the dispatch, the Promise Date and Time of the dispatch and the Tasks to be completed.
  Note: If you do not select the Pause... option, then all agreements will be posted directly to the EDB.
• Each Post... screen will display the information for one agreement at a time.  It will display the customer's name and contact information, the agreement Type and relative dates and the Task that is being posted for this particular dispatch.  The bottom of this window will provide you with the Promise Date and Time (if there is a set Time) that the dispatch will be scheduled for.  These can be changed before the dispatch is posted.  If the date of the dispatch to be posted falls after the Expiration Date of the agreement, you'll see ***Expired*** appear on the screen in red.  This is to warn you that the agreement has not been renewed.
• Depending on whether or not you are satisfied with the information you see, you can choose to Post the dispatch, Skip this dispatch or Abort the entire process.
  
  

Once all dispatches have been posted, you will be able to visit the EDB and see the dispatches listed for their Promise Date (you may need to adjust the Display Date of the EDB) and for the Technician that was assigned on the service agreement (the default is Serv Agr).