Use the dispatch board

💡 Tips

• •Upright shows one day at a time and opens centered on noon. Use the arrows or the date to change days. The times stay pinned on the left, the names stay pinned along the top, the Unassigned lane stays pinned beside the times, and you scroll sideways to reach more interpreters.
• •Upright columns are compact so more interpreters fit on screen: a small photo with the View day and Check travel conflicts buttons on either side, and the first name and last initial underneath. Hover a name to see it in full. Job text wraps inside the card instead of being cut off, and jobs that overlap sit side by side.
• •Your layout choice is saved to your account, so it follows you to another computer, and other coordinators at your agency keep their own. Columns follow the same order as your sideways rows, so dragging a photo to reorder works in either layout. On a phone the board keeps its own layout.
• •The strip above the board is a color key, not a filter. It shows the colors on the day you are viewing, busiest first, on one line. Scroll it sideways with your mouse wheel to see the rest. Your agency chooses what the colors mean: see Color-code job chips.
• •Dispatch is where you land when you sign in, because it sits at the top of your sidebar. To start somewhere else, such as your agency Home, drag that page to the top by its handle. Your order is saved to your account.
• •Assigning a job to someone whose profile doesn't list that language asks you to confirm and give a reason, which helps when you know they cover it but their profile is out of date. Placeholder interpreters skip the check entirely.
• •Dropping someone marked as an intern asks whether it's a normal assignment or a shadow slot: an intern rides along to observe, doesn't fill the slot (it stays open for a real interpreter), and is never billed or paid.
• •The same interpreter can't take two different slots of the same team job, but they CAN return to another segment of the same split slot (see Split a job between interpreters).
• •Colored bands behind a row mark working hours you can schedule into: teal = a W-2 staff shift, violet = a purchased-time contractor's bought block.
• •The board updates live as other coordinators or interpreters make changes, so you're always seeing the current state.
• •Past jobs done by someone you no longer work with sit on a dimmed, read-only row tagged "Former" (or "Off roster" if they are still connected but not schedulable), not in Unassigned. A future job they still hold stays in Unassigned on purpose, so you can see it needs a new interpreter.
• •Drag a row's grip handle to reorder interpreters. Your layout is saved to your account for each agency, so it follows you to another computer or your phone.
• •Click the calendar icon beside an interpreter's photo to open their Day Schedule: every job, their scheduled shift, time off, agency events, unavailable times, and time they are busy at another agency (unless they have chosen to keep that agency's schedule private). It is read-only and ignores the board's filters, so a job you filtered out still shows. Click a job in the list to open it in a new tab. On a phone, tap the interpreter's photo instead.
• •A job card with a red outline and a "⚠ Time off" tag is a job the interpreter still holds during time off they marked. Find a replacement or check with them. The tag clears itself once the job moves, is reassigned, or the time off is removed. "⚠ Unavailable" means the same thing for time off held at another agency, and "⚠ Agency event" means the job overlaps one of your own events they are expected at.
• •Until you arrange your rows, interpreters are listed by your agency's go-to rating (W-2 staff always first). Once your agency has rated anyone, the sort button next to the search icon in the toolbar resets your own layout to that order. It's a one-time sort, so you can still drag rows afterwards.
• •Want the people who are working today at the top? Click the Scheduled first button (the stacked rows icon next to the search icon in the toolbar). It turns teal, and everyone with an accepted job on the day you are viewing moves to the top in your own row order, with everyone else A to Z below. A pending offer does not count, and a Tags filter does not change who counts. Your saved row order is left alone, so clicking it again puts your layout back. The choice is saved to your account.
• •While Scheduled first is on you can't drag rows to reorder them; turn it off first. Sorting by go-to rating also turns it off.
• •To see every job one interpreter has over a stretch of days, click Search assignments (the magnifying glass in the toolbar), choose them in the dropdown that reads All interpreters, set the two dates, and click Search. Each job's time is shown in the job's own time zone, so it matches the job card even if your computer is set to a different zone.
• •The Search assignments drawer can also narrow by Language, In person or Virtual, and Status, alongside customer, consumer and interpreter. For example, pick Spanish and "Virtual only" with a customer to see just those jobs. "Clear filters" next to the count puts everything back.
• •The Keywords box finds jobs that contain every word you type, in the job number, customer, consumers, language, location (name, address, city, state), nature of the assignment, requestor, meeting app and interpreter names. It never searches job notes or meeting links and codes. Keywords look only within the two dates you set; to find a job on any date, type its number in the Job number box.
• •Dragging works on touchscreen laptops and Chromebooks too, as long as you use the mouse or trackpad. On a phone the board uses its own layout without dragging.
• •On a day with a lot of open jobs the Unassigned row can get tall, so use the ▾ next to its label to minimize it and see the rest of the schedule. It stays a drop target while minimized, so you can still drag a job there to release it, and the choice is remembered.
• •The Unassigned row counts and sizes itself for the day you are on, not the days either side of it. Minimized, it says "Today's 3 unassigned jobs hidden" (or "This day's" on another date). On a quiet day with open jobs nearby it says "No unassigned jobs today (2 on nearby days)".
• •Opened, the row is as tall as the day you are on needs. When another day in view has more open jobs than fit, an orange "+N unassigned" tag sits by that day's date. Click it to jump to the first of them.
• •The small icons on a job chip sit in their own row along the bottom of the chip, so they never cover the job name: an envelope (the customer confirmation is waiting to be sent), a repeat arrow (part of a series), a link (a team job) and scissors (a split slot). Hover an icon to see what it means. With Large or Extra-large chip text they sit at the end of the time line instead.
• •Open pieces in the Unassigned row show the same icons, so a piece of a split slot never looks like a job on its own. Click the scissors on any piece to light up every piece of that slot, open ones included, and click it again to stop.
• •Your zoom is saved on each computer or device, not on your account, because the right zoom depends on the size of your screen. Upright layout has no zoom.
• •In a job's detail popup, click the customer's name to open that customer's page, or a consumer's name to open their record on the Consumers tab. On a computer both open in a new tab, so your board stays where it was (in the phone app they open on the same screen). Volunteer groups get the consumer link only, and an interpreter who can view the schedule but has no agency portal sees plain names.
• •The "Check travel conflicts" button next to an interpreter's name uses real driving times and distance between their back-to-back jobs to flag tight turnarounds.
• •A cancelled job stays on the row of the interpreter who held it, as a record: grey for a plain cancellation, red for a late cancellation that is still billed and paid. Cancelled jobs never count as the interpreter being busy, so you can drop new work on that time. When a live job sits on the same time, the cancelled one shrinks to a thin strip at the edge that you can still click. Cancelled jobs can't be dragged.
• •Past days keep their teal staff shift bands, so you can check a timecard against the shift someone was scheduled for. The bands come straight from the Staff Schedules tab, so a change there shows on the board without a reload.
• •Open a slot's detail popup to see "Who we've asked": everyone offered the job, marked Awaiting, Accepted, Declined or Passed, with how and when. Someone who said no by text or phone can be recorded there with "Mark declined".