Search for a dispatch template and you get a wall of PDF grids, printable paper pretending to be software. They all share the same flaw: information flows one way. You write the plan; the day happens; you learn what actually happened by phoning the crew at 5pm.
A dispatch board is only worth having if it answers the evening question by itself: what got done, by whom, with what exceptions. That takes four connected parts, jobs, assignments, a navigable map, and check-offs flowing back, and all four now fit in one free Google Sheet. This is the exact pattern; expect about thirty minutes to set it up the first time.
- →Most 'dispatch template' downloads are dead paper: a grid you retype daily that tells you nothing about what actually happened in the field.
- →A working dispatch board needs four live parts: the job list, the day's assignments, a map the crew can navigate from, and check-offs flowing back without phone calls.
- →The whole thing runs in one Google Sheet: your jobs tab, a board tab, =ROUTE_LINK for each driver's run, and a logbook link per driver for one-tap check-offs with photos and notes.
- →Each driver gets a personal link — their check-offs arrive signed with their name, and =LOGBOOK(map_id) pulls the full history back into the sheet, timestamped.
- →Cost: nothing. This is the pattern an office admin can set up in half an hour, and it replaces both the paper run sheet and the 5pm 'did you get to Mrs Jones?' phone call.
Tab 1: Jobs — the single source of truth
One row per job: customer, address, what's needed, priority, assigned driver, status. Resist the urge to make this clever, the whole system works because this tab stays boring and complete. If a job isn't a row here, it doesn't exist.
Add =GEOCODE(C2) next to the address column and coordinates spill live, this is what makes every downstream step (routing, mapping, closest-driver decisions) one formula instead of an export.
Tab 2: The board — today's plan at a glance
The board tab filters Jobs to today and groups by driver, plain FILTER() formulas, nothing exotic. Add conditional-formatting pills on the status column (done in green, no answer in amber, rescheduled in blue) and the tab reads like the Airtable board people pay for.
Per driver, one cell builds their whole run: =ROUTE_LINK(FILTER(C:C, F:F="Dana")) returns a single Google Maps link with their stops in order, up to 100 stops per link, which is more day than any crew has.
The crew side: personal check-off links, no app install
Publish the jobs as a live map and every map gets a logbook, a mobile check-off page where each stop is one tap: done / no answer / rescheduled, with an optional note and photo. Drivers open it from a WhatsApp message; there is nothing to install.
Send each driver a personal crew link and their check-offs arrive already signed with their name, the log shows who cleared each stop without anyone typing anything in a van. Photos attach as proof; notes ('gate locked, retry after lunch') replace the callback.
Closing the loop: =LOGBOOK writes the day back into the sheet
The piece no template can do: =LOGBOOK("your_map_id") in a history tab pulls every check-off back into the spreadsheet, timestamp, stop, status, driver, note, as rows, live. Your Jobs tab plans the day; the logbook tab records the day; both live in the same file.
The evening question answers itself: sort the logbook by driver, count the dones, read the exception notes. No calls, no collation, and an audit trail your customers can be shown.
When you've outgrown this (honestly)
Dedicated field-service platforms earn their subscription when you need scheduling optimisation across dozens of techs, customer-facing booking, or invoicing baked in. For a crew of two to ten doing visits from a list, the situation of nearly every trades office we see, the sheet pattern above does the whole job for free, in the tool the office already lives in.
The honest upgrade path isn't 'buy software when the sheet breaks', the sheet doesn't break. It's 'buy software when a human dispatcher stops being able to make the assignment decisions', and that is a much later day than the software marketing suggests.
Map your Salesforce accounts in under 5 minutes — no admin setup.
Install the free Sheets add-on, put your job list in a tab, and the formulas above do the rest — live map, driver links, and the logbook flowing back. Free for the whole pattern.
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