Your first week with a dispatch system: what to do, in what order
6. 8. 2026
The most common worry before switching to an application is not "will it work?" but "what if it goes down for a day and we have nothing to work from". That is a fair worry — and this plan never says "throw the notebook away". The paper stays until the new way feels normal.
Day one: the account and the people (30 minutes)
Create the account and add users: yourself as administrator, the dispatcher as dispatcher, and each driver separately. Drivers get in from an ordinary phone; there is nothing to install.
One role is easy to miss: the observer. They see rides and reports but cannot change anything. It is made for the officer at the council or for management — instead of e-mailing spreadsheets, they simply look for themselves.
Day two: the price list and areas (20 minutes)
Create an area (most operations need only one) and a price list for it: the pickup fee, the price per kilometre and, if you use one, a minimum fare. Without a price list no ride prices are calculated and the report comes out empty, so this step cannot be skipped.
Different prices at the weekend? Fill in the weekend rates as well — the application picks the right one by the date of the ride.
Day three: customers (an hour)
Have your clients in a spreadsheet? Upload them in one go: Customers → Import from a spreadsheet, download the template, fill it in and upload it back. Only the name is required; phone, home address, note and monthly limit can follow when you have them.
Add home addresses during the import — it saves you a month of retyping. The rest (health centre, pharmacy) will accumulate on their own as rides come in.
No spreadsheet? Never mind. Add customers as the first calls come in; after a week you will have most of them.
Day four: one dry run
Pick an ordinary day and enter the rides into the application and into the notebook. Yes, twice — it stings for one day and it is worth it. The dispatcher goes through the whole routine without risking anything, and in the evening you compare: do the numbers match?
That day usually surfaces two or three small things that then take five minutes to fix — a few customers with no phone number, typically.
Day five: the drivers
Once the dispatcher feels sure, bring in the drivers. Each signs in on their own phone, confirms the assigned ride, taps Picked up at the customer and Complete on arrival, entering the distance.
Expect somebody to forget to tap for the first two days — that is normal and it sorts itself out. Until then the dispatcher can set the states for them.
End of the week: the first report
Open Reports, pick the month and download the PDF. You will see exactly what you would otherwise be retyping into a spreadsheet — and what the council needs for the accounts. That moment usually settles whether anybody wants to go back to the notebook.
What not to do
- Do not introduce everything at once. Leave the phone system, the vehicle map and the statistics for the second week. Get the basics working first.
- Do not push drivers into something they do not understand. Five minutes in the car beats three pages of instructions.
- Do not throw the notebook out. Leave it lying around for another week. When nobody reaches for it, you are done.
You can rehearse all of it in the demo — no registration, and it resets itself every hour.
Running a taxi or senior transport service? Send us a no-obligation enquiry or try the demo.