SnowManager tells people about a dispatch with a bell notification in the web app (the Notifications list, see The notification bell) and a push to the phone of anyone signed in to the app. Drivers can also be texted or phoned, as their route says, and a subcontractor can be phoned about a zone dispatch; see the section "Text messages and phone calls" below. Bell notifications belong to a business: you see them in the business you are working in. What is sent, and to whom, depends on the event.
When a dispatch is created
Every business invited to it (a subcontractor holding addresses on it, by zone, by route or one by one) gets one bell notification, {0} has invited you to a dispatch, and each of its administrators a push: New dispatch invitation, {0} has invited you to a dispatch. Open the app to respond. On a zone dispatch, the business's zone dispatch callers are phoned as well (see below). That is the whole alert; the invitation itself is answered on the dispatch, see Accept or decline a dispatch invitation.
Your own drivers on the dispatch get a bell notification, You have been assigned to a dispatch, and a push: New dispatch, You have stops assigned to you on a new dispatch. A route can swap the push for a text or a phone call, or add them (see below). Only your own: a stop you handed to a subcontractor belongs to that business, and its drivers hear about it when it accepts. Stops a service rule left out alert nobody, because the alert is sent after the rules have run. A driver who creates a dispatch from the app gets a confirmation push for it instead.
When a driver is put on a stop afterwards
That one driver gets the same bell notification and push, for that one stop. Nobody else on the dispatch is told again. See Put drivers on a dispatched route.
When addresses are added to a running dispatch
Any business invited by the new addresses, and still owing an answer, gets the same invitation alert it would have got at creation. A business that has already answered is not asked twice. See Add addresses to a running dispatch.
When an invitation is accepted
Each driver of the accepting business on the accepted stops gets a bell notification, You have been assigned to a dispatch, and a push: New dispatch, Your business accepted a dispatch with stops assigned to you. The same goes out when the owner records the acceptance on the subcontractor's behalf.
When an invitation is declined
The owner's business gets a bell notification, {0} declined {1}, with the reason as its text, and its administrators a push: Dispatch declined, {0} declined {1}. Reason: {2}. See What a decline does.
When the owner answers for a contractor
When the owner presses a contractor's Awaiting response pill on a zone dispatch and answers in its name, the contractor's business gets a bell notification, {0} accepted {1} on your behalf or {0} declined {1} on your behalf, with the owner's reason as its text when it was a decline, and its administrators a push: Invitation answered for you. A forced accept also sends the contractor's drivers the same You have been assigned to a dispatch alert an ordinary accept sends. The owner hears nothing: they did it. See When the owner answers for you.
When a driver marks a stop unable
When a driver marks a stop Unable from the app, an e-mail goes to the address saved under Settings → Business, Email on error (see Set up your business). Two businesses can get one:
- the business that dispatched, and
- the subcontractor responsible for the stop, when that is another business that has accepted it.
Each gets its own mail, in its own language, with the time the stop was marked in its own time zone, date order and clock. The subject reads Address could not be done: and the address; the mail names the dispatch code and planned date, the route, the work type, the driver and their company, The driver's note, how many photos the stop has, and carries a link that opens the dispatch. Names follow the usual rules of who may know whom, and the customer is named only to a business that holds the address for a customer. A business with no address saved, or an address that is not a valid e-mail, gets nothing; when both businesses saved the same address it is mailed once.
The mail goes out once per unable registration, after it has been saved. A double tap, or an offline retry of a stop that is already unable, sends nothing more, and a mail that fails is logged without stopping the driver. Marking a stop unable from the web sends no mail: that is the office acting, and it already knows.
Nothing is sent for
- Cancelling a dispatch, see Cancel a dispatch.
- A manual registration of work already done, on purpose: it would announce a job nobody can still go and do.
- Staff, when a stop starts or ends. The customer side of that is separate: see What the customer is told about a job.
Text messages and phone calls
Apart from the Email on error mail above, no dispatch event e-mails your staff. Texts and calls reach drivers and subcontractors as follows.
Drivers, by their route. In edit mode on a route's Details tab, How drivers are told about work offers Push notification (free), SMS with its price per SMS, and Phone call (free), in any combination; at least one stays chosen. The route shows the choice as Driver contact method. It applies whenever a dispatch reaches a driver on that route: when it is sent out, when the driver is put on a stop, and when their business accepts. A driver on no route on the dispatch gets the push. The bell notification is written either way.
- SMS: You have been called out on a new dispatch. Open SnowManager to see your stops., sent from SnowManager. The company the drivers drive for on the dispatch pays, so a subcontractor never pays for being called out. If that company has SMS off, nobody is texted and the bell says so to both businesses. A driver with no phone number with a country code on their profile is named in a bell notification instead. A test dispatch never texts.
- Phone call: an automatic call naming the business that sent the dispatch: Press 1 to accept, or accept the dispatch in the app. Pressing 1 accepts every open invitation the driver has on the dispatch, as the app's Accept would. A call that is not accepted (no answer, busy, picked up without pressing 1) is followed by the next one, until the driver answers. Calls stop as soon as the driver answers in the app or by phone, or the dispatch is cancelled or finished, or the driver is taken off it. Calls are free, and a test dispatch calls like a real one.
How calls are timed is set under Settings, Notifications, card Calls to drivers: Minutes before the first call (0 to 30, default 0), Calls at most (1 to 5, default 5) and Minutes between calls (1 to 30, default 5). Call me as a test rings the number on your own profile with the driver's call; pressing 1 accepts nothing.
Subcontractors, on a zone dispatch. Under Settings, Notifications, card Zone dispatch callers, a business picks the users to phone when another company's zone dispatch invites it. Only users with a phone number on their profile are listed. The same switch is on each user in the user details slider, under Calls: Get a phone call when invited to a dispatch by another company. When a zone dispatch invites the business, all its callers are rung at the same time, on the business's own Calls to drivers timing. The call says Press 1 to accept all of it, or accept the dispatch on the web or in the app. Pressing 1 accepts everything the business still has waiting on the dispatch, and its route crews are then invited and alerted exactly as after its own Accept. Any answer from the business, by anyone, by phone, on the web or in the app, accept or decline, stops every caller's calls. A business with nobody picked is not phoned; its administrators get the push only. Somebody added while a zone dispatch is still waiting on the business is phoned about it straight away.
Every call, planned or made, is listed on the dispatch's Calls tab with its result. The dispatch's owner sees all of them; another business sees its own people's.
Customers. The people on an address's notification list can be e-mailed and texted when a job starts and ends; see What the customer is told about a job.
Apart from these, SMS is used for sign-in codes. The other operational event that goes by e-mail is a new complaint, to the colleagues each business picks for it; see Get an e-mail when a complaint is created.