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Projects > Dispatch shows MSP staff who is working on what, by day, across every open project in the selected company scope. Technicians run down the side and working days run across the top. One toolbar holds the date range, the filters and the planning actions. Drag work onto a technician’s day, then click Save to sync your changes. The page replaces the Schedule workspace window. Plan schedule, Plan in schedule workspace and a task’s Reschedule now open it. You do not have to pick a project first. The page opens on every open project in your company scope. Narrow the Projects filter to one project when you want to plan it with Smart Schedule.

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Before you start

  • You need MSP staff access with the Projects Schedule view permission, and the scheduling feature must be enabled for your portal. Without both, the Dispatch tab does not appear. Company users never see it.
  • Changing dates or people also needs project write permission. Without it, the board, the queue and the task editor are read-only, and Smart Schedule and Schedule settings… do not appear.
  • The board follows the company selector. Pick a company, or Global View, before you open it. Only open projects load. When you arrive from a project or a task, that project is loaded whatever the selector says.
  • Bookings and busy time come from ConnectWise. Autotask service calls and Halo appointments are not on the board.
  • Bookings need a role that can see every appointment. If yours cannot, the board says ConnectWise bookings are hidden because your role cannot see every appointment. Task dates and owners still show.

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Open the page

1

From the Projects header

Open Projects and click Dispatch, beside Schedule. The page opens on every open project in scope, with the Projects filter empty.
2

From a project

Open the project, click Project Plan, then Schedule, and click Plan schedule. The page opens with that project already in the Projects filter, so the planner actions are available straight away. In the Gantt view, an item’s Plan in schedule workspace action does the same and, for a task, opens it.
3

From a task on a calendar

In Projects > Schedule or a project’s Schedule tab, click a task’s … menu and choose Reschedule. The page opens with that task’s project in the Projects filter, the task open in the side sheet, and the board starting on the week of its start date.
Projects Dispatch tab with the toolbar, the Needs scheduling queue grouped by project, and a board of technicians by working day with one task on three days

The Dispatch page on a Demo portal, with the Needs scheduling queue beside one week of technicians and days.

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Use the toolbar

Everything sits in one row. On a phone the row scrolls sideways. When you narrow Projects to exactly one project, that project becomes the one you are planning. The toolbar then adds View, Smart Schedule and a More planner actions menu (…) after the Status colours button. See Plan one project. The page remembers the range and the Technicians, Companies, Phases and Overdue filters for your portal in this browser. Projects always starts from the link you opened.
Dispatch board with the 6 weeks range selected and one column for each week from Oct 19 to Nov 27

The 6 weeks range shows one column per week.

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Read the board

Each row is one technician. The rows cover every task owner, everyone with a booking or busy time in the visible range, and the team of the project you are editing. A ConnectWise member who is listed in a ticket’s Resources but has no portal login still gets a row, under their ConnectWise identifier. Dated work with nobody on it sits on an Unassigned row at the bottom. Each column is one working day, or one week when the range is 6 weeks. Today is highlighted and a heavier line marks each new week. Each cell lists that person’s work for the day. Every chip has two lines. The first is the company, or the project name when the project has no company. The second is the project name, then the ticket number and title, for example Server refresh · #12345 Install firewall. Hover a chip to see the company, project, ticket, status, hours and source. Chips are coloured by ticket status, so a ticket still marked Need to Schedule stands out even once it is booked. If a person is listed in the ticket’s ConnectWise Resources rather than as its Owner, the hover text says Listed as a resource, not the owner. A chip headed Project outside the selected companies is a booking on a project that is not loaded in this scope; it cannot be opened from here. A cell shows three items. Click +N more to show the rest of that cell. On a 6 weeks board each task or booking appears once per week, and a drop lands on the first working day of that week.

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Open a task

Click any chip or queue row to open that task in a side sheet, where you set the dates, Assigned person and dependencies. The editor is the same as in the other views; see Use the task editor.
Dispatch page with a task open in the side sheet showing its dates, assigned person, duration and dependencies

A task open in the side sheet, with the board still visible behind it.

If the task belongs to a different project than the one you were editing, the page switches to that project. With unsaved changes, Discard this schedule draft? asks you to Keep editing or Discard changes first.

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Clear the Needs scheduling queue

Needs scheduling lists open work in scope that still has no date, no booking or no technician. It sits beside the board as a rail. Click Hide queue to collapse it to a narrow strip that shows only the count, and Show queue to bring it back. The queue is grouped by project and sorted by project due date, with undated projects last. Each group shows the project name, the number of tasks, the company, its due date or No due date, and Overdue in red when the project is past its due date. Each row is one line with the task’s status colour, the ticket number and title, and an icon for what is missing. A calendar icon with a cross means No date. A person icon with a cross means No technician. A row can show both. Hover a row for the status, the assigned person and the hours. Type in Find work… to filter the rows by task title, ticket number, project or company. A ConnectWise booking on or after today counts as both a date and a technician, so booked work leaves the queue even when the ticket’s own dates and Owner are empty. When nothing is left, the queue reads Every open task in this scope has a date and a technician. The Technicians filter keeps queue work assigned to those people, plus work with no technician. Companies, Projects, Phases and Overdue (N) narrow the queue the same way they narrow the board. On a phone the queue sits above the board.
Dispatch board with the Needs scheduling queue collapsed to a narrow strip that shows the count 754

With the queue collapsed, a narrow strip shows the count and the board gets the width.

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Set real project dates in ConnectWise

The queue sorts by each project’s Estimated End, which is its due date in MSPortal, and flags Overdue from it. When a project manager creates a project in ConnectWise, set a real Estimated Start and Estimated End instead of keeping the dates ConnectWise fills in. Placeholder dates push the project to the wrong place in the queue, and a project can show Overdue or No due date when it should not.

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Date and assign work by dragging

Drag a queue row or a chip onto a technician’s day. The task starts on that day and keeps its duration in working days. You can drag work from any project you can edit.
  • When the person is on the project team, the task is assigned to them.
  • When they are not, the dates are set, the assigned person is left unchanged, and a one-line notice says so.
  • Drop onto the Unassigned row to date the work and clear its person.
Dragging work from another project switches the page to that project, as long as the project you were editing has no unsaved changes. If it does, the drop is refused and the page says Save or discard changes to first, naming the project you were editing.
Dispatch board after a queue task was dropped on a day, with the toolbar showing one unsaved change, Discard and Save, and a notice below it

After a drop, the toolbar shows the unsaved change with Discard and Save. A notice appears when the technician is not on the project team.

Completed and anchored tasks cannot be dragged. Dragging also pauses while a Smart Schedule proposal is open, and a drop is refused while a date change in the task editor is waiting for Apply to draft.

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Save or discard changes

Nothing changes in MSPortal or your PSA until you save. While you have changes, the right side of the toolbar shows N unsaved changes, Discard and Save. When the Projects filter is not on the project you edited, the count names it, for example Server refresh: 3 unsaved changes. Save stays disabled, with a tooltip, while a task date change is waiting for Apply to draft, while a Smart Schedule proposal is open (Accept or reject the proposal first), or while schedule checks are blocking the save. Saving shows Saving….

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Plan one project

Narrow Projects to exactly one project to plan it. The toolbar adds these controls.
Smart Schedule popover showing Schedule from, Hours for unestimated work, two checkboxes, a summary line and the Run Smart Schedule button

The Smart Schedule popover opens from the toolbar once Projects is narrowed to one project.

A Smart Schedule proposal appears as one line under the toolbar, for example 3 changes proposed, with Show changes, Reject and Accept. Show changes lists the proposed dates and people. Nothing is applied until you click Accept, and you still need to click Save afterwards. Schedule settings… opens a dialog for the project with the Working calendar, the Project team and the Schedule checks. Open it to change daily capacity or holidays, choose which roles Smart Schedule can assign, or review issues. The calendar and checks are described in Plan a project schedule.

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What saving writes to ConnectWise

For a ConnectWise project, Save writes each changed task’s dates to the project ticket’s Schedule Start and Schedule End fields and its person to the ticket’s Owner. Autotask and Halo projects sync dates and assigned people as described in Save your plan.

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Where ConnectWise dates and people come from

ConnectWise keeps a project ticket’s planned dates, its people and its actual schedule in different places, and MSPortal shows each of them from its own source. Logging time on a ticket never sets its Owner, its Resources or its dates. The board shows a schedule entry as a booking, and a booking on or after today takes the ticket out of Needs scheduling. To date and assign work from MSPortal, drag the card onto the technician’s day and click Save.

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Leave a task out of scheduling

Include in scheduling is an MSPortal-only switch on each task, under Visibility and scheduling in the task’s details. It is on by default. Admins set the default per task type under Settings > Projects > Project Settings > Task types, and a single task can override its type. When it is off, the task is left out of this page, the project Gantt and Smart Schedule. The task itself, its bookings and its dependency links are kept, and they come back when you turn the switch on again. Nothing is written to your PSA either way. When a project has excluded tasks, Schedule settings… says how many, for example 3 tasks are excluded from scheduling. See Task types and individual task controls.

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Troubleshooting

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Frequently asked questions

Status is a ConnectWise field. The board colours the chip by it but never changes it. Update the status in ConnectWise or on the project board, or leave it; the colour makes the mismatch visible either way.
The list holds open projects in the selected company scope. Change the company selector, then reopen the page.
You can drag and edit work from any project, but Smart Schedule, the views and the schedule settings work on one project at a time. Narrow Projects to that project first.
No. Company users read shared dates in Read a project schedule.
They are not on this board. Autotask service calls still appear on the project calendars described in Read a project schedule.

Plan a project schedule

The task editor, dependencies, Smart Schedule, schedule checks and saving.

Project calendar

Navigate Projects > Schedule and reschedule items.

Read a project schedule

Interpret dated items and the Gantt view.

Project settings

Task type defaults for Include in scheduling.