Add & Manage Technicians
A technician record in BayWise Scheduler represents a member of your workshop floor team — the people who perform the work. Each record stores the technician’s skills, working availability, WIP limit, and contact details.
Accurate technician records are what allow the AI scheduler to make useful suggestions and what give advisors the information they need to assign the right person to the right job at the right time. A technician with incomplete skills or incorrect availability will either be missed by the AI or flagged as available when they are not.
Who can manage technicians: Location Manager, Org Admin, Account Owner.
Add a technician
Open Technician Settings
From the main navigation, go to Settings → Technicians.
You will see the full roster of technicians configured for your current location. A well-configured roster might include records like Priya Nair, James Okafor, Sofia Lindgren, Omar Al-Hassan, and Luca Ferretti — each with their own skills, schedules, and WIP limits.
Click Add Technician
Click the + Add Technician button in the top-right corner of the roster.
The Add Technician panel opens on the right side of the screen.
Enter the technician’s details
Fill in the following fields:
- Name (required) — The technician’s full name as it should appear on the calendar, job cards, and reports. Examples: “Priya Nair”, “James Okafor”, “Sofia Lindgren”.
- Phone (optional) — Mobile number. Used for internal reference only; BayWise does not send automated messages to technicians.
- Email (optional) — Email address. If the technician also has a BayWise user account, this should match their login email.
- Skills (multi-select) — The skill types this technician is regularly qualified and assigned to perform. See Assigning skills below for guidance on which skills to select.
- Availability — Working days and hours. See Setting availability below.
- WIP Limit — The maximum number of concurrent active jobs this technician can hold. Default is 3. See Setting WIP limits below.
- Notes (optional) — Any operational notes relevant to this technician. Examples: “Certified BMW technician”, “Forklift licence”, “Only available for AM shifts on Fridays”.
Save
Click Save. The technician is created and immediately appears:
- In the technician roster on the Dashboard
- In the technician assignment dropdown when creating or editing jobs
- In the pool of candidates for AI scheduling suggestions
Edit a technician
Open Technician Settings
Go to Settings → Technicians, or click the technician’s name directly from the Dashboard roster.
Open the edit panel
Click the technician’s name or the edit icon (pencil) to the right of their record.
The edit panel opens, showing all current fields.
Update the fields
All fields — name, phone, email, skills, availability, WIP limit, and notes — are fully editable. Make the necessary changes.
Save
Click Save. Changes apply immediately.
Skill changes take effect on the next AI suggestion run. If an advisor requests a scheduling suggestion after you update Omar Al-Hassan’s skills to include A/C Service, the new suggestion will reflect that capability straight away.
Assign skills
Skills are the primary signal the AI scheduler uses to match a technician to a job step. Each technician record holds a list of the skill types they are qualified and regularly available to perform.
BayWise includes 16 skill types. Common examples include:
- Master Technician — senior tech qualified across multiple disciplines
- Diagnostics — fault finding, scan tools, electronic systems
- General — basic maintenance and light repair tasks
- Electrical — wiring, lighting, sensors, battery and alternator work
- Denting — panel repair, dent removal, structural straightening
- Painting — colour matching, base coat, clear coat application
- A/C Service — air conditioning regas, leak detection, climate system repair
- Tires — tire fitting, balancing, rotation, puncture repair
- EV Certified — electric and hybrid vehicle high-voltage systems
- Spray Painting — spray booth operation, multi-coat application
Representative skill assignments for a mixed-capability team:
| Technician | Skills |
|---|---|
| Priya Nair | Master Technician, Diagnostics |
| James Okafor | Denting, Body Assembly, Frame Straightening |
| Sofia Lindgren | Painting, Spray Painting, Surface Prep |
| Omar Al-Hassan | Electrical, A/C Service, EV Certified |
| Luca Ferretti | Master Technician, Tires, Diagnostics |
Do not over-tag technicians with skills they rarely perform. If Luca can theoretically do basic electrical work but is primarily a master technician focused on tires and diagnostics, do not add Electrical to his profile. Over-tagging dilutes AI suggestion quality — the scheduler will consider him for electrical jobs when Omar, a dedicated electrical tech, should be the first suggestion. Tag only the skills a technician is regularly and confidently assigned to.
Set availability
Availability defines a technician’s planned working schedule — the days they are rostered on and the hours they work on each of those days. The AI scheduler uses this to avoid proposing assignments outside a technician’s working window.
Open the availability section
In the technician edit panel, scroll to the Availability section.
Toggle working days
Each day of the week (Monday through Sunday) has a toggle. Turn on the days the technician is scheduled to work. Days that are toggled off are treated as non-working days — no jobs will be suggested or accepted for those days.
For example, Sofia Lindgren works Monday to Friday. Toggle Monday through Friday on and leave Saturday and Sunday off.
Set start and end times for each active day
For each day you have toggled on, set the Start Time and End Time. These are the technician’s standard hours at that location.
Luca Ferretti, for instance, might work 07:30–17:00 Monday through Thursday and 07:30–13:00 on Friday. The scheduler will not suggest jobs that start after his finish time or overlap into his non-working hours.
Add exception dates (days off and holidays)
To mark individual dates as unavailable — public holidays, annual leave, training days — use the Exceptions section below the weekly schedule. Click Add Exception, choose the date (or a date range), and optionally add a note such as “Annual leave” or “Training — off-site”.
Exception dates override the weekly availability for those specific days. They do not change the base weekly schedule.
Save
Click Save. The updated availability is applied immediately to the scheduling engine.
Availability is the planned schedule, not proof of presence. A technician showing as available on a given day still needs to clock in before they can be assigned active jobs in the live schedule. If a technician is marked available but has not clocked in, advisors will see a warning when attempting to assign them. See Clock In and Clock Out.
Set WIP limits
The WIP limit (Work In Progress limit) is the maximum number of jobs a technician can hold in active status at the same time. It is a guardrail that prevents over-allocation and helps the AI scheduler and advisors make realistic assignments.
The default limit of 3 is appropriate for most experienced full-time technicians. Adjust it based on role and working pattern:
| Situation | Recommended WIP limit |
|---|---|
| Senior technician, multi-task capable | 4–5 |
| Standard full-time technician | 3 (default) |
| Apprentice or trainee | 1–2 |
| Part-time technician | 1–2 |
| Dedicated single-job specialist (e.g., paint booth) | 1 |
When an advisor attempts to assign a job to a technician who has already reached their WIP limit, BayWise displays a conflict warning. The advisor can override the warning if they choose, but it will be flagged on the job card.
To update the WIP limit, open the technician edit panel, change the WIP Limit field, and save.
Deactivate a technician
When a technician leaves the workshop, takes extended leave, or moves to a role that no longer involves job assignments, deactivate their record rather than deleting it.
Open Technician Settings
Go to Settings → Technicians.
Open the edit panel
Click the edit icon next to the technician’s name.
Toggle Active off
In the edit panel, find the Active toggle and switch it off.
Save
Click Save. The technician is immediately removed from:
- The assignment dropdowns when creating or editing jobs
- The pool of candidates for AI scheduling suggestions
- The live technician roster on the Dashboard
Their historical job records, performance data, and incentive history are fully preserved. Nothing is deleted.
Reactivate if needed
To bring the technician back, return to Settings → Technicians, find their record (deactivated technicians appear with a greyed-out row or under a “Deactivated” filter), click edit, toggle Active back on, and save.
Always deactivate rather than delete. Deleting a technician is only appropriate for records created in error that have never had a job assigned. Once a technician has any job history — even a single completed job — deleting their record will remove them from historical reports, incentive calculations, and job audit trails. If a technician has left the business, is on extended leave, or has transferred to another location, use deactivation. It preserves the record without cluttering the active roster. When in doubt, deactivate.
Common questions
Can a technician have a user account and a technician record? Yes, and in most workshops they will. A technician record is used for scheduling (skills, availability, WIP). A user account is used for logging in, clocking in, and viewing the app. They are linked by email address. If the technician does not need to log into BayWise themselves — for example, their schedule is managed entirely by the front desk — a technician record without a user account is sufficient.
A technician’s skills changed. Will existing job assignments be updated? No. Skill changes affect future AI suggestions only. Existing job assignments are not automatically reviewed or changed. If a current assignment is no longer appropriate following a skill update, it must be manually reassigned.
Can I set different availability for different weeks? The weekly schedule is a repeating pattern. For exceptions to specific dates — a public holiday, a booked leave day, a one-off training event — use the Exceptions feature within the availability section. For permanent schedule changes (e.g., a technician switches from five days to four days), update the weekly availability directly.
The AI keeps suggesting a technician who is already at their WIP limit. Why? Check that the WIP limit is set correctly for that technician. If it is set higher than intended — for example, if it was left at the default 3 for an apprentice who should have a limit of 1 — the AI will treat the higher limit as the correct cap. Update the WIP limit in the technician edit panel.
How do I transfer a technician to a different location? Technician records are scoped to a single location. To add a technician to a different location, create a new technician record at that location. If the technician is moving permanently, deactivate the record at the old location and create a new one at the new location.