Set Technician Availability

Technician availability is the planned work schedule — which days of the week a technician is expected to work, and what hours their shift covers. The scheduler uses this information to determine which technicians can be assigned to jobs on a given day and whether a proposed time block falls within their working hours.

Availability is a planning input. It is the schedule you intend. Clock-in is the operational record — what actually happened. These two concepts work together but serve different purposes, and it is important to keep them separate.

Availability vs Clock-In

A technician who is available (on schedule) but not yet clocked in will show on the board as Expected — they are expected today but not yet present. Once they clock in, they show as Present. The distinction matters for the AI: it will suggest an available technician for future time blocks even if they have not yet clocked in for the day.

How to Set a Weekly Availability Schedule

How to Add Exception Dates

Exception dates handle one-off deviations from the regular weekly schedule — a public holiday, a planned day off, a training day, or a half-day for a personal appointment. Instead of modifying the weekly schedule and then reverting it, you add a single exception that overrides the regular schedule for that specific date.

Exception Examples

Sebastián Ruiz, Mecánica Del Valle Buenos Aires — public holiday: Argentina’s public holiday calendar means certain Mondays that fall within the standard schedule should be marked as days off. Add an exception for the specific date, mark as day off. Sebastián will not appear as available in the scheduler on that Monday.

Yuki Tanaka, Tanaka Auto Service Osaka — early finish for a training afternoon: Yuki is normally available 08:00–17:30 Monday to Friday. On a specific Wednesday she is attending a manufacturer training session in the afternoon. Add an exception for that Wednesday with custom hours 08:00–12:00. She is available for morning jobs only.

Lars Eriksson, Erikssons Bilverkstad Stockholm — returning from parental leave: Lars has been on leave. His availability has been toggled off completely (all days off). When he returns, re-enable his days and shift times. Alternatively, use exception dates to model the transition period if he returns part-time initially.

Editing and Removing Availability

To change the weekly schedule, return to the technician’s profile and update the day toggles and shift times. Save. Changes apply from this moment forward — previously scheduled jobs on the now-removed days are not automatically cancelled or flagged.

To remove an exception date, go to the Exceptions section, find the exception in the list, and click the delete (trash) icon next to it.

Availability and the AI Scheduler

The AI uses availability in two ways:

1. Candidate filtering — the AI only considers a technician as a candidate for a job if their availability window covers the proposed job time block. A technician whose shift ends at 17:00 will not be suggested for a job scheduled to complete at 18:30.

2. Workload balancing — when multiple technicians are available for a job, the AI factors in how many active hours each technician has left in their shift. A technician with two hours left in their day is weighted differently from one with six hours remaining.

This means that keeping shift times accurate directly improves suggestion quality — not just for conflict avoidance, but for workload distribution across the team.

Common Questions

What if a technician works varying hours each week? Set the weekly schedule to their most common pattern, then use exception dates for the weeks where hours differ. If their hours are truly unpredictable, set a general window (e.g. 07:00–18:00 on all working days) and rely on clock-in to reflect actual presence — the scheduler will show them as available across the wider window, and real-time assignment is managed via clock-in status.

Can two technicians have the same availability hours? Yes. Availability is per-technician. Any number of technicians can share identical schedules.

What happens to scheduled jobs if I change a technician’s availability so they are no longer working on a day with jobs? Existing jobs are not automatically unassigned. BayWise will surface a scheduling conflict indicator on the board for those jobs. You will need to manually reassign them or confirm that the technician will handle them as a one-off exception.

Can I set availability for a technician who is currently on annual leave? Yes. The cleanest approach is to add exception dates for the leave period rather than modifying the weekly schedule. When the leave period is over, the exceptions expire and the regular schedule resumes without any changes needed.

Does availability affect the technician’s visibility in reports? Availability data is used in scheduling and planning reports. A technician’s planned hours (based on availability) are compared against their actual clocked hours in the technician performance report. This ratio is one of the inputs in the daily insights view.

What timezone are the shift times stored in? Shift times are stored relative to the location’s configured timezone. If your workshop is in a timezone that observes daylight saving, shift times remain as entered — they are wall-clock times, not UTC offsets. Ensure your location timezone is set correctly in Settings → Workspace before configuring availability. See Configure Operating Hours for timezone setup.