When a Technician Is Absent
A technician calling in at 07:50 is the most common way a day changes before it starts. Handling it in BayWise takes about a minute.
Who can do this: Workshop Controllers, Location Managers, Org Admins and Account Owners.
Marking somebody absent
Open Technicians
Find the technician
Mark them absent for the day
If your workshop requires clock-in, simply not clocking in has much the same effect — but marking them absent is explicit and is what you should do for a known absence.
What happens
Their work comes off the plan and is re-placed against colleagues who hold the same skills. The board updates.
Anything that cannot be re-placed appears in the action centre under Could not schedule, by name, with the reason — usually “no eligible bay or technician today”.
Those are your phone calls, and you have them at 08:00 rather than at 16:00.
→ When a car could not be scheduled
Work that was already running
A vehicle the absent technician had started is not abandoned quietly. It shows as Not Started if it never began, or sits with its stage open if it did.
Reassign it to somebody present, or pause it with the reason tech unavailable if it genuinely cannot continue today.
→ Move a car to another bay or technician
Why some work cannot be re-placed
Three usual causes, in order of frequency:
Only one person holds the skill. The commonest by far — and almost always because the skill was never recorded against the colleagues who also have it.
A certification is required. High-voltage and other safety-gated work reaches only certified technicians, and no amount of pressure changes that. If your only certified technician is off, that work waits.
The day is genuinely full. Everyone else is committed.
After the second time an absence strands the same kind of work, stop treating it as an absence problem. Record the skill against everybody who actually holds it — it is a five-minute fix that never has to be made again.
Planning a known absence
Holiday, training, a medical appointment: set it in the technician’s availability as an exception for those dates rather than waiting for the morning.
Work is then never planned against them on those days, and vehicles are placed correctly from the start rather than being shuffled on the day.
A whole-shop closure
If the workshop is not opening at all — a public holiday, a shutdown — that is a shop closure, not a set of absences.
Common questions
They are coming in late rather than not at all. Adjust their availability for the day. Work is then planned from the time they actually arrive.
Somebody went home ill at lunchtime. Mark them absent from that point and reassign or pause their open work. The morning’s completed work stays on the record.
Does absence affect their efficiency figures? No. Efficiency is billable time against clocked-in time, so a day not worked does not count against anybody.
Do I have to tell the customers myself? Yes. BayWise identifies which promises are now at risk and by how much; the call is yours.
Can a technician mark themselves absent? No. Absence is recorded by a controller or above.