How to Add Mechanics to the Service Allocation Screen

The Service Allocation screen only draws a lane for the mechanics it recognises, so a technician has to be set up as a Skilled Person with a technician role before anyone can schedule work to them.

Overview

A new mechanic can be in Latner for weeks and still be invisible to whoever does the scheduling. The board doesn't list users, and it doesn't list everyone you could put on a work order - it lists the people whose Skilled Person record says they do technician work.

The board has two groups. Internal lists your own mechanics (Skilled Persons) and External lists subcontractors (Suppliers).
A person gets a lane only if their Skilled Person record carries Field Technician or Workshop Technician. The other four roles belong to other boards.
The lane's subtitle shows which of the two they hold - Field, Workshop, or Field | Workshop.
The Branch filter matches mechanics on the branch of their user record, not the warehouse on their Skilled Person record.
Only Active skilled persons are listed, so deactivating a record takes the lane away without touching any history.
Adding a role changes nothing about existing work orders. It just opens the lane so you can schedule onto it.

Before You Begin

You'll need the following in place before you start.

Requirement	Where to Find It
The mechanic already has a Skilled Person record	Service › Configuration › Skilled Persons
Skilled Person permission - opens the Skilled Persons screen and allows the roles to be edited	Security › Configuration › Permission Groups › Service › Configuration
Service Allocation permission - opens the board itself	Security › Configuration › Permission Groups › Service › Screen
The mechanic's user record sits in the branch you schedule from	Security › Users

the Service Configuration permissions on the Service Manager group; Skilled Person is what lets someone edit a mechanic's roles

the Service Screen permissions; without Service Allocation the board doesn't appear in the Service menu at all

The user's branch is what the board filters on. The Warehouse on the Skilled Person record drives parts and stock, not board visibility, so a mechanic sitting in the wrong branch's lane is fixed by changing the branch on their user record - not the warehouse.

Adding a Mechanic to the Board

Step 1 - Open the Skilled Persons screen

Go to Service › Configuration › Skilled Persons. Everyone you can schedule anywhere in Latner is on this list, whatever kind of work they do. If your mechanic isn't here yet, create the record first with Options › Create Skilled Person - How to Set Up User as a Skilled Person covers that form field by field - then come back to Step 2.

the Skilled Persons list; Branch is inherited from each person's user record, so it's the column that decides which board they'll turn up on

Step 2 - Open the mechanic's record

Double-click the row to open the Skilled Person. The header carries Status, Branch and Warehouse, and Roles sits at the bottom of the General Details card. A record with no technician role, or one that only carries a role like Driver, is exactly why a mechanic goes missing from Service Allocation.

Ryan Howard before the change; a Driver and Yard Staff record like this is scheduled from Transport and Inspection Allocation, never from Service Allocation

Step 3 - Open the Roles list

Click the Roles value. The card switches into edit mode, Cancel and Save appear in the card header, and the six roles open as a tick list. Each role maps to one allocation screen:

Field Technician - Service Allocation, for work done at the customer's site
Workshop Technician - Service Allocation, for work done in your own workshop
Driver - Transport Allocation
Yard Staff - Inspection Allocation
Pump Driver - Sanitation Allocation
Operator - Operator Allocation

the six skilled person roles; only the two technician roles are read by Service Allocation

Step 4 - Tick the technician roles

Tick Field Technician, Workshop Technician, or both. Roles add up rather than replace each other, so leave the person's existing roles alone unless they've genuinely stopped doing that work - a mechanic who also drives the truck keeps Driver and stays on the Transport board as well.

both technician roles ticked alongside the roles the mechanic already held

Step 5 - Save

Click Save in the General Details header. The roles are stored on the record straight away; there's nothing to approve and no overnight job to wait for.

the saved record; Roles now reads Driver, Yard Staff, Field Technician, Workshop Technician

Step 6 - Open Service Allocation

Go to Service › Service Allocation. The mechanic now has their own lane under Internal, with their technician roles shown underneath their name, and you can drag work orders from Unscheduled Work Orders straight onto it. Switch the view to Daily if you want to see the times clearly - in a weekly view a two hour job is only a sliver.

the Daily view with the new lane in place; the roles under each name are the shorthand Field and Workshop

After Adding the Role

The mechanic appears on Service Allocation for every branch whose Branch filter matches the branch on their user record, and on every other board their remaining roles qualify them for.
Tick Show All Mechanics to drop the branch filter and list every mechanic in the business. Handy when you're lending a technician to another branch, or when you're checking whether someone is missing or just filed under the wrong branch.
The work orders on the board are still filtered by Branch, so a borrowed mechanic's lane shows only the jobs belonging to the branch you're looking at.
Roles don't gate the work order itself. The Mechanic field on a work order lists every active skilled person whatever their roles, so someone can already be allocated work that has no lane to sit on.
Dragging a work order onto a lane sets its scheduled start and end and moves its Tech Status to Allocated.

the Branch filter and the Show All Mechanics tick box, which drops the branch filter from the mechanic list

Taking a technician role off a record removes the lane, and any work orders already scheduled to that person disappear from the board while staying allocated to them on the work order. If someone has simply left, deactivate the whole Skilled Person record with Options › Deactivate instead of stripping roles - it clears them off every board at once and can be reversed.

FAQs

I added the role but the mechanic still isn't on the board. Why?

Work through three things in order. Their Skilled Person Status has to be Active, because the board only loads active records. The Branch filter at the top of the board has to match the branch on their user record - tick Show All Mechanics to prove it either way. And the role has to be Field Technician or Workshop Technician; Driver, Yard Staff, Pump Driver and Operator do nothing here.

Why can I pick a mechanic in the Mechanic field on a work order when they have no lane on the board?

Because the two lists are built differently. The Mechanic field lists every active skilled person regardless of role, while the board filters by role. It's a common way for work to end up allocated but unschedulable: the work order looks fine, and the scheduler can't find anywhere to put it. Adding the technician role fixes it without touching the work order.

Does a mechanic need both technician roles?

No. One is enough to get a lane. Give them Field Technician if they work at customer sites, Workshop Technician if they work in your workshop, and both if they do both - which is what the Field | Workshop subtitle on the lane means. The role doesn't restrict which work orders you can drag onto them; it's there so the scheduler can see at a glance who does what.

How do I add a subcontractor rather than one of our own mechanics?

Subcontractors come from Suppliers, not Skilled Persons, and they show under the External group. The supplier needs to be Active and carry the Field Technician or Workshop Technician supplier role. How to Add Suppliers to the Service Allocation Screen covers it. Unlike mechanics, suppliers aren't filtered by branch - they're listed on every branch's board.

Some blocks on a mechanic's lane are grey and won't move. What are they?

They're work orders where that person is a secondary technician rather than the allocated mechanic. Latner draws them on the secondary technician's lane so you can see the person is committed, but only the primary allocation is editable - reschedule the job from the lane of the mechanic it's actually allocated to, or from the work order itself.

Do I have to re-allocate existing work orders after adding the role?

No. Work orders already allocated to that person keep their allocation, and any that already had a scheduled start and end appear on the new lane as soon as it exists. Anything allocated but never scheduled stays in Unscheduled Work Orders until you drag it out.

The mechanics are all listed but the board has no work on it. What's wrong?

Almost always the filters rather than the mechanics. The board only draws a work order that has both a mechanic and a scheduled start and end, inside the date range you're viewing, and in the branch selected in Branch. Clear Fulfillment, Type, Location Type, Reason and Category, then check you're on the right week.

Watch the Demo

Prefer to watch it? Step through the same flow here.