What gets checked
Conflict detection looks across four kinds of schedule events at once for the people you’re scheduling:- Job shifts — a shift can have more than one team member.
- Time Off
- Tasks
- Lead Activities (for example, an estimate visit)
What counts as a conflict
A conflict is flagged when all of the following are true for an existing event:The two events overlap in time
The existing event must overlap the new event’s time window. Overlap is exclusive: two events that merely touch — one ends exactly when the next one starts — do not conflict. Back-to-back scheduling is allowed.The event belongs to a person you’re scheduling
Only events owned by the people you’re assigning are considered. Events belonging to anyone else are ignored.The existing event is active
- Job shifts count only when published. Draft shifts never cause a conflict.
- Tasks count only when published. Draft tasks never cause a conflict.
- Lead Activities count only when published. Draft lead activities never cause a conflict.
- Time Off has no draft state — it is always active and always counted, even before it’s published.
- Double-booking on jobs — the person is already on another published job shift at that time.
- Unavailable due to time off — the person has time off covering that window (this always blocks).
- Task overlap — the person already has a published task scheduled then.
- Lead-activity overlap — the person already has a published lead activity (such as an estimate visit) then.
The event you’re editing never conflicts with itself
When you edit an existing event and re-save it, that event is excluded from the check, so it won’t flag itself. For a job, all shifts of that same job are excluded — not just the one shift you opened.Conflicts are checked on publish, not when you save a draft. Saving a task, lead activity, or job shift as a draft skips the conflict check entirely. Time Off is checked on every save because it has no draft state.
Availability dots while you pick people
Before you save, the people pickers show a live availability signal for the date and time window you’ve chosen. This runs continuously as you change the time or the selected people.- A person is shown unavailable when they have any conflict in the selected window.
- A person is shown available when they have none.
- No indicator appears when the time range is invalid (start is not before end), no one is selected yet, or the availability data hasn’t loaded.
How availability appears
- Dot in the people picker — a small dot next to each name: green for available, red for unavailable.
- Team-member chip on a new job — each assigned team member’s chip is colored green (available) or red (unavailable). Subcontractors are never availability-checked and always appear neutral.
The Scheduling Conflict dialog
When you publish (or save Time Off) and conflicts are found, a dialog interrupts the save. Its title is Scheduling Conflict and it asks you to review the conflicts before continuing. You’ll see one entry per conflict, each reading: the person’s name, the conflicting event, and its date and time. The event named for each type is:- Job — the job name.
- Time Off — “Time Off”.
- Task — the task type name (or “Task” if there isn’t one).
- Lead Activity — the lead name (or “Lead Activity” if there isn’t one).
Two choices — both are valid
- Edit Shift — closes the dialog and returns you to the form so you can change the time or the people. Nothing is saved.
- Continue — overrides the warning and saves anyway, double-booking on purpose. The conflict is not re-checked.
Conflicts are warnings, not hard blocks. You can always choose Continue to schedule over a conflict.
Multi-day jobs
The New Job sheet can publish several day-shifts at once. It checks each published day against that day’s own team and times, then combines the results and removes duplicates so the same clash isn’t listed twice. If you publish only specific days, only those days are checked.When the check can’t run
If the schedule can’t load conflict data — for example, a temporary outage — it fails safe rather than blocking you:- A partial data outage simply under-reports conflicts rather than failing the save.
- If the conflict check itself errors on a single event, the save is allowed to proceed as if there were no conflicts.
- On a multi-day job, if the check fails outright you’ll see a “Failed to check scheduling conflicts” message and the publish is stopped so you can try again.
How to resolve a conflict
- Change the time of the new event so it no longer overlaps. Remember that touching edges don’t conflict.
- Remove or swap the conflicted person. The dialog names exactly who clashes and with what, and the live red dot helps you pick someone available instead.
- Select Edit Shift to go back, adjust, and re-publish.
- Select Continue to override and schedule anyway — an intentional double-booking.
- For a task or lead activity, save it as a draft instead of publishing. Drafts skip the conflict check, and draft events don’t cause conflicts for others either.
Best Match availability
When Best Match is turned on, the Schedule New Lead Activity panel suggests salespeople with their next opening and driving distance. These are the rules behind those suggestions. For how to use the list, see Schedule a site visit.Who is considered
Active (not blocked) team members with the Sales Admin or Sales Member role who belong to the visit’s branch.The search window
- Openings are searched across 14 days, starting on the date chosen in the panel.
- An opening is never in the past. If the chosen date is today, the search starts from the current time.
- The opening’s length is the panel’s start-to-end time. If those aren’t set, or the end isn’t after the start, it’s one hour.
- Openings start on the hour or half hour.
- Times follow the branch’s timezone.
Which days and hours count
A day can hold an opening only when all of these are true:- The branch is open that day, as set in Branch Working Hours.
- The person has that day switched on in their Working Preferences.
- The person has fewer published lead activities that day than their Lead activity limit for that day. Draft lead activities don’t count toward the limit.
What blocks time
The same events that cause conflicts block time: published job shifts, tasks, and lead activities, plus all time off. Drafts never block time. When you’re editing an existing lead activity, that visit is ignored.Gaps around existing events
Unlike the conflict check, Best Match leaves a gap before and after each blocking event:- By default, the gap is the branch’s Minimum Time Between Appointments. If that’s blank, there’s no gap, and back-to-back openings are allowed.
- Around a published lead activity on the chosen date, the gap is the driving time between that visit and the new visit address, if that’s longer than the branch minimum.
Where distance is measured from
Distance is the driving distance, in miles, to the new visit’s address. It’s measured from the first of these that applies:- Previous lead address — the address of the person’s latest published lead activity on the chosen date.
- Home — their Home Address, when that day’s Start Point is Home and a home address is saved.
- Branch — the address of the visit’s branch.
Sort order
- Soonest — earliest opening first. Ties go alphabetically by name. People with no opening come last.
- Nearest — shortest distance first. People with no distance come last. Ties use the Soonest order.
Suggestions don’t block booking
Best Match is advisory. A person with no opening shows Unavailable but can still be picked. The Scheduling Conflict dialog on publish works the same as it does without Best Match.Quick reference
- Conflict = overlap with a published job shift, published task, published lead activity, or any time off, for a person you’re scheduling.
- Touching edges don’t conflict — back-to-back is fine.
- Drafts never conflict; time off always does.
- Editing an event excludes it from its own check (a whole job’s shifts for a job).
- Subcontractors are never availability-checked.
- Best Match uses the same blocking events, plus working days, hours, daily limits, and gaps around events. Its suggestions are advisory too.
- The availability dot is advisory; the dialog is overridable. Conflicts never hard-block scheduling.