Planning and dispatch

Introduction

Planning a WO means giving it personal operativo (operational staff), an Inicio previsto (Planned start) and a Fin previsto (Planned end). The WO's Fecha límite (Due date) does not change when you plan it: not by hand, not by dragging, not with the optimiser. Assigning does not change the status: a planned WO stays Pendiente (Pending) until the technician starts it in the app. The statuses and staff of a WO are explained in Work orders.

All views respect the customer chosen in Seleccionar cliente (Select customer) on the map, except where stated in each section.

Prerequisites

The Planificación tab requires the maintenance module. In addition:

The contracted modules are shown in Configuración General (General settings). If one is missing, ask Maptainer for it.

Permissions

Permissions are in Gestión de Roles y Permisos (Roles and permissions management).

Without Editar, the Por despachar queue and the Optimizador button do not appear.

“Cómo trabaja tu empresa” options

Settings that affect planning

Working days and company working hours

In Configuración General, Días y horario de trabajo (Working days and hours) sets the limit for any planning. A branch with its own working hours uses those (see Work calendar):

• The calendar only shows working days, and the Día and Semana views run from the earliest opening time of the week to one hour after the latest closing time, with each day's working hours shaded.
• The optimiser does not plan on non-working days and trims each shift to that day's working hours. With a split working day, the gap between the two time slots is a break. If less than one hour of the shift remains, that day does not count.
• The WO form warns you if the dates fall outside working days or hours (see Work orders).

Work order planning

The Planificación de Órdenes de Trabajo (Work order planning) section of Configuración General has two fields: Tiempo a planificar (días) (Time to plan (days)) and Crear órdenes a (días) (Create orders at (days)). They only affect preventive maintenance: how far ahead forecasts are shown in the calendar and how many days in advance the real WOs are created. They change nothing in the optimiser or in dispatching. They are explained in Preventive maintenance and maintenance types.

Data the optimiser uses

The optimiser has no settings of its own: it reads data from other screens. If a plan looks odd, one of these is almost always missing.

If a technician's branch has no location, they start from the warehouse of their branch or of the company and the plan warns you.

The calendar

The calendar opens when you click the Planificación tab. It shows WOs with dates, preventive maintenance forecasts and reading batches. How to read it (colours, legend, forecasts) is described in Preventive maintenance and maintenance types.

The buttons on the right change the view: Día, Semana, Mes, Lista, Kanban, Vista Usuario and Optimizador. Hoy (Today) and the arrows move the period.

• When you click a WO, the map centres on it and its record opens.
• WOs without dates are shown on today's date.
• Clicking a reading batch opens it in the Lecturas (Readings) tab (see Reading batches).

Creating a WO in a free slot

1. Switch to the Día or Semana view. At the top it says “Haz clic en cualquier hora para crear una nueva orden de trabajo.” (Click any time to create a new work order.).
2. Click the time you want.
3. The new WO form opens with that date and time. Fill it in as described in Work orders.

Changing dates by dragging

Drag a WO to another day or another time to reschedule it. The change is saved when you drop it and “Fechas actualizadas correctamente” (Dates updated successfully) appears.

To change only the planned end, stretch the end edge of the WO. “Fin previsto actualizado” (Planned end updated) appears. If it would fall before the start, “El fin previsto tiene que ser posterior al inicio” (The planned end must be after the start) appears and it is not saved. Neither dragging nor stretching moves the due date.

Only open WOs can be dragged (Pendiente, En Curso (In progress) and Pausada (Paused)). Completadas (Completed), Validadas (Validated), Cerradas (Closed) and Canceladas (Cancelled) stay fixed, as do preventive maintenance forecasts and reading batches.

The planned start and planned end must fall on working days: not on a public holiday of the company or of the WO's branch, nor on a day the company does not work. Otherwise the WO goes back to its place and the reason is shown, for example “El fin previsto no puede caer en un día no laborable: el 12/10/2026 es festivo (Fiesta Nacional)” (The planned end cannot fall on a non-working day: 12/10/2026 is a public holiday (National Day)). Any other error also shows its reason.

The Kanban board

The Kanban places each WO in the column for its status. Only the columns of your company's life cycle appear (see Work orders): with the full cycle, Pendiente, En Curso, Pausada, Completada, Validada, Cerrada and Cancelada; with the supervised cycle Validada is missing, and with the simple cycle Completada and Validada are missing. If there are WOs from before the cycle was changed in a status you no longer use, its column keeps appearing as long as it has any. Each column shows its total and the first 25 WOs; Cargar más (N) (Load more (N)) brings the next ones. The columns of finished WOs only show the last 30 days.

Each card shows the title, priority, staff, start and address. Its buttons:

To change the status, drag the card to another column. While you drag it, the columns it cannot move to are dimmed and do not accept it: only the changes allowed by your cycle and your permissions are valid. When you drop it on Completada, Validada or Cerrada you are asked for confirmation, and on Cancelada, for the reason. Cerradas and Canceladas cards cannot be moved.

The Vista Usuario

The Vista Usuario shows one row per active technician and one column per day, with the WOs assigned to them each day. It is used to see who is free and to dispatch.

• Día, Semana and Mes change the period; Hoy and the arrows move it.
• With branches, the Todas las delegaciones (All branches) drop-down limits the rows to one branch.
• Each WO is shown with its code and title. The colour indicates the status, and overdue ones are in red (what the due point is).
• If a day has more than three WOs, click +N más (+N more) to see them all.
• When you click a WO, the map centres on it and its record opens.

Dispatching from the “Por despachar” queue

The Por despachar queue is above the Vista Usuario. It contains the Pendientes (Pending) WOs: first those with nobody assigned, then those due soonest (by their due date, their SLA deadline or their planned end) and, for the same date, the most urgent. It shows the first 60; to reach the rest, use Buscar… (Search…).

Assigning a WO from the queue

1. Open Planificación → Vista Usuario.
2. Drag the WO from the queue to the technician's row and the day's column.
3. In the Asignar … (Assign …) dialog, check Inicio (Start) and Fin (End) (the planned ones; the due date does not change). The time the WO already had (or 08:00) and its duration are proposed.
4. Click Asignar. Volver (Back) cancels without saving.

The chosen technician replaces the operational staff the WO had; the dialog warns you with “Sustituye al personal operativo actual: …” (Replaces the current operational staff: …). The responsible people do not change. If the technician does not meet the WO's training, the WO is assigned anyway and “La persona asignada no cumple toda la formación de la orden: revisa las alertas” (The assigned person does not meet all the order's training: check the alerts) appears.

Moving or rescheduling a WO already assigned

Drag the WO from a technician's cell:

• To another technician's row: the dialog is called Mover (Move). The original technician is replaced by the destination one, even if they were the responsible person.
• To another day for the same technician: the dialog is called Reprogramar (Reschedule) and only the dates change.

Only Pendientes, En Curso and Pausadas WOs can be dragged.

With a customer chosen in Seleccionar cliente, the queue shows only that customer's WOs.

Assigning to the nearest technician

Asignar al más cercano… proposes the technicians who are closest to the WO right now, by driving time. It is in the ⋯ menu of Pendientes and Pausadas WOs and in the map's context menu on a WO (see The map).

Only technicians who meet all of the following are shown:

• They have GPS tracking active and have sent their position in the last 2 hours.
• They are active and have no confirmed absence at this moment.
• They have the mandatory training for the WO's tasks (or for its type, if it has no tasks).
• They are less than 20 km away in a straight line. If there is nobody, the search extends to 40 km.

1. In the WO's ⋯ menu, click Asignar al más cercano….
2. Choose a technician from the list. Each one shows the time and kilometres by road, when they were last seen and, if applicable, “con una orden en curso” (with an order in progress).
3. If the WO is Pendiente, check Inicio and Fin. The proposed start is now plus the travel time of the first one on the list.
4. Click Asignar.

The chosen technician replaces the WO's operational staff. If there is nobody, “Nadie cerca” (Nobody nearby) appears with the radius searched.

Each technician's position on the map is shown with the Posiciones GPS (GPS positions) layer (see The map). Tracking is explained in Fleet and GPS tracking.

The multi-day optimiser

The Optimizador distributes pending WOs among the teams and technicians you choose, over a range of up to 14 days. It looks for the distribution with the fewest kilometres that respects shifts, public holidays, absences, training, trades and the dates of each WO. It first generates a draft; nothing changes in the WOs until you apply it.

Which WOs go into the plan

The WOs that meet all of the following go in:

• They are Pendientes and not yet planned: they are missing operational staff, planned start or planned end. Having only a responsible person does not count as planned.
• They have a location: assets placed on the map, a point or an area.
• They have no due point or they fall due, at the latest, on the last day of the range. The due point is the due date; if there is none, the SLA resolution deadline; and failing that, the planned end. Those already overdue go in and come first.

If you do not tick any WO, all those that meet the above and are less than 200 km from the centre of the branches of the chosen resources go in. If you tick some, only those go in and the 200 km limit does not apply.

A WO that already has operational staff but no dates does not go in on its own: someone has already decided who does it. If you tick it, the plan only gives it to a resource that includes that staff and, when applied, gives it dates without changing anyone. If none of the chosen resources includes that staff, it appears in Sin cubrir (Not covered).

The order of preference comes from the priority and how close the due point is. An overdue Media (Medium) WO weighs the same as an Alta (High) one with no urgency.

Which resources are planned

A resource is a team or a technician. Each day of each resource is a working day, with the hours of its shift.

• Equipos (if your company works with teams): they do a single route per day. They can do whatever any of their members present that day knows how to do. The team needs a default shift, a branch with a location and at least one active member. A team without a shift appears dimmed and with ⚠: it will not be planned.
• Operarios (Technicians): their shift and its exceptions for each day; without a shift, the working hours of their branch or of the company. A technician who is already in a ticked team appears as “en equipo” (in team) and cannot be ticked individually.

Each working day starts from and returns to the resource's branch.

A day does not count for a resource if:

The schedule they already have

The optimiser does not treat a working day that already has work as free. It counts the WOs in which the chosen staff are already operational staff, with dates that touch the range and that are Pendientes, En Curso or Pausadas. It makes no difference whether they were assigned by a person or by a previous plan.

• Each one takes up its estimated duration and the travel to it, between its planned start and its planned end. If those dates span several days, the optimiser chooses which day to count it on.
• They are not moved or changed: the plan shows them so you can understand the working day, but applying it does not touch them.
• For a team, the schedule of any of its members counts.
• If a day's schedule already fills the working day, that day receives nothing new: it appears as “agenda completa”.
• If the working day is so tight that the optimiser would prefer to swap some of them for new WOs, it does not do so. It reserves the slot of each WO already there, with the travel from the starting point, and warns you with “La agenda de … va justa” (…'s schedule is tight).

Generating a plan

1. Open Planificación and click Optimizador.
2. In Nuevo plan (New plan), enter Desde (From) and Hasta (To). By default, the next 7 days; the maximum is 14.
3. Tick the Equipos and the Operarios who are going to work. Filtrar… (Filter…) searches technicians by name.
4. In Órdenes de trabajo pendientes (Pending work orders), tick the WOs you want to plan or tick none to plan them all. The list only has the pending WOs not yet planned: those that already have operational staff and dates are not shown. With a customer chosen in Seleccionar cliente, only that customer's WOs are shown and, if you tick none, the plan only takes that customer's WOs. Filtrar por código o título… (Filter by code or title…) searches among them; marcar / desmarcar todas (tick / untick all) ticks the ones shown. When you change customer, all are unticked.
5. Leave Reparto equilibrado (Balanced distribution) ticked to share the work among everyone. Unticked, the optimiser loads more onto the resource with the cheapest route.
6. Click Generar plan (Generate plan). It can take between 10 and 30 seconds.

When it finishes, “Plan generado (borrador)” (Plan generated (draft)) appears and its detail opens. + Nueva OT (+ New WO) opens the WO form with the Desde day at 08:00.

The WO list shows 100 at most; if there are more, “y N más: usa el filtro” (and N more: use the filter) appears. Ticked WOs are kept even if you change the filter.

If you have not ticked any team or technician, “Recursos requeridos” (Resources required) appears. If the plan cannot be generated, “No se ha podido generar el plan” (The plan could not be generated) appears with the reason:

Reading the result

The plan detail has four figures: Recursos (Resources), OTs asignadas (WOs assigned), Sin cubrir and Distancia total (Total distance). Below, the working days grouped by day.

Each working day shows the team or technician, the number of WOs, the working day (from arrival at the first WO to the end of the last), the occupancy, the working and driving hours and the kilometres. Occupancy compares work and driving with the shift hours excluding the break; above 95 % it is shown in amber. Click the working day to see the route: the WOs in order, with their arrival and end times. On a night shift, a time that falls after midnight carries “(+1)”: it belongs to the following day.

The WOs the resource already had are shown dimmed, with “ya en su agenda” (already in their schedule), and are counted separately (“3 OTs + 2 ya en agenda”). They are included in the working day and in the occupancy, but not in OTs asignadas.

Three blocks can appear below the working days:

• Sin cubrir (N): the WOs that did not fit, with the reason and an explanation.
• Recursos sin disponibilidad (N días) (Resources without availability (N days)): the days that do not count, with the reason from the table above. It expands when you click it.
• Warnings in yellow: excluded teams, technicians who are already in a team, technicians starting from the warehouse…

Applying or discarding the plan

A plan in Borrador (Draft) has two buttons: Aplicar plan (Apply plan) and Descartar (Discard).

1. Review the working days and what remains not covered.
2. Click Aplicar plan. “¿Aplicar el plan?” (Apply the plan?) appears.
3. Click Aplicar (Apply).

When applied, each new WO in the plan receives:

• As operational staff, the technician for its working day or all the active members of the team. If it already had operational staff (this only happens if you ticked it), it keeps them.
• As Inicio previsto, the arrival time, and as Fin previsto, the time the work ends. The Fecha límite is not touched.

The responsible people do not change and the WO stays Pendiente. It appears immediately in the calendar, in the Kanban and in the Vista Usuario. In its activity, the assignment is recorded as made by the planner. The WOs that were already in each resource's schedule do not change.

If everything goes well, “Plan aplicado: las OTs han sido asignadas y programadas” (Plan applied: the WOs have been assigned and scheduled) appears and the plan changes to Aplicado (Applied). If any WO fails (it has been started, cancelled or deleted in the meantime), “Plan aplicado parcialmente: N OTs con fallos” (Plan partially applied: N WOs with errors) appears. The plan stays in Borrador with the block Fallos al aplicar (N) — puedes reintentar (Errors when applying (N) — you can retry). When you apply it again, the WOs already planned are skipped.

Descartar asks for confirmation (“¿Descartar el plan?” (Discard the plan?)) and sets the plan to Descartado (Discarded). A discarded plan cannot be applied.

Plan history

Historial de planes shows the last 30 plans with their range, resources, WOs assigned, not covered, kilometres and status: Borrador, Aplicado or Descartado. Click one to see its detail; the X closes it.

Optimiser limits

• Local scale: with no WOs ticked, only those less than 200 km from the resources' branches go in. A distant WO is not planned by mistake hundreds of kilometres away.
• Range: 14 days at most. For a month, generate several plans in a row.
• Size: up to 500 working days (resources × days) and 2,000 different locations per plan.
• Routing service: times and kilometres come from a road routing service. If it fails several times in a row, Maptainer stops calling it for about 5 minutes so as not to block the application, and the plan is not generated. The message says how long to wait before clicking Generar plan again; if it happens again, contact support.

Planning a single WO

For a single WO you do not need the optimiser. In the WO form, Planificar esta OT (equipo u operario apto más cercano) proposes a date and staff, and Sugerir próxima fecha disponible (Suggest next available date) finds the responsible person's first free slot. They are explained in Work orders.

Common problems

Last updated: OCT 2, 2026