Arrival Windows
Some jobs are easy to promise to the minute. Others — an install that might run long, a route that shifts as the day fills in — are better promised as a range: "We'll arrive between 8 and 10 AM." That range is an arrival window, and it's a per-appointment-type setting called promise precision.
When a type books by arrival window, the customer only ever sees the window. Behind the scenes, Driive holds a suggested technician and time, but that plan stays flexible — you lock it in later on the Dispatch board. This article covers how to turn windows on and shape them; dispatching the resulting jobs is covered separately.
Exact time vs. arrival window
Every appointment type books one of two ways:
| Mode | What the customer picks | When the tech is assigned |
|---|---|---|
| Exact time (default) | A specific start time, e.g. 8:30 AM | Immediately, at booking |
| Arrival window | A window, e.g. 8–10 AM | Later, by you, on the Dispatch board |
With exact time, booking works exactly as it always has — the customer chooses a slot, a technician is assigned, and the time is the promise.
With arrival window, the customer chooses a window instead of a slot. The appointment is created as Scheduled but unassigned — no technician is attached yet. Driive quietly reserves capacity on a suggested tech so the window stays protected, but the commitment stays open until a dispatcher assigns it. This is what keeps your routes flexible: you can decide who takes the job and when within the window after you can see the whole day taking shape.
Key point: The window is the promise. Anything Driive does inside that window — suggesting a tech, moving the plan around, auto-refitting when availability changes — happens without ever changing what the customer was told.
Turning on arrival windows for a type
- Navigate to Setup > Appointment Types.
- Click the appointment type you want to configure.
- Open the Scheduling tab and find the Arrival Window section.
- Switch the mode from Exact time to Arrival window.
That's the master switch. Every future booking of this type now offers windows instead of exact times. Existing appointments are unaffected.
How windows are defined: templates
The windows customers can pick from come from templates. A template is one bookable window with:
- Label — the display text customers see, e.g.
8–10 AM(up to 64 characters). - Start and End — the window's org-local bounds, e.g. 8:00 AM to 10:00 AM.
- Days of week (optional) — restrict a window to certain days. Leave it off and the window applies every day.
The built-in defaults
If you never touch the settings, Driive offers four standard windows:
| Window | Time |
|---|---|
| 8–10 AM | 8:00 – 10:00 |
| 10 AM–12 PM | 10:00 – 12:00 |
| 12–2 PM | 12:00 – 14:00 |
| 2–4 PM | 14:00 – 16:00 |
Two levels of control
Windows resolve from the most specific set Driive can find:
- Per-type windows — a window set defined on this appointment type overrides everything else.
- Organization windows — your company-wide default set, configured on the Organization settings page under Arrival Windows.
- Built-in defaults — the four windows above, used when you've set neither.
So the common setup is: define one set of windows for your whole business in Organization settings, then override it on the handful of service types that need different hours.
To give a single type its own windows, toggle Customize windows for this type in the Arrival Window section — it starts from a copy of your org windows, which you can then edit.
Rules windows must follow
Driive validates your window set so customers never see something ambiguous:
- You can have between 1 and 12 windows.
- Windows that share a day cannot overlap — Driive will flag "Windows X and Y overlap" and won't let you save until it's resolved.
- A window's end must be after its start.
- Start and end times can't fall in the 2:00–2:59 AM hour — that hour is ambiguous on daylight-saving transition days, so it's blocked to keep the label and the real time in agreement year-round.
What the customer sees
On your booking page, a window-precision service shows window cards instead of a grid of exact times. The customer picks a date and then a window — "Arrive between 8:00 AM – 10:00 AM."
A few things happen automatically to keep the experience honest:
- Empty windows are hidden. A window only appears if at least one technician can actually serve it (accounting for availability, buffers, and drive time). Customers never pick a window you can't staff.
- Best windows surface first. Windows are ordered by date, then by how much capacity they have — a window several techs can cover ranks above one only a single tech can squeeze in.
In every confirmation, reminder, reschedule, and cancellation notice, the time field is labeled Arrival Window and shows the range — for example, 8:00 AM – 10:00 AM PST. Two special cases:
- A window that spans midnight to noon displays as ASAP rather than "12:00 AM – 12:00 PM" — useful for a catch-all "first thing this morning" promise.
- A whole-day internal window displays as Any time.
See Customer Notifications for the full set of messages.
From window booking to a real job
A window booking is only half-scheduled by design. Here's the full arc:
- Customer books a window. The appointment is created as Scheduled, with the window stored as its promise and no technician assigned.
- Driive holds a plan. A suggested tech and start time are reserved inside the window as an invisible capacity hold — it protects availability but never shows on calendars or syncs externally.
- Availability shifts, Driive re-fits. If someone's hours change or a synced calendar adds a conflict, Driive silently moves the held plan to another feasible slot inside the same window. Because the promise is unchanged, the customer is never notified. If nothing in the window can be served anymore, the job is flagged for a human instead of being dropped.
- You dispatch it. On the Dispatch board, the job sits in the Unassigned lane. You assign it to a technician — accepting the suggestion or picking your own — which turns the held plan into a real, committed appointment on that tech's calendar.
Note: Moving the plan around inside the window — by auto-refit or by you on the board — never messages the customer, because their window hasn't changed. The customer only hears about a change if you reschedule the window itself.
When to use each mode
- Use exact time for short, predictable jobs where the customer wants a precise commitment — an estimate call, a quick diagnostic, an in-office consult.
- Use arrival windows for field work where routing efficiency matters more than a to-the-minute promise — installs, multi-stop service routes, anything where you'd rather keep the day flexible and dispatch it as it fills in.
Related articles
- Dispatching — Assign window bookings to technicians on the Dispatch board.
- Scheduling Settings — Duration, buffers, and booking windows for a type.
- Appointment Statuses Explained — How Unassigned and En Route fit the appointment lifecycle.
- Customer Notifications — What customers receive, including the arrival-window format.