Key Concepts and Glossary
As you use Driive, you'll come across terms that have specific meanings within the platform. This glossary defines each one so you always know what's being referenced. Bookmark this page for quick reference.
Request
The intake record of what a customer needs — before it becomes an appointment. Requests arrive from every channel: your booking page, phone calls, texts, chat, email, CompanyCam, or logged manually by your team. A request carries the customer's own words, the appointment type, booking-question answers, the service address, a lead score, and the sessions (calls, texts, and form sessions) tied to it.
A request shows as Open until it produces an appointment — one request produces at most one appointment.
Learn more in Requests.
Issue
A single item in your Inbox — something that needs a human. Every issue points at one request or one appointment and carries a plain-language reason, like Needs information, Needs approval, Failed qualification, Out of service area, or Needs scheduled. Issues clear on their own when you fix the underlying need.
Learn more in Issues and Reasons Explained.
Inbox
Your unified triage queue — everything that needs your attention, in one shared place. New requests land at the top, reason chips tell you why each item is there, and you can pin important items or resolve ones you've handled. When the Inbox badge reads zero, you're caught up.
Learn more in Inbox.
Appointment
The scheduled commitment a request produces — a service visit between your business and a customer. Every appointment moves through five statuses:
| Status | What it means |
|---|---|
| Needs Scheduled | The appointment exists but still needs a date and time. |
| Scheduled | Confirmed with a time. A technician may be assigned, or — for an arrival-window booking — assigned later on the Dispatch board. |
| En Route | The assigned technician has been marked on their way. |
| Completed | The job is done. |
| Canceled | The appointment was called off — it can be reopened with Reschedule. |
Every appointment includes the customer's contact info, the service type, date and time, assigned user(s), and any answers the customer provided.
Learn more in Appointments.
Appointment Type
A service your business offers that customers can book. Each appointment type has its own name, duration, description, booking questions, and team assignments. Examples include "Roof Inspection," "AC Tune-Up," "Drain Cleaning," or "Initial Consultation."
You can have as many appointment types as you need, and each one gets its own booking page.
Learn more in Appointment Types.
Booking Form
The customer-facing page where someone requests an appointment. When a customer visits your booking link, they see the booking form — which includes your branding, a description of the service, any booking questions you've configured, and their service address. Submitting it creates a request in Driive; if everything checks out, the customer picks a time and the appointment is created Scheduled.
The booking form can be shared as a direct link, embedded on your website as a widget, or accessed through a routing form.
Learn more in Booking Pages.
Routing Form
A smart questionnaire that helps direct customers to the right appointment type before they book. Instead of making the customer choose from a list of services, a routing form asks questions (e.g., "What type of service do you need?" or "Is this an emergency?") and uses the answers to recommend or automatically select the correct appointment type.
Routing forms are especially useful if you offer many services or want to triage incoming requests.
Learn more in Booking Pages.
Customer
A person or lead in your Driive CRM. A customer record is automatically created every time someone books, and stores their name, email, phone number, address, tags, notes, and appointment history. Every customer has a status — Lead, Customer, or Inactive — and new records start as Lead.
You can also create customers manually for walk-ins, referrals, or phone inquiries.
Learn more in Customers.
Team
A named group of users in your organization. Teams help you organize your crew by skill set, service type, or geographic region — for example, "Roofing Crew A," "HVAC Techs," or "North Side Team."
When you assign an appointment type to a team, only users on that team will be offered as available for those bookings.
Learn more in Users and Teams.
User
A person in your Driive organization. Every user has a role that determines what they can see and do:
| Role | What they can do |
|---|---|
| Admin | Full access. Can manage users, billing, and organization settings. |
| Member | Standard access. Can manage their own schedule, appointments, and customer interactions. Cannot change organization settings or billing. |
| Restricted | View-only access with limited actions. |
Learn more in Users and Teams.
Dot
Driive's AI assistant. Dot answers your phone calls and chats around the clock, creates requests from those conversations (with transcripts and recordings attached), and draws on your knowledge bases to answer customer questions. Dot's status and your Dot Credits balance live in the sidebar.
Lead Scoring
An automatic qualification system that evaluates incoming requests based on the answers customers provide. You define scoring rules on your booking questions — for example, a customer who selects "Insurance claim" might score higher than "Just browsing."
Requests that score below your qualification threshold land in your Inbox as Failed qualification, so your team focuses on the highest-value opportunities first.
Buffer Time
A configurable gap between consecutive appointments. Buffer time gives your team travel time, prep time, or a breather between jobs. For example, if you set a 30-minute buffer, a 1-hour appointment ending at 10:00 AM means the next available slot starts at 10:30 AM.
Buffer time can be set as "before," "after," or both, and is configured per appointment type.
Learn more in Appointment Types.
Booking Window
The time range in which customers are allowed to book appointments. The booking window has two parts:
- Minimum notice — How soon before an appointment a customer can book. For example, a 24-hour minimum means customers can't book anything less than a day out. This prevents last-minute bookings you can't prepare for.
- Maximum advance — How far into the future customers can book. For example, a 60-day maximum means customers can only see availability within the next two months.
These settings are configured per appointment type.
Learn more in Appointment Types.
Service Area
The geographic region your business covers, defined as a radius around your business address. When customers outside your service area try to book, their request lands in your Inbox as Out of service area so you can decide whether to take the job.
Your service area is set during onboarding and can be updated anytime from Setup > Company.
Learn more in Availability and Service Area.
Shortcuts
Saved booking link configurations that let you quickly share pre-filled or customized booking URLs. Instead of sending the generic booking page link every time, you can create a shortcut that pre-selects an appointment type, prefills customer information, or skips certain steps.
Shortcuts are useful for recurring customers, marketing campaigns, or specific service promotions.
Related resources
- Dashboard Overview — See where these concepts appear in the Driive interface.
- Quick Start: Your First Booking — See these concepts in action with a hands-on tutorial.
- Onboarding Walkthrough — Learn how these concepts are configured during initial setup.