Requests Overview
A request is the intake record — what the customer told us, captured the moment they reached out. It might be complete ("Sarah needs an AC Tune-Up at 1234 Maple Ave next week") or barely a sentence ("someone called about a leaking roof"). Either way, Driive holds onto it so nothing a customer says gets lost between the first hello and the booked job.
Request vs. appointment
The two records answer different questions:
| Request | Appointment | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | The intake — what the customer needs | The commitment — the job you agreed to do |
| When it exists | The moment a customer reaches out | When you (or Driive) decide the job is happening |
| What it carries | Summary, booking answers, service address, lead score, sessions | Date, time, assigned users, status, notifications |
| How many | One per inquiry | One request produces at most one appointment |
A request is where you gather — details, photos, the service address, answers to booking questions. The appointment is where you deliver — scheduling, reminders, completion. When a request has everything it needs and someone commits, Driive creates the appointment and the request's work is done. From Request to Appointment covers that handoff in depth.
How requests arrive
Requests flow in from every way a customer can reach you. Each one is tagged with its channel so you always know where a lead came from:
| Channel | How it happens |
|---|---|
| Phone | A customer calls — Dot, Driive's AI assistant, answers and creates the request from the conversation. |
| SMS | A customer texts your business number. |
| Chat | A customer chats with Dot on your website. |
| A customer emails in. | |
| Web form | A customer walks through your booking page or website widget. |
| CompanyCam | A request created through your CompanyCam connection. |
| LeadConnector | A lead pushed in from LeadConnector. |
| Manual | Someone on your team logs it by hand with New Request. |
However a request arrives, it lands in the same place: if it needs a human, it shows up in your Inbox; either way, it's always in the Requests list.
The Requests list
Click Requests in the sidebar to see every request your business has ever received. Each row shows:
| Column | What it shows |
|---|---|
| Channel icon | How the request arrived — phone, SMS, web form, and so on. Hover to see the channel name. |
| Customer | The customer's name, with their city and state when the request has a service address. |
| Status | The request's single derived status — see below. |
| Issues | Chips for anything blocking the request (or a dash when it's clean). |
| Appointment | The scheduled date, time, and appointment type — once the produced appointment is actually on the calendar. |
| Created | When the request came in. |
| Updated | The last time anything changed. |
Filtering the list
The filter bar across the top lets you narrow things down:
- Search — find a request instantly as you type.
- Appointment type — show only Roof Inspections, only Drain Cleanings, or any mix.
- Channel — see just the phone calls, just the web form submissions, and so on.
- Show archived — a toggle that reveals archived requests alongside active ones.
Click Clear filters to reset everything at once.
Bulk archive
Select rows with the checkboxes on the left and a toolbar appears showing how many you've picked. Click Archive and confirm to clear them all in one move — handy for sweeping out old spam or duplicates. See Archiving Requests.
Opening a request
Click any row to open it. There's one smart shortcut to know: if the request already produced an appointment, clicking the row takes you straight to the appointment — because at that point, the appointment is where the action is. Rows without an appointment open the request detail page.
Request statuses
A request doesn't have a lifecycle of its own — its status is derived from where it stands:
| Status | What it means |
|---|---|
| Open (amber) | No appointment yet. The request is still being gathered, reviewed, or worked. |
| The appointment's status | Once a request produces an appointment, the row shows that appointment's own status — Needs Scheduled, Scheduled, Completed, or Canceled. |
| Archived (tag) | The request has been archived — manually, or automatically when its appointment was scheduled. Archived is a separate tag, not a status. |
Note: You'll also see a glowing Live session badge on a request when a customer is actively on a call or filling out your form right now — great for catching a booking in progress.
Issue chips
When something is blocking a request, the Issues column shows one chip per reason — Needs information, Needs approval, Failed qualification, Out of service area, Manual review, Call dropped, or Customer canceled. These are the same issues that surface in your Inbox; they clear on their own as you resolve the underlying need.
Next steps
- Creating a Request — Log a request by hand from a phone call or walk-in.
- Request Detail — A tour of everything on the request page.
- From Request to Appointment — How a request becomes a booked job.
- Inbox Overview — Where requests that need a human wait for you.