TreeBossPro Blog — Crew Dispatch & Routes

Rebuilding the Tree Dispatch Board After Rain and High Wind

Weather decides more tree service days than any dispatcher would like. Heavy rain makes yards too soft for trucks. High winds make climbing and rigging unsafe. Ice can shut everything down, then create a flood of storm calls the next day. Every weather call means rebuilding the board, and how quickly and cleanly that happens determines whether the rest of the week holds together.

After How Many Tree Jobs Fit on One Crew's Route in a Day, this article focuses on weather days and how to reshuffle the board without losing work or customers.

Make the Call Early

The worst weather decisions are made in the yard at 7am with the crews standing around. When the forecast is clearly bad, make the call the afternoon before. When it is uncertain, set a time to decide, and stick to it. Crews and customers both handle a clear decision better than a maybe.

Safety decisions belong to the people qualified to make them. Wind, lightning, and ice conditions for climbing and aerial work should follow your company's safety procedures and any local requirements, which vary by state.

Know Which Work Can Still Go

Not all work stops for the same weather. A soft yard might stop a removal that needs the truck driven into the back yard, but the crew might still handle a front-yard prune from the street. A windy day might stop climbing but allow stump grinding or cleanup. Light rain might be fine for some PHC treatments and not others, depending on the product label.

When you look at the board, sort jobs by what can still go. Job categories make that faster. Then move what cannot.

Property notes matter here. A removal where the notes say the truck stays on the street can often go ahead after rain. One where the notes say the bucket truck has to cross the back yard almost certainly cannot without leaving ruts the customer will be calling about for months. A tag for properties with soft or low ground makes it quick to spot the jobs that should move first when the forecast turns wet.

Some companies keep a short list of rain-friendly work, such as street-side prunes, small jobs reachable from a driveway, and indoor shop tasks, so crews are not sent home on a marginal day.

Move Jobs, Do Not Delete Them

In TreeBossPro, jobs on the board can be moved to a new day. Do that rather than leaving them on today with a note. A job that stays on the wrong day is a job that will be forgotten. Move it to the next realistic day, ideally one when the crew is already working in that area.

Recurring jobs should move too, not be skipped. A pruning cycle or PHC program visit that gets bumped should land on the next available day in its area.

Rebuild the Routes

After moving jobs, the routes for the next few days change. Open the route map for each affected day, check that crews are not crossing town, and let auto-routing reorder the stops. A rain day often means two crews have heavier days later in the week, so check that those days are still realistic.

If the backlog is large, consider adding a day or adjusting which crew handles what. The stump grinder might take some cleanup work, or the PHC tech might cover extra stops on a calmer day.

Tell Customers Quickly

Customers whose jobs move need to know, and they need to know early. Automated texts and emails and two-way texting make it practical to message every affected customer with the new date. Customers who reply land with the office so questions get answered.

The customer portal shows the updated visit, and on the new day the crew sends the usual on-the-way and arrival alerts. Customers choose which alerts they receive, so the people who want updates get them.

Plan for the Day After

Big weather often creates storm work. The day after a windstorm, the phone fills with calls about limbs and fallen trees. Keep the Storm & Emergency category ready, triage calls, and fit emergency work in while sliding planned work deliberately.

That cycle of move, rebuild, and tell is where tree crew dispatch software makes the biggest difference. Weather will always change the plan. Good dispatch makes sure it does not lose the work.