Using temporary overrides

Overview

Temporary overrides let you change where a technician works for a specific date range, without editing their profile. An override enables a technician to travel to another market, increase their coverage areas during a slow period or reduce coverage areas if work is concentrated.

An override can replace a technician's Coverage Areas, their Base Location, or both. While the override is active, gaiia uses the override values everywhere availability is calculated: auto-assign, travel times, the technician assignment modal, and the appointment slots offered in the Checkout. When the override ends, the technician's default values automatically apply again.

Temporary overrides are in alpha and are turned off by default. Contact gaiia Support to turn them on in your sandbox or production environment.

Watch a short walkthrough: Temporary overrides video.

Example

A senior technician normally works out of Jacksonville, Florida. Next week, their manager sends them to Savannah, Georgia.

1. The manager creates a temporary override for next week, setting the technician's coverage area to Savannah and their base location to the Savannah warehouse.
2. For those dates, customers booking a Savannah installation through the Checkout see slots that include this technician, and CSRs see the technician as available in Savannah when assigning work orders.
3. The following week, the override expires, and the technician's profile returns to their Jacksonville defaults. No cleanup is needed.

How overrides behave

1. Overrides replace; they do not add. If a technician normally covers two areas and you select five in the override, they cover exactly those five during the override. To include a default area, select it while creating an override.
2. Dates are whole calendar days. An override applies from its start date to its end date. Start and end can be the same day.
3. Past dates are allowed. You can record where a technician actually worked after the fact.
4. One override per type, per technician, per day. A technician cannot have two coverage area overrides on the same day or two base location overrides on the same day. A coverage area override and a base location override can overlap.
5. Existing work orders are not moved. Creating, editing or deleting an override does not reassign or unassign work already assigned to the technician. Move those work orders manually if needed.

Each override shows a status based on its dates:

Viewing temporary overrides

Viewing temporary overrides requires the Workforce > Technicians > View permission. For more on permissions, see Roles and Permissions.

Temporary overrides are listed under Workforce > Settings > Temporary overrides.

The table shows each override's ID, name, Type (Coverage area, Base location, or both), Technicians, Status and Dates. You can:

• Search by override name, technician name or base location name.
• Click Filter to narrow the list by technician, status or type.
• Click a row to open the override's details page.

Creating a temporary override

Creating, editing and deleting temporary overrides requires the Workforce > Technicians > Edit permission. Without it, the New override button and the Ellipsis menu are hidden.

The creation flow has three steps. The Next button stays disabled until the current step is complete.

A. Basic information

1. Go to Workforce > Settings > Temporary overrides.
2. Click New override.

3. Enter a Name for the override.

   Use a name your team will recognize, such as the location and the reason (e.g., Savannah storm coverage).

4. Select the Start date and the End date.
5. Optionally, add context in Additional information (up to 500 characters).
6. Click Next.

B. Override type

1. In the Type card, choose what the override replaces:
   • Coverage area: select one or more coverage areas.
   • Base location: enter a place, address or coordinates, then confirm the location on the map preview.

2. To replace both, click Add type and fill in the second card.

   At least one type is required. Click Remove on a card to drop it.

3. Click Next.

C. Technicians

1. Select one or more Technicians.

   Only technicians without an override of the same type on the selected dates are listed.

2. Click Create.

The override appears in the list with its status.

If a selected technician picked up a conflicting override in the meantime, gaiia shows a "Conflicted technicians removed" banner and removes only those technicians from your selection. Nothing is saved yet. Review the remaining technicians and click Create again.

Editing a temporary override

You can change any part of an override, including its name, dates, types and technicians.

1. Open the override from the list, or click the Ellipsis menu at the end of its row.
2. Click Edit.

3. Make your changes in the same three steps used to create it.

   You can remove a type card, but at least one type must remain.

4. Click Save.

Deleting a temporary override

Deleting a temporary override cannot be undone. Work orders already assigned to the technicians stay assigned, even if they no longer match the technicians' defaults.

1. Click the Ellipsis menu at the end of the override's row, or open the override and click Delete override.
2. Read the confirmation message. What happens depends on the status:
   • "Upcoming": the override is removed and never takes effect.
   • "Active": the override ends immediately and the technicians go back to their defaults. Check the acknowledgement box to enable the Delete button.
   • "Expired": the historical record is removed. Technicians are not affected going forward.
3. Click Delete.