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Getting Started with Routes in Housecall Pro

Learn how to shift from employee-based scheduling to route-based scheduling by creating routes, assigning employees, and organizing work by route.

Written by Nate H
Updated today

What Are Routes?

Route-based scheduling shifts your workflow from employee-centric scheduling to route-centric scheduling.

Instead of assigning jobs to employees one at a time, you organize work into routes and assign employees to those routes.

A route is a logistical grouping of work. It represents how you structure and organize jobs — for example, by territory, recurring service pattern, or consistent team coverage.

When Routes are enabled:

  • You assign jobs, estimates, and events to a route

  • Employees are assigned to that route

  • Your calendar displays work by route columns instead of employee columns

Employees are still scheduled, and jobs are still assigned to employees — but Routes become the primary organizing structure.


When Routes Are Useful

Routes may be helpful if you:

  • Regularly dispatch work to the same group of employees

  • Organize work by territory, crew, or shift

  • Prefer to schedule by team instead of by individual


What Changes When You Turn Routes On

  • The schedule page becomes route-based

  • The “Assign to” flow includes Routes as primary assignment options

  • Work items are organized by route

  • Employees assigned to a route are automatically included on work items assigned to that route


Turn On Schedule with Routes

  • Go to Settings

  • Click Schedule in the left menu

  • On the Route templates page, find the "Schedule with routes" toggle

  • Click the toggle and confirm when prompted

  • Once enabled, the toggle will show On

After turning routes on, your Schedule view will switch to route-based columns. Your existing jobs will remain on the calendar.

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Create Your First Route

  • Click Add route in the top-right of the Route templates page

  • In the dialog, fill in:

    • Color — choose a color to represent this route on the calendar

    • Name — give the route a clear name (e.g., "North Side," "Morning Crew," "Downtown")

    • Employees — assign one or more employees to this route or keep it unassigned

  • Click Save

Your new route will appear in the Route templates table.

Best practice: Keep routes consistent and stable (such as long-standing crews or coverage areas). Avoid creating temporary routes for one-day assignments.

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Manage Your Routes

All routes appear in the Route templates table with their name, color, and assigned employees.

Edit a route

  • Click the pencil icon next to the route

  • Update the name, color, or assigned employees

  • Click Save

Edits affect jobs assigned to this route starting today and going forward. Past jobs are not modified.

Delete a route

  • Click the pencil icon on the route

  • Click the red Delete button

Jobs already assigned to a deleted route will remain on your calendar and will continue to be assigned to their employees.


Schedule a Job, Estimate, or Event to a Route

Once routes are set up, you can assign jobs, estimates, and events directly to a route.

  • Create a job, estimate, or event and click Schedule.

  • In the Edit team field, you’ll see both routes and individual employees listed together:

    • Select a route to assign the job to that route. The job will appear in that route’s column on the calendar.

    • You can also select one or more individual employees to schedule the job without a route.

  • Click Save.

📌 Note:

  • If an employee is assigned to a route and that route is assigned to the job, they cannot also be assigned to the job. The employee is either assigned through the route or as an individual, not both.

  • If a job assigned to a route spans multiple days, you may see a warning message. The job will only be assigned to the route on the first day. Consider creating multiple appointments.

  • Estimates and events can only be assigned to routes that have employees assigned to them.

Schedule Directly from the Calendar

You can also assign or move jobs directly from the calendar view.

  • Click an empty time slot in a route column to create a new job, estimate, or event assigned to that route.

  • Drag an existing job from one route column to another to reassign it.

  • Drag unscheduled jobs from the Unscheduled jobs drawer into any route column.

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What the Calendar Looks Like with Routes

When Routes are enabled, your scheduling views remain available — with additional route functionality.

Scheduling Views

You’ll continue to have access to your primary scheduling views. However:

  • The default schedule view becomes the Daily Routes view

  • You can color the calendar by Route, Area, or Employee

  • Filter by route or employee

  • In certain views (such as Day view), you can toggle between:

    • View by Route

    • View by Employee

View by Route (Day, Week, Mon - Fri)

  • Displays columns by route

  • Limited to 15 routes

  • Supports drag-and-drop between routes

View by Employee (Day, Week, Mon - Fri)

  • Displays columns by individual employee

  • Limited to 15 employees

  • Drag-and-drop is disabled in this view

  • To change work assignments, you must:

    • Switch to a route-based view, or

    • Open the work item and edit assignments

These views are intended for visibility, not route-based dispatch adjustments.

Daily Routes View

The Daily Routes view is intended to be your primary scheduling view when routes are turned on.

In the Daily Routes view:

  • Each route appears as its own column

  • Columns are color-coded based on the route’s assigned color

  • The column header shows:

    • The route name

    • Assigned employees (up to two shown, additional employees upon hover)

  • An Unrouted column appears for jobs not assigned to a route

Drag-and-drop is enabled in route-based views to reassign jobs between routes.

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Making Daily Route Changes

You can adjust route assignments for a single day without changing the route template. This can be done from any of the daily calendar views.

Edit Employees on a Daily Route

  • Go to the Daily Routes view

  • Click the pencil icon in the route column header

  • Add or remove employees for that specific day

  • Save your changes

Changes made here:

  • Apply only to that selected day

  • Do not update the Route Template in Settings

  • Do not affect future days

This is useful when:

  • An employee calls out sick

  • You need temporary coverage adjustments

  • You want to manage employees day-by-day instead of assigning them at the template level

📌 Note: Route templates define your default structure. Daily route edits allow flexibility without changing that structure.

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Routes and Online Booking

When routes are enabled, your availability switches from employee → route availability.

Set up route availability for booking

  • Go to Settings > Online booking > Team availability

  • You'll see a Team availability page listing your routes and their assigned employees

  • This page shows which routes are available to receive bookings

  • Click Manage routes to add or edit routes from the Schedule settings page

When a customer books online:

  • The system checks availability for the selected time slot

  • If a route has availability, the booking will be assigned to that route

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Routes and Pipeline

When routes are enabled, you can assign jobs and estimates to a route directly from Pipeline.

Assign a route from Pipeline

  • Open a job or estimate card

  • Click Assign to

  • Select a route from the picker

When you select a route:

  • Only employees assigned to that route appear in the employee list

  • You can still manually add employees outside the route if needed

Routes appear on Pipeline cards alongside employee avatars so you can see both the assigned route and the assigned employees at a glance.

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Turn Routes Off

  • Go to Settings > Schedule

  • Click the "Schedule with routes" toggle to turn it off

  • Confirm when prompted

Your calendar will switch back to employee-based columns. All jobs remain assigned to their employees — no jobs are lost.

📌 Note: turning off routes removes the route association permanently. Meaning that if you turn routes back on, they will not be assigned to


Coming Soon

Reporting by route — the ability to filter and view reports by route is coming soon. Existing reports continue to function as usual.


Common Questions

Are jobs still assigned to employees?

Yes. Jobs are always assigned to employees. Routes simply group employees together on your calendar. Time tracking will work the same.

What happens if I edit a route?

Changes affect jobs assigned to that route starting today and going forward. Past jobs are not modified.

Can I assign more than one employee to a route?
Yes. You can assign multiple employees when creating or editing a route.

I tried to turn routes on or off and saw "Updates are in progress."
This means the system is syncing changes in the background. Wait a moment and try again.

Someone is not available for part of the route. What should I do?

Routes are daily objects, meaning if someone is not available to be a part of the route for the entire day, it would be recommended to add them as an individual employee on the jobs they will be assigned to.

What does unrouted mean?

Unrouted is anything that does not have a route assignment. This could be either unassigned work items or work items just assigned to employees.

Why am I getting an error when assigning routes to estimates and events?

Estimates and events cannot currently be unassigned, so they must be assigned to routes that have an assignee.


Need help or have questions?

We're here for you! Chat with Support using the Blue Chat Bubble in your Housecall Pro account, or give us a call at (858) 842-5746.

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