Mastering visit tags: your guide to streamlined organization

Welcome to your guide to visit tags in SortScape! What are visit tags, you ask? They are your key to efficient organization and enhanced communication within your team. Visit tags are simple, versatile labels that you can attach to each visit in your schedule. They serve as visual cues to highlight essential details or categorize visits based on various factors like location or equipment needed.

Adding visit tags couldn’t be simpler. You can create them when adding a new visit or while editing an existing one. Whether you’re using SortScape’s preloaded tags or crafting your own custom ones, these handy little tools will transform the way you organize and navigate your visits. Read on to discover how to harness the power of visit tags!

Where to manage tags

To add, edit, rename, or delete visit tags (including colors and emojis), open Settings → Visits → Tags.

You can also assign tags while adding or editing a visit on the schedule. Administrators can create new tags from the visit editor without leaving the schedule.

Highlight key details of a visit to employees

Use default tags

SortScape comes preloaded with default visit tags. These are here to help you hit the ground running, allowing you to tag visits with important details right from the get-go.

Flag visits where cash has to be collected

To remind your crew to collect payment on site, add a cash tag to those visits. New accounts start with a 💵 tag described as Collect cash payment. If you don’t have one, create it under Settings → Visits → Tags.

1. Open the visit and click Edit.
2. Add the 💵 tag.
3. Click Update. On a repeating visit, if SortScape asks which visits to update, choose This and all future visits so later visits in the series get the tag too.

The 💵 shows on the visit card on the schedule (in Detailed view) and when your crew opens the visit.

Create custom tags

Want more flexibility? No worries! You can also create your own tags on the fly while editing a visit. This gives you the power to add specific information that suits your unique needs.

Add colors and emojis

Take your tags to the next level by customizing them with colors or emojis under Settings → Visits → Tags. This makes it much easier to extract important information from the schedule at a glance. But remember, moderation is key. You don’t want your schedule looking like a candy store exploded!

If you can’t find an exact match for what you’re trying to convey with an emoji, don’t fret. Just pick something related and create a fun “secret” language between you and your employees. For example, use a palm tree emoji (🌴) to indicate that a pole saw is required on the job for pruning tall shrubs or trees.

Where tags show on the schedule

Tags show on each visit card on the day, week, and month schedule when View mode is set to Detailed. Compact hides them. To switch, see View mode: compact vs detailed.

Use tags to group visits

By route/location

Tags are also great for grouping visits that are close to each other geographically. This allows you to reduce driving time and makes your day more efficient.

Here is an example of a schedule which has grouped visits by a location tag. The first job run has all visits for the “Rouse Hill” run and the second one is the “Kellyville” job run.

Tags label the area. They do not move visits. To actually group those visits onto the same job run, open schedule map view and use Change job run.

By service type

A lot of companies running a maintenance business will offer multiple service like lawn mowing, gardening or cleaning. Sometimes these service are attended by different teams so it’s important to be able to distinguish the different service type when looking at the schedule.

By creating separate repeating visits for each service type and then adding a visit tag (“Lawns”, “Gardening”, “Spring Cleanup”, “Cleaning”, “Bin Service”) it’s very clear which visit needs to be assigned to which crew.

If you now assign those visits to the right crews, you have a nice repeating schedule which makes it very clear which crews are working on which type of visit.

By equipment required

Need to ensure certain equipment is available for a series of visits? No problem! Group all visits that require a specific piece of equipment, like a ride-on mower, into the same job run. This way, you’re always prepared and can avoid any last-minute scrambles for equipment.

Filter the schedule by tags

You can show only the visits that have certain tags. This works on the day, week, and month grid, and in the Unscheduled column.

On the scheduled days

1. Open Schedule.
2. Click the magnifying glass in the schedule toolbar. The search field expands into a Filter box.
3. Click the tag icon on the right of the box (Filter by tag).
4. Pick the tags you want. They appear as chips in the box.

Typing in the Filter box searches other visit details at the same time: contact name, property address, suburb, postcode, visit title, and issue types. Selected tags and typed text both apply. If you pick more than one tag, a visit must have every selected tag.

This toolbar filter only changes the visits already on a day. It does not filter Unscheduled.

The filter only covers the day, week, or month you are looking at. To see every tagged visit across a longer period, step through the months in month view.

On a phone or tablet

The magnifying glass only appears when the schedule is wide enough. On a phone, turn it sideways. On a phone in landscape or an iPad, if you still can’t see it, collapse the Unscheduled column to give the schedule more room. The three horizontal sliders icon is the Schedule display settings. It filters by employee, not by tag.

The Unscheduled list has a tag filter on a phone in portrait too. If you need to keep an eye on a group of visits on the go (for example equipment to collect later), leave those visits unscheduled with a due date and a tag, then open Unscheduled on the schedule and pick the tag in its Filter box. Schedule each visit onto a day when you’re ready to do it.

In Unscheduled

The Unscheduled column has its own Filter box with the same tag button. See Filter unscheduled visits.