Six broken springs before 9, two service trucks.
The first hard freeze snaps springs all over town. By 8am you have six cars stuck in garages, two service techs and a two-person crew on a new door install. Redline puts every call on the board, splits them by town and keeps the install moving.
Dispatching a spring morning
Take each call in one line
"Pruitt, 12 Oak St, Natick, spring snapped, car inside, 16x7 door." Confirm it and it's a contact with a job. New calls with nobody on them sit in the Unassigned row of the board.
Split them by town
"Natick and Wellesley calls to Dev, Framingham to Carlos." Redline assigns each job and it shows up on that tech's phone right away. Or drag jobs between rows on the board.
Put the parts in the notes
Spring size or wire gauge if the customer read it off the tag, single or double spring, opener brand. The tech reads it in the job's office notes before loading the truck, so the first trip is the only trip.
Keep the install crew together
Group your two installers for the day so the new door shows as one crew on one job. Pull one off only if you decide the spring calls can't wait.
Watch the board, not the phone
Techs tap En route and On job, then mark the job done. The board shows who's next up and who's free, so the 11am call goes to whoever is closest to finished, without three phone calls to find out.
Bill what's done
Finished jobs land in Money under Ready to bill. The owner or office drafts the invoice and sends the pay link; techs never see prices.
7:50am, first freeze of the year
Ready to add 6 contacts with spring jobs (confirm below). Once they're in, I'll assign 4 to Dev and 2 to Carlos.
Carlos also has a 10:00 opener install in Hopkinton. Keep it on him?
Done. Dev: Pruitt, Haddad, Owens, Duarte. Carlos: Lam, Ruiz. It's on their phones. Hopkinton opener install moved to Thursday, Oct 8 at 8:00. Want me to draft an email to that customer about the new time?
Assigning jobs and the dispatch board are on Team ($129 a month) and Team+. Moving visits by chat works on every plan.
Garage door calls and how they go on the board
| Call | Who goes | What goes in the notes |
|---|---|---|
| Broken spring, car stuck inside | One service tech, same day | Door size, single or double spring, wire size if the customer can read the tag |
| Snapped cable or off-track door | One tech, or two if the door is hanging | Whether the door is open or closed, and a photo if the customer sent one |
| Opener dead, door works by hand | One tech, next open slot | Opener brand and drive type |
| New door install | Two-person crew, grouped for the day | Model, color, size, windows, haul-away of the old door |
| Commercial overhead door service | One tech, often on a repeating schedule | Dock or door number, who signs off on site |
Redline doesn't track which truck has which springs. If stock matters, write the size in the notes and let the tech check before rolling.
Service and install, fighting for the same people
A lot of garage door shops run two businesses with one crew list. Service is one tech per truck and the calls come whenever the weather turns. Installs are two people for most of a day on a door that was ordered weeks ago and a customer who took the day off for it. The cold-snap morning is when those two collide.
The board makes that call visible instead of buried in your head. The installers show as one grouped crew on the Keller job, the service techs each have a row, and anything nobody owns sits in Unassigned where it can't be missed. Whether you pull an installer onto springs is your decision; Redline just shows you who's on what.
When you have to bump planned work, Redline moves the visit and offers to draft the email. It doesn't text the customer and it doesn't send anything without you, so the one tap to call is still often the fastest way to tell someone their opener install is now tomorrow.
Straight answers on garage door dispatch
Redline does
- A board with a row per tech and an Unassigned row
- Assign jobs by chat or by dragging them
- Tapped status: Idle, En route, On job, Done for the day
- Group two installers as one crew for the day
- Keep spring, opener and door details on the job
Redline doesn't
- Show truck locations (status is tapped, there's no GPS)
- Send on-my-way texts to customers
- Answer the phone or take after-hours calls
- Track spring and opener stock per truck
- Plan routes on a map or by drive time
Questions contractors ask
Can my tech take payment when the door's fixed?
Not from the tech app, which never shows prices. The owner or office approves the invoice from their phone and copies or emails the pay link, and the customer pays by card while the tech is packing up. Invoicing is on Solo and up, and every Team plan includes it.
How many techs does Team cover?
Team is 3 seats at $129 a month, and the owner counts as one. A shop with two service techs and two installers needs Team+, which has 10 seats at $299 a month. Extra seats on Team+ are $29 each. See pricing.
What if I'm the only tech?
Then you don't need the board. Taking calls, booking them by town and moving the rest of your day by chat all work on Free. Solo at $29 a month adds invoices and card pay links.
Where do commercial door accounts fit?
Book a building's overhead and dock door service as a repeating series, every 6 months or whatever the contract says. On the day, each visit shows on the board like any other job, and you put the tech who knows that building on it.
More for garage door companies
- Garage door softwareThe whole garage door workflow in Redline
- Garage door invoice templateFree, with springs, rollers and the service call
- Crew dispatch and tech appThe board and the app in detail
- Team accounts and rolesSeats, roles and invites
- Hourly rate calculatorA service call price that covers the truck
Keep reading
- Garage door softwareFit spring calls into a full day, invoice on site and chase new door quotes.
- Crew dispatch and tech appA board for every tech's day and a simple app for the crew. Team plan and up.
- Plumbing dispatch softwareBurst pipe at 10am? Reshuffle the day and send a truck in one message.
- HVAC dispatch softwareAssign no-cool calls by message. Techs get a simple app with no prices.
Run your business by chat.
Redline is free to start. Tell it about the job and it handles the quote, the schedule, the invoice and the follow-up.