TreeBossPro Blog — Crew Dispatch & Routes

What a Tree Crew Should See in the Crew App Before Leaving the Yard

The five minutes before the trucks pull out of the yard decide how the next eight hours go. A crew lead who has looked over the day knows which job needs the big chipper, which one has a tight driveway, and which customer wants a knock on the door before anyone starts a saw. A crew lead who has not looked is going to find out the hard way.

After Planning a Plant Health Care Tech's Route Around Treatment Windows, this article turns to the crew side: what the crew mobile app should show and how a crew lead should use it before rolling out.

The Job List: The Shape of the Day

The first screen a crew lead sees is the job list for the day. In TreeBossPro, that list shows each job assigned to the crew, in route order, with the customer, the address, and the job category. Removals, Trimming & Pruning, Stump Grinding, Plant Health Care, Storm & Emergency, and Consults each tell the crew what kind of work to expect.

Reading the list top to bottom tells the crew lead whether the day is heavy or light and whether the equipment on the trucks matches the work. If the third job is a big removal and the crew loaded for trimming, better to know in the yard than at the job.

The Route: Where They Are Going and in What Order

The route in the app shows the stops in the order the dispatcher set. That order was chosen for a reason, whether auto-routing put it there or the dispatcher moved a big removal to first thing. Crew leads should follow it unless there is a good reason not to, and if the order needs to change, the office should know so customer alerts and the live map stay accurate.

Property Notes: The Stuff Nobody Remembers

This is the most important part. Property records in TreeBossPro carry crew notes for access, gate codes, and drop zones. A good note answers the questions a crew lead would otherwise ask by phone: where to park the chip truck, whether the back gate is wide enough, where the wood can go, which neighbor is sensitive about noise, and whether there is a dog.

Before leaving, a crew lead should open every job with anything unusual and read the notes. It takes a minute and saves twenty.

Tree Details: What They Are Walking Into

Property records also hold the number of trees, trunk diameter (DBH in inches), and tree height in feet. For a crew lead, that is the quick summary of the work. A 30-inch DBH, 75-foot tree near a house is a different setup from a 12-inch ornamental in an open yard.

Custom fields and tags can add more, such as a tag for properties with power line clearance concerns or a custom field for preferred access time. Whatever your company tracks, the crew should see it before arriving.

If the crew has been to the property before, photos taken in the crew app are on the record. A photo of the back yard taken last year shows the tight spot between the shed and the fence better than any written note. New crew members especially benefit from seeing the site before they get there.

Alerts, Start, and Complete

The app is also how the crew talks to the customer without making calls. A single tap sends an on-the-way alert as they leave the previous job, and another sends an arrival alert when they pull up. Customers choose which alerts they get, so the crew does not have to think about it.

Tapping start when work begins and complete when it ends keeps the office informed. Photos taken during the job attach to the property, which helps with the next visit and with any questions about the work.

Make the Five-Minute Check a Habit

The best tree companies make the pre-departure check a routine. Crew lead opens the app, reads the list, looks at the route, opens anything unusual, and confirms the equipment matches the work. Questions go to the office before the trucks leave, not from the driveway.

That habit is what turns tree crew dispatch and routing software from a nice screen in the office into a better day for the crew. The information is only useful if someone reads it, and the yard is the right place to do it.