What's the best way to onboard a new field technician in FieldPulse?

Pro tip: Don't try to dump everything on them day one. We do a phased approach — first day is just clocking in/out and basic job status updates. Let them get comfortable moving around the app before you hit them with checklists, parts logging, and photo requirements.

Second week we layer in the job completion workflow. By week three they're handling full jobs solo.

Biggest sticking point? Technicians overthink the offline mode. They panic when they see 'sync pending' — we have to reassure them that data isn't lost, it's just waiting for signal.

basically what josh said lol but id add that showing them the actual dispatch board helps — like show them how it looks from our end so they understand why status updates matter so much... when i saw that it clicked for me that im not just clicking buttons for no reason theres actual people waiting on that info

we also do shadow days where new hires just ride along and watch the senior tech use the app without touching it themselves. seems to reduce that first-day anxiety

Love the dispatch board visibility idea, Connor. We've actually started doing that too — shows them the downstream impact of 'en route' vs 'on site' vs nothing at all. Pro tip: Have them watch a job get reassigned in real time when someone forgets to update status. Makes the point better than any lecture.

We need this working. Our last two hires were productive in the field in under 3 days because we streamlined the onboarding, but it took trial and error to get there.

What slowed us down initially: too much focus on admin features they don't touch. Cut all the back-office stuff from day one. They don't need to know how to build a quote or run reports. They need to know how to accept a job, find the address, clock in, do the work, document it, and clock out.

My team can't move forward until new hires are self-sufficient. We built a 2-page laminated quick reference card that lives in every truck. That's been more valuable than any training video.

Brandon, that laminated card sounds fantastic — would you be willing to share a photo or template? We'd love to see how customers are distilling this down, and I'm sure others would find it valuable.

Also, your point about separating field-facing from admin-facing training is spot-on. We often recommend exactly that sequence.

Three days seems optimistic... but maybe I'm just old school.

We do a full week minimum. Day 1-2 is dispatch shadowing so they see how the sausage gets made. Days 3-5 paired with a field tech. They don't touch the app solo until day 6 at earliest.

Honestly the thing that trips them up most is photo requirements. Not the taking — the naming, the folders, the 'did I get enough angles.' We had to standardize that hard.

Ray, here's how we standardized photos in under an hour of training:

• Before photo: wide shot of entire work area
• During: 2-3 detail shots of specific issue/repair
• After: wide shot matching the before angle

Checklist template enforces this. Can't close job without all four. Took all the guesswork out.

Re: timeline — we're at 4 days to solo. Day 1 classroom, days 2-3 shadow, day 4 supervised solo with senior tech available by phone.

Four days... might steal that. Our week feels excessive in hindsight but I couldn't articulate why until I saw your breakdown. The supervised solo day is the piece we skip — might be why our week two has so many phone calls.

Thanks so much for all these insights! Our team is growing fast and we're trying to figure out how to scale our onboarding without losing quality.

Quick question for Brandon and Sylvia — do you have different tracks for experienced techs vs. green hires? We've got some folks coming in with 10+ years in the field but zero app experience, and others who are fresh out of trade school and basically grew up on smartphones. Feels like they need different approaches but I'm not sure how to split it without creating too much process overhead. Really appreciate any thoughts!

We don't split tracks — instead we use peer matching. Pair experienced-but-new-to-apps with a tech-savvy peer. Pair green hires with patient veterans.

Same curriculum, different human wrapper. Keeps process simple.