The dispatch board at a glance

The dispatch board is a full browser tab for working the whole backlog: every open ticket as a hexagon, who owns it, and what needs a decision next. This page names the parts of the screen and what each one does. Dispatchers, service desk managers and customer success staff use it.

Before you start: open the board as described in Opening the dispatch board. You need the Administrator, Service Desk Manager, Dispatcher or Customer Success role, and the extension has to be signed in. If the board shows Sign in to QuantumOps, select it. Changing a ticket in HaloPSA, or messaging someone from the board, needs a QuantumOps login that is linked to a HaloPSA agent.

How the screen is laid out

• The header across the top: the name Dispatch, the board numbers, search, the theme switch, the connection state, refresh and sign out.
• The toolbar under the header: the controls you set often, and the buttons that open the other panels.
• The rail down the left: five tabs, Needs you, Queue, Tracked, Lists and Agents. Each tab shows a count when there is something in it. Needs you is always first. You can hide the other four or change their order in Settings (see Board configuration).
• The hex field in the middle: one hexagon for every open ticket.
• A drawer beside the field: opens for Intel, for a ticket's cockpit or for an agent's lens.
• The Pulse strip above the footer: a timeline of what has happened and what is coming. Live call tiles dock to the right edge of the canvas, and notice ribbons for organisation-wide Q-Notices run along its top. See Pulse, live calls and notice ribbons.
• A recommendation banner across the top of the board while the most severe organisation-wide recommendation is critical. See Recommendations and plans.
• The footer along the bottom: badges that filter the board, the rolling period and the opened and closed counts.

Read the numbers in the header

The header shows up to four numbers. Hover a number for a longer explanation. If you chose more than four, the rest sit under More.

Which numbers show, and in what order, is a setting: Numbers in the header under Settings → Workspace. See Workspace: how pings reach you. Until you change it, the header shows Unassigned, Breached, Median wait and Clear streak.

The caption usually 9 to 14 under Unassigned and Breached is the range your own browser has seen over the last 14 days. It appears once the board has been open long enough to learn it, and it is kept in this browser only.

The rest of the header holds these tools:

• The search box. Tickets that match a ticket number, summary, client, user, category or agent name stay bright, and everything else dims. Nothing is hidden.
• A chip with a list or badge name while you are filtering by one. Select it to clear the filter.
• A chip that offers an update when the extension is out of date.
• The theme switch, which moves the board between dark and light.
• The connection state: Live, Reconnecting or Offline. Live updates arrive without a reload.
• Refresh reloads the board and the footer figures.
• Sign out signs this browser out of the board.

Set the toolbar controls

On the right of the toolbar are the buttons that open other panels:

• Intel opens the drawer with alerts, capacity, insights, recommendations and the activity feed. It shows a count for each kind that needs you. See Intel: alerts, capacity and AI insights.
• Rules opens the board rules, which decide what every board hides. See Board rules.
• Settings opens Board configuration. See Board configuration.
• Workspace opens the settings for how pings reach you. See Workspace: how pings reach you.
• Describe lets you describe a change to your workflow in words and review it before it is applied. It is not shown when the server cannot propose changes.
• Tour starts a short tour of the board. See Board setup wizard and tour.

In a narrow window the controls fold behind a single Controls line that summarises them.

Role, Noise, Sound and Motion are saved to your account, so they follow you to another computer. So is everything in Board configuration, which says Saved to your account while it is open. On an older server that cannot store them, it says they are saved in this browser instead. The View you choose and the rolling period in the footer are remembered in this browser only.

Read the hex field

Each open ticket is one hexagon, grouped by the View you chose. The hexagon says:

• Fill colour: the ticket's priority, Critical, High, Medium or Low. In the Guided view the fill shows the guided-work state instead (see Guided work and HaloPSA colour sync).
• Letter: the first letter of the HaloPSA ticket type, or of the category when the type is unknown. Customer Success sees the client's initial instead. Zoom in a little to read it, and zoom in further for ticket numbers and more detail.
• Fade: an older ticket is drawn fainter.
• Ring: the SLA. A red pulsing ring means the SLA has breached, an amber ring means it breaches soon, and a dashed ring means HaloPSA set no target and the board estimated one from the priority.
• A mark on unowned tickets in every view except Agent, where the unassigned group already says so.
• A fainter drawing for assigned, healthy tickets, when Recede is on, so that unowned and at-risk tickets stand out. Dispatchers start with it on; the other roles start with it off. See Workspace: how pings reach you.

By default a hexagon carries only the SLA ring and that mark. Hover it for the rest: the ticket type, priority, stage, SLA with its source (HaloPSA or estimated), client and user, owner, appointment, guided state, any Q-Notice, live call or recommendation on the ticket, the lists it belongs to, and its summary. To draw list dots, notices, calls and recommendations on the hexagon itself, set Overlays on each hex to Everything in Settings → Canvas.

The legend runs along the bottom of the field. In a narrow field it folds into a Key button. It also lists what a ping's rings mean, while the ping queue is on.

To move around the field:

• Turn the mouse wheel to zoom, or use Zoom in and Zoom out at the edge of the field.
• Drag empty space to pan.
• Double-click the field, or select Fit to screen, to fit every hexagon back on screen.

To act on a ticket:

• Click a hexagon to open it. It opens the ticket's cockpit, or its focus card when the ticket has a ping. See The ticket cockpit and assigning work and Needs you: pings and the focus card.
• Right-click a hexagon for its menu: assign, track, post a Q-Notice, add it to a list, copy its link.
• Drag it onto an agent to assign it, as in the next section.

Assign a ticket by dragging it

1. Drag a hexagon. The rail switches to Agents while you drag, so every agent card is a drop target. It switches back when you let go.
2. Drop the hexagon on an agent's card. Hover a card before you drop. A card that cannot take the ticket says why, for example that the ticket is already assigned to that agent or is resolved.
3. The board asks you to confirm. The dialog shows the ticket, its current owner and the new one. Select Assign, or Reassign when the ticket already has an owner.
4. The board writes the change to HaloPSA first and changes only after HaloPSA accepts it. If HaloPSA refuses, the dialog shows its reason and says Nothing changed on the board, and the hexagon stays where it was.

This needs a QuantumOps login that is linked to a HaloPSA agent. Other ways to assign are in The ticket cockpit and assigning work.

Use the footer

• Badges each count the open tickets that match a rule. Select one to filter the field and the queue to those tickets, and select it again to clear the filter. Hover a badge to read its rule. See Queue, tracked tickets, lists and agents to add or edit badges.
• Rolling period: 1h, 4h, 8h, 24h or 7d, with the number of tickets opened and closed in that period. A new browser starts on 7d, and the board remembers your choice.
• Hidden by board rules: when the board rules keep tickets off the board, a button such as 412 hidden by board rules appears. Select it to open the Board rules tab. Only an Administrator or a Service Desk Manager can change the rules. See Board rules.
• A button that names the most urgent ticket in your queue by SLA. Select it to open that ticket's cockpit.
• A reminder of the main shortcuts, the number of live events the board has received and the connection state.

Related pages

• Opening the dispatch board
• Needs you: pings and the focus card
• Queue, tracked tickets, lists and agents
• The ticket cockpit and assigning work
• Pulse, live calls and notice ribbons
• Recommendations and plans
• Board shortcuts, notices and troubleshooting lists every key and explains the notices the board shows
• Board configuration
• Board rules