Scheduling client pickups: driver, route, map

A pickup request usually comes in by phone, email, or a website form — well before the waste in question exists anywhere in the system as an actual collection. Until now, the gap between "a client called asking for a pickup" and "the material was weighed and logged" was covered manually — a calendar, a notebook, a WhatsApp group with the drivers. The new Scheduling module puts that gap under control, without forcing a rigid structure onto something that, by nature, comes from mixed sources.

An order doesn't always have a company behind it

The source of a pickup request is deliberately handled as a hybrid: contact fields (name, address, phone, email, access instructions) are always available as free text, because not every caller is already in the company catalog. If the requester genuinely exists in the catalog, the order can be linked directly to that company or individual, and the name and address fill in automatically. In practice, the dispatcher isn't forced to search for or create a company just to log a quick phone request — but if the information already exists, it gets reused.

Planning, from a single screen

The scheduling page shows an inbox of all unscheduled orders, with a day selector and a driver filter. From there, the dispatcher assigns each order a driver and a vehicle (from the fleet already registered in the system) and a zone — a free-text field with autocomplete that helps group orders on geographically close routes. The visiting order for the day's orders is adjusted manually, with up/down buttons — this isn't automatic route optimization (that's planned for a future phase), but a dispatcher with local experience already knows the best order and can now set it directly in the system, not just carry it in their head.

For each day, a route sheet can be generated as a PDF, optionally filtered per driver — a printed or phone-sent report with the client, address, phone number, zone, and access instructions, plus a signature column. It's a strictly operational document, separate from the system's official intake/output documents — it doesn't enter the legal document numbering and isn't archived as such, because its role is purely logistical, for that one day.

What the driver sees on the phone

A new "Schedule" tab appeared on the field mobile app, showing the day's pickups in the order the route was set. The driver has two quick-action buttons — Call (direct call) and Map (opens the address in Google Maps) — and, at each stop, marks the pickup as Collected or Missed, with an optional note. On collection, they can capture a signature on screen, right on the phone, as proof of handover.

This part of the flow is designed to work only with an active signal — unlike field weighing, which is fully offline. The reason is simple: no personal data is stored on the device beyond what's strictly needed to display the current day, and the captured signature isn't kept locally — it goes straight to the server.

What this module doesn't do yet

Marking a pickup as "Collected" doesn't automatically create a collection record with weighing — that stays a separate step, done by the operator, planned for a future phase. The idea is that dispatch (who goes where, in which vehicle) and the actual recording of material (how much was collected, which waste codes) stay distinct decisions, with different data quality requirements — one is planning, the other is an operation with legal traceability implications.

Why it matters

For an operator coordinating several drivers and dozens of pickups a week, the value isn't in any single feature — it's that all the information lives in one place: who requested the pickup, who's handling it, on what day and in what order, and whether it actually happened. Before, any discrepancy — "I called three days ago and nobody showed up" — got resolved through memory and checking messaging groups. Now, the history is in the system, with status and signature, and the day's planning no longer depends on a notebook that might have been left at home.