Technician Alerts

1:41

Technician Alerts: What Your Techs Find in the Field (1:41 video). Open on its own page

The automatic detectors

After every completed visit, the system checks these things and files an auto-detected alert when something is off:

1. 1Water chemistry out of range — a reading outside your company's acceptable ranges. A depleted sanitizer reading (free chlorine below the minimum) is marked Critical. The same detector also flags a filter pressure reading more than 10 psi over that pool's clean baseline (set on the body of water's page or by the mobile "Filter cleaned today" switch); pools without a baseline are never flagged for pressure.
2. 2Time on job — time spent far above or below that job's historical median.
3. 3Abnormal chemical usage — any of three signals: the visit's chemical cost passed a hard per-visit dollar cap you set (off until you set one), the visit's chemical cost was far above the job's typical cost, or an individual chemical's quantity was way outside its history for that pool.
4. 4Chemical over limit — one chemical on the visit (all its rows added together, at the price the customer is charged) went over that chemical's Max per visit ($), or over the company-wide Flag any one chemical over ($) limit. On whenever a limit is set.

Start location (off by default) is checked about 5 minutes after a tech taps Start on a stop instead of after the visit: it files an alert when their GPS puts them more than about 820 ft from the stop's address. Any GPS position at the stop around that time counts as being there: the one sent with Start, a fresh one the phone sends right after, or a live-tracking position. So a phone still reporting the previous stop when Start is tapped doesn't trigger it. If the tech isn't at the stop yet (for example, they tapped Start on the way), it keeps checking while the stop is in progress and only files the alert once the stop is finished without GPS ever placing them at the pool. GPS from earlier that day also counts: every location the phone sends is checked against every stop on the route, so if it placed the tech within about 500 ft of the pool before they tapped Start (for example, a visit logged after the fact from the next stop or the shop), that counts as being there. Turn on Alert even with no GPS to also flag starts where the phone sent no location. It never stops a tech from starting, and stops without map coordinates are not checked.

Once a detector is on, detection runs automatically after every completed visit — there is nothing to trigger manually.

What an alert looks like, and what you can do with it

• Auto-detected alerts open with a "What was flagged" card comparing what was recorded against what's expected — e.g. pH 8.5 vs an acceptable 7.0–8.0, or 60 minutes on a job that typically takes 20.
• Acknowledge Alert marks it seen. Mark as Resolved closes it and needs a note in How was it handled?; the button stays greyed out until you write one.
• Follow-up: three checkboxes, Contacted tech, Contacted customer, and Scheduled visit. Each shows who checked it and when. Checking one on an open alert also marks it Acknowledged. They only record what you did; they never call, text, or schedule anything. Checked follow-ups show as green badges on the alert's row in the queue.
• Notes: a running log on the alert. Add a note (Add note) to record what you did or what's next without closing the alert, so whoever picks it up next can read it. The log also adds a line by itself for every follow-up checked or unchecked, Acknowledged, Resolved (with the resolution note), Reopened, work order created, quote created, and lead created. Notes are internal and never reach the customer.
• Owners and admins see the same Follow-up checkboxes and Notes on the alert in the technician app (Today tab → Technician Alerts → tap an alert), and resolving there also needs a note.
• Working an alert (notes, follow-ups, acknowledging, resolving) needs the Manage issues permission. Anyone with View technician issues can read the notes and follow-ups.
• Create Quote writes a quote for the extra work an alert describes (a cleanup that is not part of the weekly service, a part to replace) without leaving the alert. It opens a new quote for that customer and service location, named after the alert, with its description in Internal Notes. Saving links the two: the alert is marked Acknowledged, its Notes log gets "Quote created: (name)", and its footer shows Quote: (number) in place of Create Quote. The alert stays open until the work is done. Create Quote needs the Create quotes permission and an alert tied to a customer and service location. See quotes.
• Create Lead (at the bottom of the alert, next to Create Quote) turns the alert into a sales lead, for when a tech spots a sales opportunity: a neighbor asking about service, an upgrade the customer is interested in. One click creates the lead and opens it. The lead gets the customer's name, phone and email, the service location's address, the alert's title as the service and its description as the message, and copies of the alert's photos, which show in a Photos section on the lead (the photos also stay on the alert). The lead shows From technician alert: (title) linking back. The alert is marked Acknowledged, its Notes log gets "Lead created: (name)", and its footer shows Lead: (name) in place of Create Lead. An alert can make one lead. Create Lead needs the Manage website leads permission and an alert tied to a customer or service location. Edit the lead afterwards if the prospect is someone else (the neighbor, not the customer). See leads.
• Create Job starts a work order at that location straight from the alert, named after the alert, with its description in the notes. Saving it links the two: the alert is marked Acknowledged and its footer shows Work order: (name) in place of Create Job, the Technician Alerts section on the work order's Overview tab lists the alert as "This work order fixes it", and the tech sees a Fixing this alert card with the alert's photos on the work order in the app. When the work order is completed, the alert resolves itself with the note "Fixed by work order (name), completed."
• Location tags: when the alert is tied to a service location, the Related box shows that location's tags under its address, with Add tag to add one (or create a new one, like "Needs resurface") and × to remove one. It changes the location's tags, the same as on the location page, and needs the Edit service locations permission (without it the tags are shown read-only). Find every tagged location later with Filter by tags... on Service Locations. See service locations.

Issue templates: your alert types

Issue templates are the problems your techs report over and over. Each one has a title, a description, an icon, a severity, and optional office instructions. On the phone, Report an Issue shows them as a grid of big icon tiles under What's the problem?. One tap fills in the title and description, so a tech in the rain barely types. They add photos, video, or more detail and tap Submit Issue.

Every new company starts with a standard pool set: Pump not running, Leak, Green pool / algae, Water level low, No access, and Safety hazard (Critical); Repair needed, Broken pressure gauge, Heater not working, and Salt low / salt cell (Warning); Cleaner not working, Filter needs cleaning, Heavy debris, and Customer request (Info). Each comes with office instructions you can rewrite. Companies created before October 2026 can add them with Add standard templates in the Issue Templates window; it only adds the ones you don't already have.

• Set them up: Technician Alerts → Issue Templates (next to Alert Settings; needs the Manage issues permission) → Add template. Fill in Title, Description, Severity, Icon, and Office instructions, then Save template. The pencil edits a template, the arrows set the order of the tiles, and the trash can deletes it.
• Severity: Critical (act now), Warning (look into it), or Info (routine). It colors the tile, and every alert filed from the template gets that severity badge in the queue, the same scale the automatic alerts use.
• Office instructions are your playbook for that alert type, for example "Create a work order to replace the gauge on the next weekly visit." They show in a What to do card on each alert of that type. Techs never see them.
• Techs can save their own: once the title and description are filled in, Report an Issue shows Save as a template for next time. Templates a tech saves are shared with the whole team, start as Warning with a generic icon, and show "saved by" their name in the Issue Templates list so the office can set the severity, icon, and instructions.
• A tech can delete a template they saved by pressing and holding its tile. Templates other people saved can only be changed by someone with the Manage issues permission.
• Filter the queue: next to the status filter, All Types narrows the list to one severity or one issue template (e.g. every Broken pressure gauge alert), and All Technicians narrows it to alerts one technician reported (and automatic alerts from their visits). The filters combine and keep the current sort order.
• Sort the queue: it opens newest first. Click a column header (Status, Alert, Reported By, Context, Reported, or Media) to sort the whole queue by it, and click again to reverse. Context sorts by customer name (alerts with no customer come first A to Z); Media sorts by how many photos and videos are attached. The sort works together with the filters and is kept in the page address. The search box searches every alert on the server (title, description, technician, customer and address), and search results are ordered by best match, so the headers don't sort while you search.
• Up to 100 templates per company, and titles must be unique. Deleting a template does not change alerts already filed with it.

Photos and video on a field report

When a technician reports an issue from the app (Today tab → Report an Issue, or the red Report an issue button at the top right of the Complete Job screen, which fills in the stop they are completing), they can attach up to 5 photos and, since September 2026, one video clip. Video is for things a photo cannot show — a leak actually dripping, a pump grinding or cavitating, a heater short-cycling.

• On the Report an Issue screen, the Video section sits right under Photos. Tap Add video, then Record video or Choose from library. One clip per alert, up to 30 seconds (the camera stops recording at 30) and under 60 MB. The clip shows as a card with its length and size and an × to remove it before sending.
• The alert is sent first, then the video uploads and attaches to it, so a slow or failed upload never holds up or loses the report. If the video does not make it, the technician sees "Alert sent without the video" with the reason — the title, description, and photos still went through.
• Video needs a connection. Offline, the Add video button is greyed out ("Video needs a connection. Photos still work offline.") and an alert queued offline is sent without a video; photos still go through the offline queue as usual.
• On the web Technician Alerts page, alerts with a clip show a video chip in the Media column, and the alert detail has a Video card with a built-in player (play, pause, scrub, sound, fullscreen). Email and push notifications for the alert link to it as usual.

Alert Settings: every knob

Click the Alert Settings button (top right of the Technician Alerts page) to configure what counts as abnormal:

• Toggle each of the three detectors on or off individually (water chemistry ranges / time on job / chemical usage).
• Set the time thresholds — how far above or below the job's typical time (as a % of typical) triggers an alert.
• "Flag any visit over ($)" — a hard per-visit chemical-cost cap that works even on pools with no history. Leave it blank to turn it off.
• Start location, with its Alert even with no GPS option, and Chemical limits → "Flag any one chemical over ($)".
• Set the cost multiplier (how far above a job's typical chemical cost is flagged) and the quantity sensitivity (how far outside a chemical's history for that pool counts).
• Edit the per-parameter chemistry min/max ranges that define "in range" for the chemistry detector.
• Notify admins — controls whether flagged visits also send admins a notification. Alerts are filed in the queue either way.

The default chemistry ranges are:

Other parameters have defaults too — every range is editable per parameter in Alert Settings.

History requirements: what works from day one

• History-based checks — time on job, and chemical cost or quantity vs typical — need at least 3 prior visits on that job before they start comparing.
• Chemistry range checks, the dollar caps and limits, and Start location work from the very first visit — they compare against your settings, not against history.

Alerts on the mobile app and on completions

• The same alerts queue is in the technician mobile app: Today tab → the "Technician Alerts" card (it sits under "Report an Issue" in the actions list). It requires the alerts read permission — useful for owners who work in the field. The mobile queue has Open / Acknowledged / Resolved / All filters, and users with the manage permission can Acknowledge or Mark as Resolved right from the phone. People who can create quotes also get a Create Quote button on the alert, which opens the app's quote form prefilled from the alert and links the quote to it. People with Manage website leads get Create Lead, which makes the lead (with the alert's photos) and opens it.
• Push notifications for new alerts deep-link straight to the alert.
• When a technician reports an issue from the field, owners and administrators get a high-priority notification for that too — in-app and by push, plus an email when the push cannot reach their phone. The customer whose pool it concerns is not notified and cannot see the report.
• Completion detail views also surface alerts inline (visible with the alerts read permission): the web completion detail page (Completed Jobs → open a completion) shows a red "flagged on this visit" banner linking to each alert, and the mobile completion detail screen shows an "Alerts on This Visit" section.

Permissions for reading and managing alerts are role-based — see Roles & permissions.

Frequently asked questions

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