Turnover No Longer Breaks Your Schedule
When a technician quits, gets fired, or moves on, the pools they serviced do not stop needing service. Pool Founder now supports unassigned routes: routes that exist and keep all of their jobs even when no technician is attached. Archive the employee who was leaving, and their route survives instead of taking the schedule down with it.
This closes a gap that used to force a scramble. Before, losing a tech meant rebuilding their route from memory or digging through records to figure out which pools they covered on which day. Now the route stays whole, the jobs stay attached, and you decide when and to whom it goes next.
What Happens When You Archive a Technician
Open the employee, choose to archive them, and Pool Founder shows you exactly what will happen first. The archive dialog lists how many routes will be unassigned and names them, so there are no surprises. You type the employee's name to confirm, then archive.
Every route that belonged to that technician is handled automatically:
- The route keeps all of its jobs, frequencies, and day of the week. Nothing is deleted.
- The technician is cleared from the route so no one is falsely shown as responsible.
- The route is renamed to Unassigned - {Day} (for example, "Unassigned - Tuesday") so it is easy to spot.
- The archived employee is hidden from your views until you restore them, but their service history stays intact.
Archiving is reversible. If someone comes back or you archived the wrong person, you can unarchive them without losing anything.
Covering the Route Until You Hire
An unassigned route is not a dead end. It shows up in both the weekly and monthly schedule views alongside your assigned routes, so those pools never fall off your radar while you look for a replacement.
Jobs can be transferred off an unassigned route using the same transfer tools you already use between technicians. From the schedule, move stops off the unassigned route onto another tech to keep pools covered in the meantime. You can do this temporarily for a single day when you just need to cover one visit, or permanently to move a pool onto another technician's route for good.
Spreading an unassigned route's stops across your remaining techs for a week or two is a practical way to bridge the gap between losing one tech and training the next, without any pool going unserviced.
Assigning the Route to a New Hire
When you bring on a replacement, you assign the route back to a technician in one step. Open the route and use the Assign Technician button, which appears whenever a route has no one attached. Pool Founder opens an Assign Route dialog where you pick the new tech from a list.
The list only shows technicians who are actually available that day. Anyone who already has a route on that day of the week is hidden, so you cannot accidentally double-book someone. Choose the new hire, confirm, and the route is renamed to that technician and reconnected to them, jobs and all.
Because the route kept its full job list the entire time, the new technician inherits exactly what the old one carried. There is no rebuilding, no re-adding pools one at a time, and no guesswork about which customers belonged on that day.
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Try Pool Founder free for 30 daysFrequently Asked Questions
What happens to a technician's pools when I archive them?
Their routes become unassigned rather than disappearing. Each route keeps all of its jobs and its day of the week, the technician is cleared from it, and the route is renamed to "Unassigned - {Day}". The pools stay on your schedule so nothing gets missed.
Can a route really exist without a technician?
Yes. Routes can now exist in an unassigned state with no technician attached. Unassigned routes still appear in your weekly and monthly schedule views, and their jobs can be transferred to other techs or the whole route reassigned when you are ready.
How do I cover the pools while I look for a replacement?
Use the transfer tools from the schedule to move jobs off the unassigned route onto your remaining technicians. You can transfer a stop temporarily for a single day or permanently onto another tech's route.
How do I give the route to a new hire?
Open the route and click Assign Technician, then choose the new employee in the Assign Route dialog. Only technicians who are free that day of the week are shown, so you will not double-book anyone. The route is renamed to the new technician and keeps every job it already had.