The Blackpurl Scheduler gives your service department tools to book customer appointments, assign jobs to technicians, and manage technician availability. This article covers the Appointment Scheduler, Job Scheduler, assigning technicians directly from a Customer Order, and logging technician leave time.
Before You Start
Before using the Scheduler, make sure the following setup has been completed:
The dealership's Default Working Hours have been configured in Account Settings > Settings & Controls > Shop Settings. See Setting up Default Working Hours for the Dealership (no longer available) for details.
Each relevant technician has been set up for Payroll Clocking and Job Clocking, and their default work days have been configured in Account Settings > Users > Time Clocking Staff. See Payroll Clocking and Job Clocking Setup (no longer available) for details.
Appointment Scheduler
The Appointment Scheduler lets you book service appointments and view your workshop's capacity across day, week, and month views. Access it by clicking Schedule in the Blackpurl header.
Scheduler Screen Overview
The Scheduler screen is divided into several areas:
View tabs (Day / Week / Month) | Switch between Day View to see a single day's appointments, Week View to check for overbooking across the week, and Month View for a high-level overview of busy periods. |
Dashboard | Opens the Workshop Dashboard. See Reporting - Workshop Dashboard (no longer available) for further information. |
New Appointment | Creates a new appointment. If you use this button directly, you will need to manually specify the date and time frame. |
Date range toggle | Scroll forward or backward through date ranges using the toggle. |
Day / date sidebar | Lists the days and dates for the current view period. |
Morning / Afternoon split | Each day is divided into morning and afternoon appointment slots. |
Hours booked / available | Shows how many hours have been booked and how many remain. The total is calculated from the number of technicians and their working hours that day — for example, two technicians working 8 hours each gives 16 available hours. |
Creating an Appointment
There are two ways to open the appointment creation form:
Click New Appointment at the top of the screen. The appointment form opens and you will need to specify the date and morning or afternoon time frame manually.
Navigate to the date and time slot (morning or afternoon) you want, then click directly on that slot. The appointment form opens with the date and time frame already populated.
The appointment form contains the following fields:
Date and time frame | The date and whether the appointment is in the morning or afternoon. |
Link to existing Service Job | If a Service Job already exists on a Customer Order, search for and select it here to link the appointment to it. |
Appointment name | Give the appointment a descriptive name (for example, "10K Service"). This name also appears as the Service Job name on the Customer Order. |
Customer name | Search for an existing customer or create a new one. Once selected, you will be prompted to choose which unit the appointment is for. |
Concern / notes | Enter the customer's concern and any relevant notes about what needs to be checked or done. |
Job Type | Select who is paying: Customer Pay, Third Party, or Internal. |
Estimated hours | Enter how many hours the job is expected to take. This value is used by the Scheduler to calculate available capacity. |
Make multi-day | Enable this toggle if the appointment spans more than one day. Multi-day appointments require a technician to be assigned. |
Technician | Optionally assign a technician at booking time. Required for multi-day appointments. |
Unit Check In | Record the date and time the unit is due in, the date and time promised for completion, and whether the unit has already arrived. |
Once you have completed the form, click Save to confirm the appointment. The Scheduler updates immediately to reflect the booked time — in the example above, a 2.5-hour appointment reduces the available hours shown for that morning slot.
Job Scheduler
The Job Scheduler is where you assign unassigned appointments to specific technicians and time slots for the day.
1. Click the Day View tab and scroll to the date you want to schedule.
2. The technicians are listed across the view. You can see at a glance which technicians are already booked for the day. Unassigned appointments are listed in a separate panel — click the panel to expand and view all unassigned appointments.
3. Find the appointment you want to assign — search for it or scroll through the list. Then:
Click and hold on the appointment.
Drag and drop it onto the time slot and technician column you want.
The appointment moves from the unassigned panel into the technician's schedule for that time slot. If you make an error, click and hold the appointment again and drag it to the correct technician or time slot. Repeat this process for all unassigned appointments to organise each technician's day.
4. If a Customer Order Service Job was not linked to the appointment when it was created, the system automatically creates a Customer Order with a Service Job once the appointment is assigned to a technician and time slot. To open the Customer Order, click the CO number shown on the appointment.
Assigning Technicians from the Customer Order
You can also assign a technician and allow technicians to clock on and off a job directly from the Customer Order, without going through the Scheduler. Navigate to the relevant Customer Order > Service Job > Technician Time section to access these options.
Log Technician Leave Time
When a technician is unavailable — for example, on annual leave — you should log their leave time in the Scheduler. This ensures the Appointment Scheduler reduces available capacity for those dates, and prevents appointments or jobs from being assigned to that technician while they are away.
1. From the Job Scheduler tab, click on the technician's name. A screen opens showing the technician's role, default working days, and a list of any existing leave and exceptions.
2. Click Log Leave and complete the leave entry form. Enter the leave type (for example, Annual Leave) and the date range. Once the entry looks correct, click Add to add it to the list, then click Save to confirm.
3. Return to the Appointment Scheduler for that date range. The available hours will have reduced to reflect the technician's absence. On the Job Scheduler, the technician's column will be marked as leave and no appointments can be assigned to them for those dates.
