Overview
The Unassigned tab is the second stage of the Dispatch HQ workflow. Once a ticket has been triaged and confirmed, it moves here and joins a prioritized queue that is ready for your technician team to pull from.
This is where the operational muscle of Dispatch HQ really shows up for dispatchers. The system does not just drop tickets into a flat list and leave the rest to you. It actively analyzes each ticket and organizes the queue so your team is always pulling the most important work first. At the same time, you retain full visibility and control to step in, adjust rankings, manage technician suggestions, or kick off a scheduling request, all from a single view.
The Unassigned tab is designed to reduce the time you spend managing the queue manually so you can focus on the exceptions and the judgment calls that actually require a human decision.
How Tickets Are Ranked
When a triaged ticket arrives in the Unassigned tab, Dispatch HQ immediately analyzes it and assigns it a ranked position in the queue. Tickets at the top of the list represent the highest priority work your team should be pulling next.
The system determines ranking based on factors such as ticket urgency, SLA timelines, and the nature of the issue. Tickets that are approaching or at risk of breaching an SLA will surface toward the top, ensuring your team is not accidentally working lower-priority requests while critical ones sit idle. This is the core of what makes the pull model in Dispatch HQ work: when a technician is ready for their next ticket, the queue is already organized so they are pulling the right one.
How Ranking Changes Over Time
Ticket ranking in the Unassigned tab is not static. As time passes and SLA windows shrink, the system continuously re-evaluates the queue and adjusts ticket positions automatically. A ticket that was ranked third in the morning may move to the top by the afternoon if its SLA threshold is approaching and higher-ranked tickets have been pulled.
This means the queue is always a live, current representation of what your team should be working on next, not a snapshot from when tickets were first triaged. You do not need to manually refresh or re-rank the queue to account for SLA drift. The system handles that escalation automatically.
The SLA indicator on each ticket card reflects this in real time:
A ticket showing a yellow SLA indicator is approaching its threshold and will continue rising in the queue as time passes.
A ticket showing an orange indicator is critical and will typically be near the top of the queue.
A ticket showing a red indicator has already breached its SLA and will appear at the very top, flagged for immediate attention.
This automatic escalation is one of the core protections Dispatch HQ provides against SLA breaches caused by tickets being overlooked or deprioritized in a busy queue.
What You'll See on Each Ticket Card
Each ticket in the Unassigned queue is displayed as a card containing the key information you need to make informed dispatching decisions at a glance. While the exact fields visible will depend on your PSA, a typical ticket card includes:
Ticket number — The unique identifier from your PSA, so you can cross-reference it directly.
Ticket summary — The title or short description of the issue as it was submitted.
Company name — The company the ticket belongs to.
Contact name — The individual who submitted the request.
Time submitted — How long ago the ticket was created, giving you a sense of how long it has been waiting.
Priority — The urgency level assigned during triage, displayed as a labeled tag such as Priority 1 - Emergency Response or Priority 3 - Normal Response.
Type, Subtype, and Item — The classification fields confirmed during triage, displayed as tags on the card.
Status — The current ticket status, such as New (not responded) or Need to Schedule.
SLA indicator — A color-coded banner at the top of the ticket card that communicates where the ticket stands relative to its SLA threshold. Indicators include:
Red — SLA has already been breached, with the amount of time overdue displayed.
Orange — SLA is critical.
Yellow — SLA is approaching.
Eligible Technicians — The technician avatars suggested by the system as the best fit for this ticket, visible directly on the card without needing to open the ticket.
Send TimeZest button — Available directly on the ticket card for quick access to send a scheduling request without opening the full ticket detail.
Overriding the Ranked Order
The system's ranking is a strong starting point, but you know your clients and your team better than any algorithm. If you believe a ticket needs to move up or down in priority based on context the system cannot see, such as a relationship-sensitive client, an escalation from your service manager, or a business impact that is not fully captured in the ticket itself, you can manually adjust its position in the queue.
Overriding the ranking is straightforward. Select the ticket you want to reposition and move it up or down in the list to reflect the priority you want your team to honor. Your adjustment takes effect immediately, and the queue updates accordingly.
This gives you the flexibility to work alongside the AI rather than around it. The system handles the baseline prioritization so your queue is always organized, and you step in when human context makes a difference.
Technician Suggestions
Beyond ranking, Dispatch HQ also analyzes each ticket to recommend which technicians on your team are best suited to pull it. These suggestions are based on skill set alignment and the system's understanding of which technicians have handled similar tickets successfully in the past. As your team continues working tickets through Dispatch HQ, those suggestions get sharper over time.
You are not locked into the system's recommendations. As the dispatcher, you have two key capabilities here:
Add a technician suggestion. If you want to route a ticket toward a specific tech who the system did not surface, perhaps because of a client relationship, a specialized certification, or your own read of the situation, you can add them as a suggested technician for that ticket.
Remove a technician suggestion. If the system has recommended someone who is unavailable, overloaded, or simply not the right fit for a particular ticket at this time, you can remove them from the suggestion list so they are not presented as an option when that ticket reaches the pull stage.
This layer of dispatcher control ensures that the technician suggestions your team sees are always a reflection of both the system's intelligence and your operational awareness.
Sending a TimeZest Scheduling Request
Dispatch HQ extends TimeZest's existing scheduling capabilities further into the service ticket journey. From the Unassigned tab, you can send a scheduling request directly to your client without waiting for a technician to pull the ticket first.
How It Works
Each ticket card in the Unassigned queue has a Send TimeZest button visible directly on the card. Clicking it opens the standard TimeZest scheduling request flow, where you can select the appropriate appointment type and confirm which technician or technicians the client should be able to book with.
Once sent, the client receives a TimeZest scheduling link via email, exactly as they would if the request had been sent from your PSA. The client clicks the link, selects a time that works for them, and the appointment is booked and synced back to your PSA automatically.
If a workflow is configured for the appointment type you select, it will trigger as it normally would through TimeZest. This means any automated actions tied to that workflow, such as status updates, notifications, or ticket notes, will fire just as expected.
Why This Matters
Traditionally, a scheduling request does not get sent until a technician has been assigned to the ticket, reviewed it, and determined that a call is needed. That can add hours to the process. By sending the request directly from the Unassigned tab, you can get a client appointment on the calendar the moment the ticket is triaged and ranked, so that by the time the client schedules the call, there will be a confirmed appointment already in place with a tech. This removes a back-and-forth step that would otherwise slow down resolution and improves the client's experience by getting them on the schedule sooner.
Things to Keep in Mind
Sending a TimeZest request from the Unassigned tab does not assign the ticket to a technician or remove it from the queue. The ticket remains in the Unassigned tab until the TimeZest appointment is scheduled with a tech or a technician pulls it.
If no technician has been suggested or manually added to the ticket yet, consider doing that before sending the scheduling request so the client is booking with the right person.
The client notification is sent immediately upon clicking Send TimeZest, so confirm the appointment type and technician selection before proceeding.