Dispatching Field Maps Tasks

[MDBowser]

With ArcGIS Workforce retiring, and replaced with Tasks within the Field Maps App - what are we supposed to provide for our dispatchers for Task Assignment?!  Is there an equivalent to Workforce for this?  The documentation on this is super limited at this point.

I understand there is the Field Maps Designer for deploying this, however, this is for the technical GIS staff to deploy.  The solution I require is something for dispatchers to assign and manage work assignments (tasks) for mobile crews.

Did Esri just abandon this component of ArcGIS Workforce and require users to develop it on their own?

Anyone in the know, please help!

Cheers,
Mike

[ChrisDunn1]

Hi @MDBowser ,

Because Tasks work with a single hosted feature layer instead of the multiple layers needed for Workforce, the layer can easily be brought into a variety of editing clients for dispatching. You can use the Web Editor, Experience Builder, Map Viewer, ArcGIS Pro, Field Maps, or a variety of Instant Apps (such as Manager or Sidebar) to create a custom dispatching experience to suit your needs. This will also allow you to leverage forms and arcade to streamline and further customize your dispatching process.

If you have any specific dispatching needs you're trying to achieve let me know and we can offer some more specific guidance.

Chris

[Pam_Kavaleski]

We have set up our dispatchers in the Manager app.  Adding the task is easy enough but when they go to try to print the work order the process gets clunky. I understand the idea of tasks is that you would not need to print a work order but some of our staff prefers the printed work order.

Currently I have checked on the Pop-up button and they print the popup to provide to the field staff. This is good when it works but sometimes they have to select the entry multiple times or refresh the browser to get the popup to show up. 

If there is a better solution that is more user friendly I'd love to hear from others. 

Thanks,

Pam

[ChrisDunn1]

H @Pam_Kavaleski ,

Are you printing the popup directly from what's shown in the map in the dispatcher app?

One option would be to look at other Instant Apps or Experience Builder options that will show the popup information in a separate section of the app. A few things worth looking at:

- The Public Notification instant app template.

- The Experience Builder Feature Info Widget

- The Experience Builder Gallery for more inspiration.

One advantage to setting up a different map and app for printing work orders is you can customize the popup and/or the related widgets to show exactly what you need in the work order, if the ideal printed work order is a bit different from the one used in the dispatcher or field map. You can use the same layer in multiple places but show the data a bit differently depending on the purpose.

I hope that helps!

Chris

[Pam_Kavaleski]

Thank you Chris, I will look into your suggestions. For the time being I ended up adding an additional page to my Experience Builder app solely for printing the Work Order. I used the Feature Info widget for that page and the dispatcher can print the popup from there. 

[MDBowser]

Hey Chris,

Thanks for your reply.  I guess I understand the concept, however wouldn't it make sense for Esri to have put together a dispatching instant app or experience builder template to facilitate this transition for users that have been utilizing the workforce dispatching application? Something that can have a consistent look and feel, provide at least parity to the functionality of workforce, so they are not left hanging with a new project of developing their own?  I think this is especially important when there is such a short timeline for deprecation.  Perhaps there is something out there already you recommend or you can provide this feedback to the project manager of this functionality?  Perhaps you can loop in Esri's  Liz Armstrong into this thread? 

[LizArmstrong]

Hi there, 

Tasks is very flexible framework, as Chris mentioned, and we have a range of options for you to create custom dispatching experiences that match your custom tasks workflows.

We do have a great option to get up and running immediately. Our Instant Apps' Manager template provides a dispatching experience that you can very quickly spin up in less than 5 minutes to use for dispatching tasks. 

Give it a try and see what you think. Happy to take down any specific feedback about your dispatching needs. 

Also, I want to take this opportunity to clarify something. Our deprecation notices give customers a "heads up" that we will be retiring the product. In our deprecation notice, we outline the retirement dates which are with ArcGIS Online in the Q3 2026 update and from ArcGIS Enterprise 12.2 in the Q3 2026 release. Hopefully this provides some clarification about how much time you will have to transition from Workforce to using tasks in Field Maps! 

[NICK_COG]

Liz, 

Wanted to let you know I have found the manager instant app particularly useful, our staff has been able to use it without issue.

It would be awesome if you could configure the filters in the dispatch map to be 1:1 with the filters created in the Field Maps Designer, rather than having to recreate the attribute filters manually.

[MDBowser]

HI Liz,

Thank you for your reply.   Do you have a demo or video of sorts of the manager instant app used in a dispatching context?  I did deploy this and had a look, and on initial glance did not look very useful from a dispatching perspective - this looks mostly geared towards reviewing attribute tables.  I do not see here one would setup creating and assigning tasks to mobile workers.

A side question:  will there be functionality to assign a task to multiple workers?

Thank you again for your help!

Mike

[Laura]

I just want to comment in support of assigning a task to multiple workers.