Episode Overview
As the next-generation solution for capacity management, ServiceTitan’s new Adaptive Capacity feature replaces the previous, more rigid Adjustable Capacity Planning with flexible, strategic rules that help you optimize your schedule for better efficiency and company culture.
In a recent episode of the Mastering ServiceTitan podcast, Zachary Kays, ServiceTitan Software Consultant at Titan Wizards, dives into the power of the new Adaptive Capacity feature—available to all users in the core package—and explains how to set up strategic rules.
Kays demonstrates how businesses can speed up their booking process by 30 seconds per call using the "Get Adaptive Availability" button, how to use advanced skill-based setups to ensure the right technician is matched to the right job, tips for managing seasonal demand through fixed and relative date ranges, and more.
“It's real-time and allows you to set up strategic rules, where the old one was a little bit more rigid. Adaptive capacity allows you to make it a lot more flexible and really dial it into your business and your business's needs,” Kays says.
Here, we’ll recap:
The core benefits of the new ServiceTitan Adaptive Capacity feature
How to set up new Adaptive Capacity workflows and what users can expect
How Adaptive Capacity interacts with ServiceTitan’s AI Voice Agents
Core benefits of ServiceTitan Adaptive Capacity
One of the main benefits of Adaptive Capacity is more efficient scheduling where you can book jobs faster, schedule smarter, and fuel revenue growth, Kays says. Rather than CSRs taking the time to scour your dispatch board to find an open spot, they can now click a single button.
“Once you set up the prerequisites, all you have to do is click on Get Adaptive Availability. It automatically shows you the next availability, so it speeds up,” Kays explains.
“Say for example, you're taking 30 calls in a day and it takes you 30 seconds to look at the dispatch board. You're saving that 30 seconds on every single call, getting more time back in your day for maybe some outbounding or expanding your memberships,” he adds.
How to set up new Adaptive Capacity workflows and what users can expect
Adaptive Capacity allows you to control your schedule by setting up rules for your specific business. For example, you can set it based on real-time capacity with a rule to book 100% of calls, or allow it to book 80% of preventative maintenance jobs during busy seasons and leave 20% availability for demand calls, or set it based on other configurations.
To set up the prerequisites, make sure your business units are well structured, your job types make sense, and you’ve added technician shifts as well as arrival windows in ServiceTitan.
“Adaptive Capacity allows you to turn it on with basically just business units set up and then you can dial it in from there,” he says.
Once you have Adaptive Capacity turned on (ask your customer success manager), the six required permissions to turn on are:
Access Get Adaptive Availability Filters: Allows the employee to access and use filters in the Get Adaptive Availability pop-up in Call Booking.
Access Adaptive Capacity Settings: Allows the employee to access and view Adaptive Capacity Settings, but not make edits to the settings.
Edit Adaptive Capacity Settings: Allows the employee to access, view, and edit Adaptive Capacity Settings in ServiceTitan Settings.
Access Adaptive Capacity Rules: Allows the employee to access and view Adaptive Capacity Rules, including rule builder, but not make edits to rules.
Edit Adaptive Capacity Rules: Allows the employee access, view, create, and edit Adaptive Capacity Rules in ServiceTitan Settings.
Apply Manual Adjustments: Allows the employee to apply manual adjustments in Adaptive Capacity Reporting, Advanced Mode.
Most CSRs won’t need all six permissions, Kays says, but whoever’s in charge of managing your business’s capacity will need all of them. For instance, your dispatcher can use Adaptive Capacity to automatically see a 3-day call board (your schedule for the next three days) in minutes, as well as a new section for Adaptive Capacity Reporting.
And with Adaptive Capacity, you can do a simple setup or advanced setup.
The simple setup is based on your business units, where everybody in your service business unit can run all service jobs. Sometimes you might need to take it a step further and use business unit groups if you have service and maintenance, and assign techs to do both service and maintenance jobs that are tied to that business unit.
With advanced setup, you can configure additional rules and settings to get even more benefit from using Adaptive Capacity.
“I really recommend doing the advanced setup,” Kays says. “It does take a little bit more time, but what I like to do is run a report of all the job types that are in ServiceTitan, and then I create a skill for every single one of those job types.
“You could simplify it by putting your job types into groups and then doing a skill based off of that group. I like to just do one-to-one. It's very simple. So you do a job, type a skill, and then you assign that skill to the technician and then you're done,” he adds.
Just remember to update technician skills in your Adaptive Capacity settings whenever you hire new technicians or when an existing tech upgrades their skillset.
In addition, ask your CSM to turn on “job type groups,” so you can add multiple job types into one group and assign relevant roles to that group.
Once Adaptive Capacity is turned on and set up, users will see a button to click on the call screen that brings up the adaptive availability flow.
“Once you put in the job type, the business unit, the marketing campaign, it automatically tells you what your next available slot is. So you can click on that and schedule it right then,” Kays says, adding that another button at the bottom of the screen shows you the availability details, such as why it selected that date and who’s available at that time.
“It really breaks it down so there’s no mystery,” Kays says.
If something looks off, Adaptive Capacity allows you to make manual adjustments when needed.
In your Adaptive Capacity settings, in addition to the basic and advanced setup, you’ll also find strategic rules. Some pro tips to consider for basic, advanced, and strategic rules include:
(Basic) Set a shift for every person on your dispatch board, regardless if you want them to be counted for capacity. This will help eliminate any confusion when jobs get shifted.
(Basic) Business unit groups and job type groups are used more often in strategic rules, but shut off the default to use business unit groups if you’re doing the one-to-one job type and skill matchup.
(Basic) Use technician exclusions for anyone not running calls so they won’t be counted in your capacity.
(Basic) Use the audit trail to track changes in your settings, so you know what’s working and what isn’t.
(Advanced) Set up your default for availability threshold.
(Advanced) Set up availability calculations based on tags.
(Advanced) Toggle on the warnings for exceeding natural capacity to allow CSRs to overbook if needed.
(Strategic) Set up a “do not service” rule for an applicable client, add date and time criteria, add the tag, and then apply a threshold of 0%.
“The really cool thing about that is if you have a brand new CSR who's not familiar with some of your more colorful clients that you may no longer want to deal with, it'll actually block them from being able to schedule that person,” Kays explains.
This then triggers a conversation with the CSR manager to determine whether the client should remain a “do not service” type of call or be switched over to an actual job.
“So, it allows you to set up those rules,” he adds.
While Adaptive Capacity works well for core package users as well as pro product users like Dispatch Pro or Scheduling Pro, the settings and rules must be continually optimized for best results.
“The mistakes I see people make are, they’ll come in, they'll set all their rules, and they're like, okay, it's set. And then they get mad when it doesn't work and they don't optimize it and they just shut it off completely. It’s a tool that you do need to go in and tweak a little bit,” Kays says.
Strategic rules also give you three options for activation periods:
Ongoing: Adaptive Capacity stays on, but includes toggle switch to turn on and off.
Fixed Date Range: Adaptive Capacity is set for a certain time period, such as leaving ample room for demand calls during busy seasons.
Relative Date Range: Adaptive Capacity is set for a certain upcoming date range, such as when you’re expecting a cold snap or heatwave.
“It's important to be able to strategically plan for those times and make sure you're not overbooked,” Kays says.
Adaptive Capacity works best for those businesses who perform services on demand on one-day jobs.
“It's really geared towards service and demand. If you're new construction, where you're doing large multi-day projects, it's probably not going to work well for you. If you're a large commercial business where you have large multi-day projects, it’s probably not going to work.
This is mainly going to be for those service-and-demand shops that have one-day jobs.
“And you can also, if you set it up properly, you can do it for installs. So, if you have comfort advisors who go out and sell a new system, you can set up the rules for your installers to see when the next install is available,” he adds.
If you just want to use the basic setup of Adaptive Capacity, you don’t have to set up the strategic rules.
“You can just go in and make sure that you have your shifts set up. Make sure you have your job type duration set up and your arrival window set up, and you can get to the races. The advanced rules are just a little bit more fun, a little bit more flavor, but you never need to touch them at all,” Kays explains.
How Adaptive Capacity interacts with ServiceTitan’s AI Voice Agents
If you’re using ServiceTitan’s AI Voice Agents, you can also utilize Adaptive Capacity.
The AI Voice Agents, now available as native AI CSRs for all customers, are automated virtual agents designed specifically for the trades to handle incoming calls at all hours, book jobs, reschedule jobs, or manage customer requests.
“They use all the Adaptive Capacity rules,” Kays says. “Any of the strategic rules that you'll set up, they'll be able to recognize that because the ServiceTitan AI agents are native, built directly in the platform.”
Just know that if you’re using a third-party system to operate your phones, you may need to adjust the settings to point to Adaptive Capacity rather than the previous Adjustable Capacity Planning settings.
>>Want to learn more about Adaptive Capacity? Listen to the full Mastering ServiceTitan podcast with Zachary Kays now.
You can find this interview and many more by subscribing to Mastering ServiceTitan on Apple Podcasts, on Spotify, or here.
Know a business that could use a bit of muscle from ServiceTitan? Refer them here!
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