Service Areas

What it is

A service area is a named piece of the map that your business covers — for example North Dallas or Brooklyn. Each area has a name and a shape you draw on a map: a circle, a rectangle, or a free-form outline.

Once your areas exist, Joby uses them in two ways. First, when a lead gets an address, Joby looks up that address on the map and fills in the Service Area box on the lead for you, along with the local time for that address. Second, the area name becomes a label you can filter on, report on, and build automations around.

When to use it

• You cover more than one town, borough, or region and want to see which ones actually make money.
• You want the office to stop typing the region by hand on every lead.
• You have field workers who only travel to certain parts of the map.
• You book jobs across more than one time zone and want appointment times to be right.
• You want automatic follow-ups or alerts that only run for certain regions.

Before you start

• You need the Settings permission. Without it, the Service Areas page is hidden. An owner or admin can grant it in Settings›People›Team Roles.
• Maps have to be switched on for your account. If the Add Service Area window shows a notice that map drawing is not available, you can still save an area by name — but nothing will be matched automatically until maps are enabled. Contact support if you see that notice.
• Agree on names first. Leads store the area name as plain text, so a name you change later will still show the old wording on older leads. Pick names your whole team recognises and stick with them.
• Have a few real customer addresses handy. You will use them at the end to confirm the areas match the way you expect.

Step-by-step

Create your first service area

1. Go to Settings›Business›Service Areas.
2. Click Add Service Area. The Add New Service Area window opens.
3. Type a Name. This is required — for example Manhattan or North Dallas.
4. Under Geographic Boundary, draw the shape (see the three tools below).
5. Click Save.

You get three drawing tools above the map, and you only need one of them per area:

While you are drawing, Cancel Drawing throws away the points you have placed so far. Once a shape is saved on the form, a Clear Area button appears under the map if you want to start again.

Rename or redraw an area

1. Go to Settings›Business›Service Areas.
2. Click the pencil icon on the right of the row. The Edit Service Area window opens.
3. Change the Name, redraw the shape, or both.
4. Click Update.

Turn an area off, and back on

There is no permanent delete on this page. Areas are switched off instead, so your history stays readable.

The Deactivate All button switches off every active area at once. It only appears when at least one area is active, and it asks you to confirm first. Use it when you are re-doing your coverage map from scratch.

Long lists are paged 50 areas at a time, with the page controls under the table. Active areas sort to the top, then everything is in alphabetical order.

Add an area without leaving the lead form

If a customer calls from somewhere you have not mapped yet, you can add the area from the lead form instead of stopping to visit Settings:

1. On the new lead form (Leads›New), open the Service Area box.
2. Type the name you want.
3. Pick the Add a new service area row at the top of the list — once you have typed something it reads Add “your text” as a new service area.
4. The Add Service Area window opens with the name already filled in. Draw the boundary and click Save.

How to check it worked

1. Back on Settings›Business›Service Areas, look at the Geographic Boundary column for your new row. It should say Circle, Rectangle, or Polygon — and for a circle it also shows the size, such as (25.0 mi radius). If it says Not defined, the shape did not save and you need to draw it again.
2. Check the Status column shows Active.
3. Go to Leads›New and type a real customer address inside the area, including city, state, or ZIP. Joby briefly shows Matching service area… under the Service Area box.
4. A message appears in the corner reading Closest service area: [name] (x.x miles away), and the Service Area box fills itself in.
5. Open the Service Area box. Your areas are listed under By Distance, nearest first, each with how far it is from that address.
6. Scroll to the Schedule card. Its heading now shows Local timezone and Current time for that address — proof the address was found on the map.

Common mistakes

Saving an area with no shape drawn

This is the big one. An area with no boundary is treated as being zero miles from every address, so it jumps to the top of the list and gets picked automatically on every single lead. If matching is picking the wrong area for everything, open Settings›Business›Service Areas and look for rows saying Not defined.

Assuming a match means the address is inside your shape

Joby suggests the nearest area, measured from the middle of the shape. An address twenty miles outside all of your areas will still get the closest one suggested, with the mileage shown next to it. Always glance at the distance before you accept it — if it reads 30 miles, that job may be outside your coverage.

“My area disappeared”

The Active only toggle above the table is on by default, so deactivated areas are hidden. Switch it off to see everything. On an existing lead, an area that was switched off still shows in the box with (Removed) after its name, so you can see what the lead was originally tagged with.

Renaming an area and expecting old leads to follow

Leads keep the wording that was on them when they were saved. Renaming splits your reporting in two. If you must rename, use Leads›Bulk Action afterwards to move the older leads onto the new name.

Importing leads with area names that do not exist

The Service Area column in a lead import is taken exactly as typed. Nothing is created and nothing is corrected, so a typo becomes a permanent one-off value in your reports. Export a lead report first and copy the spelling from there.

Giving a field worker areas and then losing them from the list

Once a field worker has any areas listed on their profile, they only appear in the assign box for leads in those areas. Leaving the areas list empty means “this person covers everywhere”, which is usually what you want for a small team.

Expecting calls to route by area

Service areas tag leads; they do not decide which phone rings. Set that up in Call Groups.