Field Workers & External Subcontractors

What it is

Team Members is the single list of everyone who works for you, from the office to the field. You open it from Settings›Team Members. Across the top are four tabs — All, Office Agents, Field Workers and External Subcontractors — each showing how many people are in it.

Joby only really asks you one question about a person: do they log in to Joby, and do they work in the office or in the field. That gives three kinds of team member.

The difference between a Field Worker and an External Subcontractor is only whether they have a login. Turn a login on and the same person moves to the Field Workers tab; turn it off and they move back. Nothing else about them changes — their jobs, commission and payment history stay exactly where they were.

Your company may use different words for these people. "Field Worker", "Office Agent" and "Lead" can all be renamed for your account by your Joby contact, so your buttons and tabs may read "Technician", "CSR" or "Job" instead.

When to use it

• Bringing a new technician, crew or outside company onto your team.
• Deciding whether someone should be able to log in to Joby, and undoing that later.
• Setting or changing the commission percentage someone earns.
• Limiting a person to the service types and areas they actually cover.
• Sending a job to the field and knowing it reached them.
• Giving someone a job link without creating an account for them.
• Keeping a copy of their insurance certificate, licence or signed agreement.
• Recording what you have paid them and what you still owe.

Use Team Roles instead when the question is "what is this person allowed to see". Use the Commission Report when the question is "how much money did this person earn".

Before you start

• Your role needs the Team Members page. That is the Manage Office Agents permission, switched on per role under Settings›Team Roles. Without it the page will not open.
• Set up your service types and service areas first. The Skills / service types and Service areas boxes on a person only offer what already exists under Settings›Job Types and Settings›Service Areas.
• An email address is required for a login. No email means no login invite can be sent. A phone number is what text messages go to.
• Text messages need phone registration approved. Until it is, the SMS tick box shows a padlock and Joby offers to take you to Settings›Phone Registration. Email still works in the meantime.
• Call masking needs a masking number. Set one under Settings›Phone Masking before you switch masking on for anyone, or Joby will block the send rather than hand out the customer's real number.
• Decide the Team Role you want for people who log in. The built-in Field Worker role is permanently limited to assigned records, which is usually what you want.

Step-by-step

Add someone who should not log in (External Subcontractor)

1. Go to Settings›Team Members.
2. Click Add Team Member at the top right.
3. Choose External Subcontractor — No Login, then click Continue.
4. Fill in First name, Last name and Display name. Display name is the only required one — it is what shows on jobs, schedules and reports.
5. Add their Email and Phone.
6. Set Commission %, then pick their Service areas and Skills / service types. Leaving either box empty means "matches everything", including service types and areas you add later.
7. Under Lead Notification Method, tick Email, SMS, or both. Pick at least one or they will never be told about a job.
8. Turn on Call masking if this person should never see the customer's real number.
9. Click Add External Subcontractor.

Add someone who should log in (Field Worker)

1. Settings›Team Members›Add Team Member, then choose Field Worker — Joby User and click Continue.
2. Fill in the same details. Here Email is required, because that is where the login invite goes.
3. In-app now appears as a third notification method — Joby can put the job straight into their app instead of only texting or emailing.
4. Click Add & Send Login Invite. Joby asks you to confirm, because this creates a real login. If that is not what you wanted, choose Cancel and go back to External Subcontractor.

Give an existing person a login, or take it away

1. On Settings›Team Members, find their row and click the ... button at the end of it.
2. Choose Give login access to email them an invite. They move to the Field Workers tab.
3. Choose Revoke login access to take the login away. Joby warns you first. They stay on your team as an external subcontractor and keep every job assignment and all their commission.

Decide what a logged-in person can see

1. In the Team Role column of their row, pick a role from the drop-down. The change takes effect straight away.
2. To change what a role means, go to Settings›Team Roles. The built-in Field Worker role keeps Limit to assigned records switched on permanently — to give a field worker wider access, move them to a different role instead.

Assign a job and send it to them

1. Open the job from Work›Leads and find the Team section, or use the Assign Field Worker box on the new-job form.
2. Pick a name from the list. Only people whose skills match the job's service type and whose areas match the job's service area are offered — which is why leaving those boxes empty is the safe default. Anyone without a login shows a small External tag next to their name.
3. If your account allows more than one person per job, the first name you pick is the primary and carries a star. Click the star on another chip to promote them, or the x to remove someone.
4. Send the job with the paper-plane button in the Actions column on the Leads list. The Send Lead Notification window opens with a card for each assigned person and a message you can edit before sending.
5. Click Send to Assigned Field Workers.

Share the Field Worker Portal link

1. On Settings›Team Members, click the chain-link button on their row.
2. Use Copy portal link to put the link on your clipboard, or Send invite email to email it to them.
3. Use Rotate link (new link) if the old one has been shared too widely — the old link stops working immediately. Disable access switches the link off; Enable access turns it back on.

Keep their paperwork on file

1. Click the pencil button on their row to open their details.
2. Scroll to the Documents card and click Upload. Insurance certificates, licences and signed agreements all live here.
3. Each file can be renamed with the pencil, downloaded, or removed with the bin.

Record what you paid them

1. Go to Reports›Commission Reports and open the Payments tab.
2. Click Record Payment and enter the amount, date, method and reference.
3. The row shows what that payment covers. Filter with All workers and All worker types (field workers with a login, or external with none) to narrow it down.

How to check it worked

• Person added: a confirmation message appears and a new row shows up with a coloured type badge — Office Agent, Field Worker or External Subcontractor. The tab counts go up.
• Login invite sent: the Login column reads Invite pending until they accept, then Has login. Before any invite it reads No login.
• Login revoked: their type badge flips back to External Subcontractor and the Login column returns to No login.
• Job sent: in the Send Lead Notification window their card turns green with a Notified tick. The confirmation message tells you how many people it reached and on which channels.
• Portal link works: paste the copied link into a browser. You should see their name, their jobs and their earnings — nobody else's.
• Payment recorded: a new row appears on the Payments tab and the running total in the badge at the top right goes up.

Common mistakes