Dispatch Lesson 10: Calendar Mastery — Drag-and-Drop

Dispatch Lesson 10: Calendar Mastery — Drag-and-Drop

Drag-and-drop on the dispatch calendar is the dispatcher's primary input mechanism. Move scheduled todos, reassign across agents, signal rank changes on floating todos, drop tickets onto specific time slots — all without opening dialogs.

Drag-and-Drop Scheduling

Problem: Clicking through dialogs to move every todo, change every duration, and reassign every piece of work is slow. As a dispatcher you're moving the team's work around constantly — the inefficiency compounds.

Horizon's answer: The Dispatch Calendar (Dashboard) supports drag-and-drop for moving, reassigning, and resizing scheduled work. The same tool that's a nice convenience for agents becomes the primary input mechanism for dispatchers.

Move a scheduled todo to a new time

  1. On the Dashboard, find the scheduled todo on the agent's lane.
  2. Drag it to the new time slot (same agent's lane).
  3. A confirmation modal opens. Confirm.

The todo's start time updates everywhere — the Dashboard, the agent's calendar in the agent panel, and the helpdesk's calendar entry.

Reassign by dragging across resource lanes (dispatcher-only)

This is the dispatcher superpower the agent calendar doesn't have:

  1. On the Dashboard, find a scheduled todo on Agent A's lane.
  2. Drag it across to Agent B's lane (drop on the time slot you want).
  3. The confirmation modal asks you to confirm both the new time and the new assignee.
  4. Confirm.

The todo moves to Agent B's calendar at the chosen time. Agent A's lane reflects the removal. The helpdesk's calendar entry updates to the new assignee.

This is the fastest way to rebalance the team's day. If you see Agent A overloaded and Agent B with empty time, just drag the work over.

Drag a floating todo on the calendar — same surprise as the agent guide

Floating todos don't have a fixed time, so dragging them doesn't literally move them. The drag is interpreted as a signal:

  • Drag forward (later time) → modal offers Increase rank, Decrease rank, or Defer until [the time you dragged to].
  • Drag backward (earlier time) → same modal, without the Defer option.
  • Drag to the same time → silent revert.

The modal is the system asking "why did you drag this?" — pick the action you actually meant.

Drag a ticket from the Ticket Tray onto the calendar

If you have the Ticket Tray widget visible:

  1. Grab a ticket card from the tray.
  2. Drag it onto a time slot on a specific agent's lane.
  3. The Schedule Todo slide-over opens with the ticket linked, the agent pre-filled, and the start time pre-filled.
  4. Fill in the rest (title, duration, delivery method) and save.

Resize a todo to change its duration

  1. Hover the bottom edge of a todo on the calendar.
  2. Click and drag the edge up or down.
  3. Confirm in the modal.

Click vs drag — what each does

ActionResult
Click a scheduled todoOpens the slide-over with details and ticket actions
Drag a scheduled todo to a new time (same lane)Reschedules
Drag a scheduled todo to a different laneReassigns + reschedules
Click a floating todoOpens the slide-over
Drag a floating todoOpens the rank/defer modal — drag is a signal, not a move
Click an empty time slot on a laneOpens create-todo with that agent and time pre-filled
Drag a ticket from the tray onto a slotOpens create-todo with ticket, agent, and time pre-filled

Why you can't schedule in the past

If you drag a todo (or a ticket) to a time that's already passed, Horizon blocks the action with a "Cannot schedule in the past" message showing the time you dropped on and the current time.

The block exists because past scheduling produces nonsense — calendars don't accept events in the past, the agent can't "go do" work that already should have happened, and reporting breaks. If you need to record work that already happened, that's a time entry in the helpdesk, not a scheduled todo.

Multi-day moves

Drag-and-drop works across days when you're in the Week view. Drop on a different day, same confirmation modal as same-day moves. Day view is single-day; Month view doesn't support drag (switch views first).

Things that won't drag

  • Read-only appointments — external calendar events synced from outside Horizon (e.g. an Outlook entry). "This appointment is read-only and cannot be moved."
  • In-progress scheduled todos — once an agent has started work, the todo locks in place.

Tip: Drag-across-lanes is the dispatcher's most powerful single move — two seconds vs. three or four clicks via Direct Assign. Use it whenever you're rebalancing. Especially good for end-of-morning corrections when you can see the day shaping up unevenly.

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