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Master Schedule vs. the Actual Schedule

The Master Schedule and the Timeline (or Calendar) can show the same customer on different weekdays — and both can be right. They answer different questions. This article explains what each view is actually showing, which one controls the real visit, and how changes to the recurring pattern reach future visits.

The one-line answer: the actual scheduled visit always wins. The visit your team works is the one on the Timeline and Calendar. The Master Schedule is a planning view of the recurring rotation, and it deliberately hides one-off changes.

Which view controls the customer's actual visit?​

The Timeline and Calendar do. Every visit in Pulse is a real, individual entry with its own date, time, and team. The Timeline and Calendar show those entries exactly as they are. When a technician goes out on Thursday, it is because a visit exists on Thursday — not because of anything the Master Schedule displays.

The Master Schedule does not schedule anything by itself. It is a report built from the upcoming visits, arranged to show you the recurring rotation: which customers repeat on which days, on which teams, across the 4-week cycle.

So when the two views disagree, trust the Timeline or Calendar for "when will the team actually be there?" and use the Master Schedule for "how is our recurring workload structured?"

Why does the Master Schedule show a different weekday than the customer's actual visit?​

Because the Master Schedule shows one representative upcoming visit per recurring service — and it skips one-off changes on purpose.

Here is how the view is built:

  • For each recurring service, Pulse finds the next upcoming visit that is still part of the normal rotation. Visits that were individually moved, and one-time extras, are excluded — they carry an out-of-rotation marker precisely so they do not distort this view.
  • The day tab the service appears under is the weekday of that representative visit.
  • The start time shown comes from the service's default start time — the pattern — not from any individual visit.
  • The team card it sits in is the service's default team, even if a specific visit was handed to a different team for one day.

This design has two practical consequences:

  1. A one-off move does not change the Master Schedule. If a biweekly Wednesday customer gets a single Monday visit, the Master Schedule keeps showing Wednesday. The Monday visit appears on the Timeline and Calendar only. That is intentional — the rotation is still Wednesday.
  2. If the next in-rotation visit sits on an unusual day, the whole service displays under that day. The Master Schedule has no separate stored "pattern weekday" — the recurring day lives in the actual generated visits. So if the next regular visit is on a Wednesday (for example, because the series was re-anchored to a Wednesday start date at some point), the service shows under Wednesday even if the customer thinks of themselves as a Thursday customer. Check the customer's next few visits on the Calendar to see the real cadence.

If the Master Schedule day is wrong for the whole series — not just one visit — the fix is to reschedule the service with a new start date on the correct weekday. See below.

How do I change the recurring weekday for a customer?​

Reschedule the series from a new start date. There is no standalone "day of week" setting on a recurring service. The weekday of a series is simply the weekday of its anchor date — every future visit is stepped forward from it at the service's frequency.

  1. Open the customer's service in the Property & Service Manager (for example, via Modify Schedule from a job's detail drawer).
  2. Choose Reschedule.
  3. Pick a New Start Date on the weekday you want, plus the time and team for the first visit.
  4. Confirm. All future pending visits are deleted and recreated on the new rhythm from that date. Completed visits, past visits, and out-of-rotation visits are not touched, and pending visits with clock-ins, timesheet requests or invoices are kept (see How Recurring Series Changes Work).

Moving individual visits one at a time does not change the series — each move is a one-off, and the rotation continues on the original day. See How Recurring Series Changes Work.

When do pattern changes take effect on future visits?​

It depends on which part of the pattern you change:

ChangeHow it reaches future visits
Frequency (weekly → biweekly, etc.)Immediately rebuilds all future pending visits from the start date you pick
Start date / weekdaySame — Reschedule rebuilds all future pending visits from the new date
Default start timeApplies to future visits only when you choose to update them (see below)
Default team(s)Same — only when you choose to update future visits
Preferred DaysA customer preference used for warnings and placement — it does not move any visits

For time and team changes, Pulse always asks how far the change should reach:

  • Editing a job in the Job Detail drawer: if you changed the time or team, you get Save This Job or Save This & Future. A dialog titled Apply changes to future jobs? explains the choice.
  • Editing from the Master Schedule's Service Set Edit drawer: check Update this and future jobs to push the change onto upcoming visits; leave it unchecked to change the defaults only.

Two details worth knowing:

  • "Future" means upcoming visits that are still pending. Completed and past visits are never rewritten.
  • Updating future visits changes their time and team, never their dates. Dates only change through a series Reschedule or a frequency change.

I just made a change — why doesn't the Master Schedule show it yet?​

The Master Schedule is a heavier report, so its data is cached and refreshed periodically rather than instantly. After editing a job or a service, the Master view can lag behind for several minutes — in some cases up to about twenty minutes — before it reflects the change. The Timeline and Calendar update much sooner.

If you need to confirm a change right away, check the Timeline or Calendar for the affected dates instead of the Master Schedule.

Which view should I trust for which question?​

QuestionTrust
"What day is the team actually going out?"Timeline or Calendar
"Did the one-off move I made stick?"Timeline or Calendar
"What is this customer's recurring rotation?"Master Schedule
"Are two recurring customers in conflict on the same team?"Master Schedule
"What are the service's default time and team?"Service Set Edit drawer (from the Master Schedule)
"What will next month look like?"Calendar → Month