How to Set Up Field Service Scheduling with an AI Assistant

Connect Cartoply to Claude once on a consent screen, describe your team and service area, and the assistant builds your field service scheduling setup — including drive-time territories — without manual clicking.

How to set up Cartoply with an AI assistant

1. In the Claude app, open Settings → Connectors → Add custom connector and enter Cartoply's server URL (or run one command in Claude Code)
2. Approve the consent screen — it lists exactly what the assistant may manage
3. Describe your business: team size, service call length, working hours, service area
4. Hand it your tech list — even a CSV with names, emails, and home addresses works
5. Ask for territories by drive time ("give each tech a 45-minute zone from home")
6. Click the links it hands back for the human-only steps: payment and calendar consent

The full connect an AI agent (setup guide) walks through each step with screenshots. For a broader look at what's possible, the Cartoply AI overview covers every supported action.

What the assistant can actually manage (and what it can't touch)

The assistant can handle the repetitive configuration work: creating and editing event types, setting working hours, inviting team members, assigning them to territories, and generating booking links. It can also pull reports — jobs completed by tech this week, territory coverage gaps, next available slot for a given ZIP code.

What it cannot touch without explicit permission: issuing refunds, removing team members, or changing subscription details. Those actions require the owner to grant a clearly-labelled high-risk permission (mcp:danger) on the consent screen — it is never included automatically. Deleting the organisation is not available to any assistant under any permission. Every action the assistant takes is written to an audit trail with a timestamp, the action performed, and the outcome. If something goes sideways, you have a full record of what ran and when.

Payment setup and calendar OAuth also stay human-only — the assistant hands you a direct link rather than clicking through on your behalf. For context on how collecting payment before a field visit fits into a booking workflow, that post covers the deposit-first logic in detail.

Drive-time territories: the feature that only exists through the assistant

The map editor in Cartoply lets you draw shapes, set a radius, or assign ZIP codes and counties — all useful, but none of them answer the real question: how far can this tech realistically travel before the job costs more in windshield time than it earns? See the territory routing docs for the full breakdown of what the editor supports.

Drive-time territories do. Ask the assistant for "a 45-minute zone from Mike's home address" and it geocodes the address, queries the road network for an isochrone, and saves a real polygon that bulges along highways and compresses through dense suburbs — not a crow-flies circle. You get territories that reflect how your techs actually move. This is currently assistant-only; the map editor does not yet generate drive-time polygons. If you want to understand how territory size and drive time interact for field technicians, that post runs through the tradeoffs with concrete numbers before you commit to zone sizes.

No account yet? The assistant can start the signup itself

You do not need a Cartoply account before connecting an assistant. An agent can initiate signup with just an email address. Cartoply sends a single-use claim link valid for two hours; clicking it creates the account, records terms acceptance, and approves the agent's access in one step. If the email already has an account, the same link becomes a sign-in-and-approve consent screen instead. Either way, the assistant is working within a fully configured organisation from the first conversation — no separate onboarding flow to complete first.

Day two: running bookings, reassignment, and reports from a conversation

Once the setup is done, the assistant stays useful. Ask it to reassign a job when a tech calls in sick — it checks territory rules and available capacity before suggesting a replacement, not just whoever has a gap. Ask it which tech has the most drive time this week and it queries the audit log. Ask it to add a new service type with a 90-minute duration and a $75 booking fee and it creates the event type, sets the price on the organisation page, and returns a booking link — ready to paste into an email or ad.

For teams already thinking about how territory routing and route optimization work together, the assistant is a fast path to getting territories right before layering in the Dispatch add-on. And if you're curious about how territory routing works under the hood, the features page covers the assignment logic end to end.

Frequently asked questions

Which AI assistants work with Cartoply?

Any MCP-capable assistant with OAuth support works: Claude on web and desktop (added as a custom connector under Settings → Connectors), Claude Code running in the terminal, and other MCP clients that support the same protocol. The assistant registers itself with Cartoply's server; you approve its access on a consent screen before anything connects. The full setup guide lives at cartoply.com/docs/agent-access.

Can the AI assistant refund customers or delete my account?

Not by default. Refunds, refund denials, and removing team members require a separate, clearly-marked high-risk permission (mcp:danger) the owner must explicitly grant on the consent screen — it is never included automatically. Deleting the organisation and changing the subscription are never available to an assistant under any permission. Every agent action is written to an audit trail with who ran it, what action was taken, and the outcome.

What is a drive-time territory?

A drive-time territory covers everything reachable within a set number of minutes' drive — anywhere from 5 to 120 — from a specific point, traced along the actual road network. The shape bulges along highways and compresses in dense areas, so it reflects real travel rather than a crow-flies circle. Ask the assistant for "a 45-minute zone from this tech's home address" and it geocodes the address, fetches the isochrone, and saves it as a standard territory. This feature is currently assistant-only; the map editor handles shapes, radii, and ZIP or county zones but not drive-time polygons.

Do I need a Cartoply account before connecting an assistant?

No. An agent can start the signup with just an email address: Cartoply emails a single-use claim link valid for two hours that creates the account, records terms acceptance, and approves the agent's access in one click. If the email address already has an account, the same link becomes a sign-in-and-approve consent screen. Either way, the assistant is operational from the first conversation.