Dispatcher Panel

The dispatcher panel is the command center for your delivery operations. While merchants manage their own orders and drivers run their own deliveries, the dispatcher panel gives your team the marketplace-wide picture: every active delivery order and every driver, live on one map, with the tools to assign, monitor, and intervene.

The live map

The core of the panel is a real-time map showing:

Active orders — delivery orders in progress across your zones, with their current status (waiting for a driver, being prepared, out for delivery).
Drivers — your fleet’s live positions and availability, so you can see at a glance who is free, who is on a job, and where coverage is thin.
Outlets — where orders originate, so distances and pairings are obvious visually.

This is the view your dispatch team keeps open during service hours.

Manual driver assignment

For marketplaces that dispatch manually (or for the orders automation doesn’t catch):

An order reaches the point where it needs a driver.
The dispatcher picks a driver — informed by who is nearby, who is free, and who is already heading in the right direction.
The driver receives the assignment in the partner app, with pickup and drop-off details.
The driver’s acceptance and progress flow back to the panel in real time.

Manual dispatch gives maximum control and works well at lower volumes or in markets where dispatcher judgment beats any algorithm — local knowledge about traffic, building access, or driver strengths.

Monitoring delivery progress

Once an order is assigned, the panel tracks it through the delivery leg:

Driver heading to the outlet → arrived → order picked up → en route to customer → delivered.
Each transition updates automatically from the driver’s partner app, which also powers the customer’s live tracking.

Dispatchers watch for the exceptions: a driver stuck in one place, an order ready with no driver en route, a delivery taking far longer than expected. The live map makes these visible before customers start calling.

Reassignment

When something goes wrong — a driver’s vehicle breaks down, an assignment was a bad fit, a driver isn’t responding — dispatchers can reassign the order to another driver. The original assignment is cleared, the new driver is notified, and the customer’s tracking continues seamlessly. Reassignment is the dispatcher’s most important intervention tool; a delivery rescued in two minutes is a non-event, the same delivery left stuck for twenty is a lost customer.

Working alongside auto-dispatch

Most marketplaces at volume run auto-dispatch for routine assignment and use the dispatcher panel for oversight and exceptions:

Auto-dispatch assigns the best available driver automatically using distance and load scoring.
Dispatchers monitor the map, handle orders automation couldn’t place, and reassign where needed.
The split scales well: automation does the volume, humans do the judgment calls.

Manual-first and automation-first are both valid; you can change the mix as your marketplace grows.

Third-party deliveries on the panel

If you use delivery networks (DoorDash Drive, Uber Direct, Shipday, Nash) for some or all deliveries, those orders are fulfilled by the network’s couriers. Your team still monitors order progress through the platform, but assignment and courier management happen on the network’s side.

The dispatcher manager role

Dispatch access is a dedicated role in your team setup. A dispatcher manager signing in to the dashboard gets a reduced view with just Orders and Dispatcher — the panel and the assignment tools, without broader admin control over settings, merchants, or finances. Grant it to the operations staff who run delivery shifts. See Users & roles.

Practical guidance

Staff the panel during peaks. Even with auto-dispatch on, lunch and dinner rushes are when exceptions cluster.
Set an intervention habit. Define simple triggers for your team — e.g. “order ready with no driver after N minutes” or “driver stationary mid-delivery” — and act on them consistently.
Use the map to spot coverage gaps. If one part of a zone repeatedly shows orders waiting and no nearby drivers, that’s a driver-recruitment signal, not a dispatching problem.
Debrief reassignments. Frequent reassignments off the same driver or outlet usually point to a fixable root cause.

Auto-dispatch — automated assignment
Drivers — onboarding and managing your fleet
Delivery networks — third-party fulfillment
Order lifecycle — where the delivery leg fits