Driver Portal

What it does — Drivers get their own portal rather than the admin dashboard. It holds only what someone needs on the road: the day's stops, the owners and dogs behind them, a line to the office, and their own rota. There are two ways in, depending on whether driving is someone's whole job or one of the hats they wear.

• Driver role — Portal-only. They sign in straight to the Driver Portal and can't reach the admin dashboard.
• Assign as Driver — Gives anyone the Driver Portal and makes them assignable to routes without changing their role. Whoever set up your account has it on from the start.
• The bar along the bottom — The same on every page: Pickups, Dropoffs, Owners, Chat, Schedule, Profile. On a tablet or computer the same pages are in the menu.
• In the browser or as an app — The Driver Portal works in any browser. Genera Driver for iPhone and Android is the same portal as a native app; see Mobile apps.

What it does — What your drivers see on their phones during the run: their stops in order, what each dog is booked in for that day, and a tick to confirm each pickup and drop-off. Every tick is recorded against the driver who made it, with the time.

• What the dog is booked in for — A stop used to show only a name and an address, which cannot tell a driver whether this is an all-day daycare run or a groom the salon is holding a slot open for. The service and its timeslot now sit on the stop itself.
• Chain of custody — Every pickup and drop-off records the driver who confirmed it and the exact time. It is the driver who tapped, not whoever the route was assigned to — so a run covered by someone else credits the person who actually did it.
• The same record on the calendar — The transport icon on a booking in the dashboard calendar carries the same detail. Hover it to read, for example, "Collected by Sam at 08:42".
• Navigation lives on the run — Open pickups in Maps is a full-width button at the top of the run rather than a round button on the bottom bar, and the three map apps open in a card from the bottom of the screen. Which stops it plots depends on whether the driver is looking at pickups or drop-offs.
• One bar on every page — The routes screen used to draw its own bottom bar in a different order from the rest of the app. There is now a single bar everywhere, it carries Chat throughout, and it stays put at tablet width instead of disappearing.
• Look anyone up mid-run — Owners on the bottom bar opens the full owner and dog directory, so a driver is no longer limited to the stops in front of them. See Owner lookup below.
• One-day addresses on the stop — If the office or the customer set a different collection or drop-off address for the day, the stop and its map links use it, clearly labelled so the driver doesn't go to the usual house.
• Navigates to the exact house — Each stop carries the full address, including the second line where a flat sits in a named block, and the precise map point the office sees. A maps app no longer searches a block name and lands on the same-named building in another part of town.
• Photos added from a stop — Photos a driver adds to a dog's gallery from the stop are credited to them, appear in the office's notifications, and notify the owner like any other upload.

What it does — A directory of every owner and dog at your daycare, inside the driver app — not just the stops on today's run. Drivers use it to find an address, call an owner, read the office's instructions for a dog, and leave notes for whoever collects that dog next.

• What drivers can see — Every owner and dog at your daycare, with contact details, addresses and the transport half of the pet record. Not billing, not invoices, not anything to do with money.
• Driver notes — An append-only list per owner and per dog, with the author and time on each. Drivers can delete their own; nobody edits anyone else's. Visible to your office as well as your drivers, and never to customers.
• Messaging is still day-scoped — The Message button opens a chat thread only when one of that owner's dogs is on the driver's run that day. It is checked on our side too, not just hidden in the app.
• Addresses stay read-only — Drivers can copy an address or open it in a map, but not change it. Address corrections go through your office as they always have.
• Email is searchable but not shown — A driver who knows an owner's email can find them by typing it, but the address itself is never displayed in the driver app.

What it does — Drivers get two kinds of thread. At the top is their own line to the office, which is open every day and which they can start themselves. Below it, deliberately narrower, are customer threads: a driver can only reach customers who have a dog booked in that day, and the check is made fresh every time rather than granted once, so the access appears with the day's bookings and goes away with them. That is what makes "running about ten minutes late" possible without handing a driver your whole customer list.

• Drivers have a line to the office — Every driver has a thread with the office at the top of their Messages page. It is open every day, and they can start it themselves. See Messaging your team.
• Customer threads are day-scoped — A driver sees a customer's thread only on days that customer has a dog booked in, and the check is re-made every time rather than granted once.
• A driver is a driver everywhere — Holding both a driver and a staff record does not quietly upgrade someone to the full staff inbox.
• Where — The driver portal → Messages, or Chat on the bottom bar.