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The crew-on-the-way text

The text your customer gets when the foreman heads out — where its words come from and how to change them.

3 min readChecked October 22, 2026
Owner & adminDispatcher

When the foreman presses EN ROUTE, the customer gets a text with the crew's arrival time (the Arrival Time Notification on the foreman's phone). This page is about the words of that text.

It lives in Settings › Communication › Templates as Crew on the way (arrival time). Out of the box it says:

Hi {first name}, {company name}'s crew is on the way and should arrive at about {arrival time} ({minutes}). Reply to this message if you have any questions.

New companies' built-in text also has the live map line (see below).

Change the words

  1. Open Settings › Communication › Templates.
  2. Find the text template Crew on the way (arrival time) (search "arrival time"). Older companies may have it as Movers on the way.
  3. Change the words. Keep the arrival-time variable in it — that's where the foreman's minutes go.
  4. Save.

Every company has this template. Even with no template at all, the customer still gets the words above. If you switch the template off, no arrival text goes out: the foreman's phone says your company has switched off the arrival time text, and they continue without notifying and call the customer.

How it's sent

  • The foreman sends it from their phone when they leave — see Send the ETA text and go En Route.
  • It's sent as the foreman's own message, not an automatic one, so it goes at once (no quiet hours) and they can send it again if plans change.
  • It goes through the same texting rules as any text: opt-outs, numbers that can't receive texts, your texting balance.
  • If it doesn't reach the customer, the crew and the office are asked to call them.

When your crews use the movers' phone app, the text can carry a link to a live map of the crew. In the template, the variable Crew live map line ([(${CREW_LIVE_MAP_LINE})]) reads Follow your crew live: plus the link, and stays blank when there's no live map, so the text reads well either way. New companies have it in the built-in text. If your own template doesn't have the variable, MoveBoard adds the line at the end of the text (and as the last paragraph of an email) whenever there's a live map for the job. To put the link somewhere else, add the variable where you want it. See Track the movers.

Texts when the crew is close

With the movers' phone app, the customer can also get one text about 5 minutes before the crew reaches each stop. Turn it on in Settings › Customer experience › Track the movers. For your own words or minutes, add a notification on this page (Communication › Crew on the way).

If something goes wrong

On the Crew on the way page:

  • Pick a rule.
  • Give a whole number of minutes, at least 1.
  • Please select a template
  • No template is assigned an approaching rule yet. — assign one in Templates first.
  • Approaching notification rules are not available for this branch yet.
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