The Planner tab is where a company works out who goes where, a week at a time, across all of its sites. People are listed down the left, Monday to Sunday runs across, and each day holds the sites that person is on, in the order they will visit them. When the week is ready you send it, and each person is told their own week: on their phone, or by email if their phone cannot be reached.
It is for the Sunday night job of spreading the crew across the jobs, done once in BuildersAI instead of in a notebook and a round of texts.
How to get there (app.buildersai.co.uk):
- Click the BuildersAI logo in the top-left corner to reach All projects
- If you work for more than one company, check the organisation name beside the logo. The planner is that company’s
- Click Planner in the row of tabs
It opens on this week, or on next week from Thursday onwards, because by then next week is the one being planned. The arrows at the top move a week at a time.
Arranging a week (owners and admins of the company):
- Click a person’s day to open it
- Under Add a site, click a site. Only the sites that person is already on are offered
- Add a Note if it helps, such as “from 1pm” or “bring the core drill”. A note is up to 200 characters
- Click Save. The day is saved as a whole, so its sites, their order and their notes are always what you last saw
Not on the site you want? While there are sites the person could still be added to, the day offers a way to People, where you add them to it first. Then the site is offered here.
More than one site in a day: add a second site to the same day. The order of the day is the order they are listed in, so “Smith Street, then Hall Lane from 1pm” reads that way to the person who goes. Move a site up or down to change it. A day with two sites and no note says that a note such as “from 1pm” tells them when to go to each. It is a hint, and the day saves without one. A day holds up to six sites, and the same site cannot be in one day twice. Times and half days are not part of it: a note says “from 1pm” better than a fixed midday.
Copy last week: most weeks look like the last one, so Copy last week puts last week’s plan into the week on screen in one go. It replaces whatever is already planned for that week, and asks first when there is something to replace. A day on a site that person is no longer on, or on a job that has finished, is not copied, and the message afterwards says how many were left out. Copy last week is on the phone’s Planner too.
Only sites somebody is already on. A person can only be planned onto a live site of the company where they are an admin or a member. The planner never gives anybody access to a job. If somebody you need is not on a site yet, add them to it from People first, where seats, the plan and everything else that decides who joins a job still apply. That way nobody is sent to a site they cannot open on their phone.
- Followers are not planned: they are not crew
- A finished (archived) job, and a demo, are not offered
- A job whose subscription has lapsed takes no new plan
Who is off. The planner reads the Availability tab, so a day somebody is off is shaded and marked on the board before you put them anywhere:
- Off: they have time off recorded for that day
- Company day off: a day the whole company is off, such as a bank holiday
- Not their working day: a day their own working week leaves out, for somebody who does not work Fridays, say
It warns and never blocks. You can still plan somebody on a day they are off, and it saves with a note under the cell saying so, because sometimes the right answer is to move the time off. The reason somebody is off is shown only to the company’s owners and admins, as on the Availability tab. See the “availability” topic.
Sending the week:
- Nobody is told anything while you arrange it. Change it as often as you like: nothing reaches anybody’s phone until you send
- Send week sends it. Everybody with something planned that week is told their own week, and nobody else’s
- The line above the board says where the week stands: not sent yet and how many people have something planned, sent with everybody up to date, or how many people’s weeks have changed since you sent it
- Once a week has been sent, changes you make stay with you until you click Send changes. That tells only the people whose week is now different from what they were last sent, including somebody whose days have all been taken off. Somebody whose week did not change hears nothing, so pressing it twice sends nothing the second time
- A site somebody has since come off, or a job that has finished since you planned it, is left out of what is sent. It stays on your board, marked Not sent with the reason: “they are no longer on this site” or “this job has finished”. Under the line above the board, another says how many sites will not be sent, and the message after sending says how many were left out. Take the site off that day, or add the person back to the job from People, and the mark goes
What each person receives:
- A push on their phone. The first time a week is sent it tells them their week, day by day. After Send changes it says their week has changed and names the days that changed. Tapping it opens Your week
- An email instead, when we cannot reach their phone: they have not got the app, or have turned push notifications off. Then the email is how they hear
- The push follows the Task Assignments switch in their notification settings. Somebody who has switched it off is not emailed instead: they have chosen not to hear about it
- Nothing lands in the notifications list. Your week is where it stays, and it always shows the latest week they were sent
Where people see their week:
- In the browser: All projects, then Mine, then Your week, the first of Mine’s chips. It shows each day’s sites in order, with their notes, when it was sent, and who else is going to the same site that day
- On the phone, on a project’s Home: a card saying where they are going today and tomorrow, under the check-in bar. It is there only when today or tomorrow takes them to another site, because a day spent on the project already open would only repeat the page. A site that is not the open project can be tapped to go to it, and See your week opens the whole week
- On the phone, with no project open: the same card above the list of projects, on any day they have something planned
- On the phone, in Mine: open All projects (the grid button at the top of a project, or Select Project), tap Mine, and Your week is the first chip. It is kept on the phone, so it reads with no signal
Each person sees only what was sent to them. They do not see the planner’s board, or anything you have changed and not yet sent. Who else is on their site that day is shown to the site’s admins and members by name, the same people the job’s own crew list already shows them. A follower sees only their own week.
On the phone (administrators): open All projects and tap Planner. A phone shows one day at a time, because a week does not fit across one: the people, each with their sites for that day. Tap a person to change their day, and Send week or Send changes is at the top. It needs a connection.
SiteBot cannot read the planner yet, so the board and Your week are the places to look.
Who can do what:
- Arranging and sending the week is for the company’s owners and admins
- Seeing the board is also offered, read only, to anybody who administers at least one of the company’s live projects. A day on a site you are not on (or only follow) reads Another site, so you see that somebody is busy without being told where
- Your week is for everybody who has been sent one, admins, members and followers alike
- A project that is not in an organisation has no planner, and a demo project cannot be planned onto