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Conrad's avatar
Conrad
Contributor 3
2 months ago

Summer 2 weekly/winter 4 weekly job scheduling

Wondering if anyone has ideas of how to setup/manage jobs on the schedule across winter & summer. We have a lawn and garden care business, most jobs are on a 2 week schedule during summer. And 4 weekly in winter. So twice a year around the change of seasons I manually edit each job to change the frequency as well as the job title so I can easily see that all jobs are scheduled correctly for the season. 

As we grow and gain more jobs, the time involved in this is growing as well... interested to hear if anyone else has thought of a more efficient way to handle this? Currently the process is: click job on the schedule > click the Job # > click Edit > update Job Title > select "New Custom Schedule..." > enter new number and click Ok > click "I Understand" > click Update Job. Repeat for every job... this easily takes me a whole day, if not longer after interruptions from regular business operations...

Seasonal scheduling is the only way I can think to really solve it - for example "every 2 weeks from September to April" then "every 4 weeks from May to August". 

There is a transition period between the seasons when we'll adjust jobs to 3 weekly, which depends on the growing conditions at the time, but if there was a way to set the 2/4 weekly schedule I'd just be able to tell customers that the visits are set.

  • Hi there! I am in a similar situation. 

    We do not offer any per push. 

    What I have done is I added tags to each Winter client 

    Examples: 

    2.5 CM, November 1st - April 30th , Plow, Salt Sand, Salt, Shovel 

    5 CM, November 1st - March 31st, Plow 

    2.5 CM, November 1st - March 31st, Plow, Salt Sand 

    I think I am going to set them up as Job (as needed) for 6 months or 5 

    I have made individual job sheets for each service. 

    ie. plow, salt sand etc. 

    Here are my brief notes that I have so far: 

    WINTER - JOBBER

     

    1. SCHEDULE
    2. MORE ACTIONS (RIGHT)
    3. VISITS (UNDER)
    4. AND CLIENT IS TAGGED “XXXXX” select which 2.5 etc etc etc

     

    Winter notes:

    List ie: PLOW - 123 Disney Lane 

    Start time when on site,

    Take Before pictures

    complete timer when done

    Take after pictures

    Fill out job sheet

    “Complete job”

    Winter:

    Use “list view”

    Winter “notes”

    Plow - Winter 2024-2025 

    Salt  - Winter 2024-2025

    Salt Sand  - Winter 2024-2025

    Walkway Salt/Shovel  - Winter 2024-2025 

     

    Hope this helps, I'm not exactly there yet but should have a better idea by next week. 

     

    • Conrad's avatar
      Conrad
      Contributor 3

      Sounds like you have a bit going on at each property! 

      We also have multiple services at some properties, but we just create a job for each service which also helps us track the job times more accurately. But for us the extras are less often and more consistent year round, so hedge trimming may be 3 monthly. Liquids/granular product applications 6 or 12 monthly. I set those visits on a recurring schedule and it's fine. 

      Interested to see how you go with that method.