Tip: How to Schedule Like a Pro!

Urgh, scheduling! Necessary for keeping projects on track but painful if you’re not using the right software.

Thankfully, though, you’re using Fieldwire! 🎉

With our construction scheduling software, you can easily organize, assign, and distribute work no matter where you are. By importing tasks, using filters, and truly understanding Fieldwire’s Gantt view, project scheduling becomes a breeze. Let me explain...

Are you sick of double data entry?

Use Fieldwire’s task importer to bring in multiple tasks from your project schedule. No matter whether your schedule is stored in Primavera P6, Microsoft Project, or Excel, simply export it as a spreadsheet and copy/paste all of the items into our task importer.

Here’s a quick overview of how to do that:

• Click on '+Import tasks' in the top left while on the task tab
• Copy/paste each line item into the task importer
• Add priorities, categories, due dates, and an assignee to ensure that each activity is tracked and completed on-time

Tired of hosting meetings that never end on-time?

In your weekly schedule meetings, there’s no time to waste. That’s why we recommend planning your work directly from Fieldwire’s Gantt view. Here’s how:

• Move tasks around and extend dates by hovering over the task and dragging to the desired dates
• Drag and drop any tasks that still need to be scheduled from the right side of the screen to instantly add start and end dates

Extra tip: Everyone associated with a task will be notified in real-time about any changes, so there’s no need to send various email updates following a meeting.

Want to know more than just a tasks start and end date?

Add ‘Manpower’ to your Fieldwire tasks to track the amount of effort that’s required to complete work. The graph at the top of the Gantt view sums up the manpower intensity of all tasks in the view on any given day.

Use this information to sequence and plan your work based on your manpower restraints. E.g. How many workers do I need on-site on a given date to meet my deadline?

Wish you could isolate specific tasks?

Use filters to achieve your desired schedule view. For example, if you only want to see all tasks with the ‘Location’ of ‘Building 1,’ you would select ‘Filter tasks’ and search for Building 1 in the location field. By sorting and temporarily eliminating some noise from your Gantt or calendar view, you can truly focus on the task at hand!

Having trouble tracking dependencies?

If you’re having trouble tracking dependencies or managing subtasks, it’s time to create what we call ‘related tasks.’ Once you create a relationship between two tasks, they will both appear within each other anytime you open either one. This way, you know which task (or tasks) to complete first to keep projects on track.

Note: If you change the start and/or end date of a task, the start and/or end date of a related task won’t automatically change.

Need an efficient way to view task sequencing on mobile?

The last thing you want to be doing on-site is sifting through all of your tasks, trying to figure out what needs to be done next. To avoid this scenario and save time in the field, make sure all of your tasks have start and end dates. You can sort tasks by start or end date to ensure they appear sequentially in your task list on mobile.

For a full overview of task features on mobile, please read this helpful guide.

If you have any questions about these tips, please email support@feldwire.com. And don’t forget to check our resource center for plenty more Help Guides.