Planning and Operations

Start from the backlog

Begin every planning session by reviewing unscheduled demand before scheduling new work.

1. Open the scheduler and click the Unscheduled focus tab.
2. Scan for jobs that need dates and assignments.
3. Use the Unassigned tab next to find jobs that have dates but no engineer.
4. Prioritise blocking warnings — click Blocked to see jobs that cannot be deployed until issues are resolved.

This ensures no work falls through the cracks before you start making assignments.

Edit a single job

1. Click any job card in the board, timeline, or planner list.
2. The Quick View dialog opens with:
   • A hero section showing title, site, system, and current warnings
   • The latest change (who changed what, when)
   • Site scheduling rules and access notes
3. Edit the fields you need:
   • Assignee — select from eligible engineers
   • Scheduling intent — exact date or target month
   • Booking status — provisional, date offered, confirmed, or do not move
   • Engineer visibility — optional visible-from and visible-until window
   • Duration — estimated time in minutes (15-minute minimum)
   • Status — for tasks only; inspections and work orders manage status from their own detail flows
   • Priority — low, normal, high, or urgent (work orders and tasks only)
4. If the job uses Exact date, choose a scheduled date and time before saving.
5. If the job uses Target month, choose the month and leave the exact date blank until the visit is genuinely booked.
6. Save.

The Quick View also lets you record customer appointment notifications for exact-dated offered or confirmed visits.

Create a planner task

Planner tasks are scheduler-native work items for activity that is not an inspection or work order — surveys, dilapidation reports, remedial work, maintenance, or other.

1. Click New Task in the action bar.
2. Fill in:
   • Title (required, 2-200 characters)
   • Type — survey, dilapidation, remedial, maintenance, or other
   • Description (optional)
   • Site and system (optional but recommended for geographic planning)
   • Assignee, date, duration, and priority
3. Save.

Tasks appear in the scheduler alongside inspections and work orders. They are fully editable including status. Exact-date planner tasks require a scheduled date and time. Target-month planner tasks require a target month. Deucalion rejects a task save when the scheduling intent is incomplete, so the planner does not create ambiguous work.

Build an optimised day run

The day-run builder creates a route-optimised schedule for an engineer's day.

1. Click Build Day Run in the action bar.
2. Select the engineer and target date.
3. The algorithm scores candidate jobs and suggests an ordered route.

How scoring works:

Travel estimates use haversine distance at 32 km/h average speed plus 10 minutes overhead per stop.

4. Review the suggested route and estimated travel times.
5. Adjust the stop order if needed.
6. Click Apply — jobs are assigned to the engineer and scheduled for that date in one action.

Import recurring work

Use recurring import for annual inspection programmes or other regular work cycles.

1. Click Import in the action bar.
2. Upload a CSV file with the required columns (site, system, inspection type, scheduling fields).
3. Review the preview — it shows how many jobs will be created, updated, or skipped.
4. Choose a conflict policy for jobs that already exist:

5. Click Apply to commit the import.

Up to 50 inspections can be created in a single batch import.

Batch create inspections

When you need to schedule inspections across multiple systems at a site:

1. Click Batch Inspections in the action bar.
2. Select the site and the systems to inspect.
3. Choose the inspection type — annual or 6-monthly.
4. Assign an engineer and optionally set scheduling fields.
5. Review the preview.
6. Click Create.

Up to 50 inspections per batch. Each inspection inherits the site's geographic data and scheduling rules.

Use the guidance rail

The guidance rail is the right-hand sidebar providing operational awareness without searching.

Capacity section

Route suggestions

Geographic clusters of unscheduled work that could form efficient routes. Each suggestion shows:

• A title (e.g. "SW London cluster")
• A summary (e.g. "4 unscheduled jobs in SW1, SW3")
• Click to filter the scheduler to that geographic area

Route suggestions appear when 2 or more unscheduled jobs share a postcode area or city.

Deployment activity

Recent deployment batches with timestamps and acknowledgement progress. The deployment section shows awaiting and acknowledged counts so planners can track which engineers have opened their day run.

Recent changes

An activity feed showing the latest scheduler mutations — assignments, date changes, status updates — with who made them and when. Each change supports undo to restore the previous state.

Operational metadata

Every scheduled job carries metadata that communicates access and resourcing requirements to the field.

Use booking and visibility controls

1. Keep tentative work as Provisional.
2. Use Date offered when the customer has been offered the slot.
3. Use Confirmed when the visit is agreed.
4. Use Do not move only for locked visits that should block ordinary movement.
5. Set engineer visibility windows when the job should only appear to the assigned field resource inside a defined time window.

Customer appointment notifications require an exact scheduled date, customer email, and a booking status of Date offered or Confirmed.

Crew size

The number of people required on site. Defaults to 1. Set higher when the job requires a multi-person team (e.g. two-person scaffold erection). A 👥 badge with the count appears on the job card when crew size exceeds 1.

Access equipment

The specific equipment needed to complete the work:

Each selected equipment type appears as a separate badge on the job card. Equipment values are validated server-side — unrecognised or duplicate values are rejected.

Out of hours

A flag indicating the work must happen outside normal working hours. When enabled, an OOH accent badge appears on the job card.

Site access notes

Inherited from the site record (not editable from the scheduler). When present, an Access badge with tooltip appears on the job card. This typically includes parking instructions, key holder contacts, or security requirements.

Drag and drop

The board and timeline views support drag-and-drop for quick reassignment and rescheduling.

Board view: Drag a card between engineer lanes to reassign.

Timeline views: Drag a card along the time axis to reschedule within the day or across days.

Visual feedback during drag:

• Green drop zone — valid move
• Red zone — invalid move (e.g. incompatible status)
• Ghost card — semi-transparent preview follows the cursor
• Drop hint — blue pill shows the target lane or time

Invalid moves are prevented at drop time with a validation check.

Example workflows

Weekly planning session

1. Open the scheduler with the date range set to next week.
2. Switch to Week Timeline to see the spread across days.
3. Use Unassigned focus to find work that needs engineers.
4. Check the Capacity section for overloaded engineers.
5. Bulk Edit to assign batches to available engineers.
6. Switch to Map to verify geographic distribution.
7. Review Route Suggestions and act on good clusters.
8. Convert any target-month work that is now genuinely booked into exact dates and times.
9. Use Ready to deploy focus to find complete work.
10. Select and Deploy the batch.

Responding to an engineer absence

1. Filter to the absent engineer.
2. Select all their jobs for the affected dates.
3. Bulk Edit → enable only the Assignee toggle → reassign.
4. The deployment state resets to draft — re-deploy when ready.

Planning access equipment work

1. Filter by Equipment → select MEWP (or other type).
2. Switch to Map to see the geographic spread.
3. Group nearby jobs onto the same day and engineer to minimise equipment transport.
4. Use Crew size in bulk edit if multiple jobs need a two-person crew.
5. Deploy the batch.

Building an optimised day run

1. Click Build Day Run.
2. Select the engineer and target date.
3. Review the suggested route and estimated travel times.
4. Adjust stop order if needed.
5. Apply — jobs are assigned and scheduled in one action.

Troubleshooting