Table of Contents
Purpose
It’s important to make sure that your crews get to their jobs with the correct materials, their hours are tracked appropriately, and have accurate directions to make sure they make it to your customer’s properties.
The Scheduling module in Aspire can help you with all of those things and more!
There are some key features of this module which we will discuss below.
📑Part of understanding how to use the Scheduling module is understanding how routes are created, it’s a good idea to read Creating and Managing Routes here before you get started!
Requirements
✅In order to access the Scheduling module, you’ll need either Read Only Access to Schedule Board or Full Access to the Schedule Board added to your user role.
✅In order to access employee time for routes you are the manager of, you will need to have My Reports added to your user role.
✅In order to access Weekly Time Review and approve time, you will need to have Approve Time added to your user role.
✅To view and approve any employee’s time, regardless of branch, you must have View All Time added to your user role.
✅To use Route Scheduling in the three dot menu on the Scheduling module, you’d need Route Scheduling added to your user role.
Key Terminology for the Scheduling Module
As you dive into understanding the scheduling module, it’s important to know the various terms that you will see as you work through your work tickets, take a look below:
Term | Definition |
Ops Manager | Oversees some or all of your operation and workforce. |
Route | A team of crew members who travel and work together led by a Crew Leader. |
Crew Leader | This is a person that manages and directs a Route as they go about their work. |
Occurrence | A job or project the Route is assigned to at a single property. |
Visit | Visits are part of occurrences which are specific work sessions where the Route’s crew members actually go onsite and perform tasks like mowing, planting, trimming and more to complete the landscaping job.
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Creating Routes
Before you schedule your opportunity work tickets, you’ll need to set up your Routes. In Aspire, Routes describe a crew of employees set up to perform work on scheduled work tickets for a given time period.
Then, these routes are added to the Schedule Board to build out your team's working locations for the weeks to come!
📑To learn more about setting up Routes, click here.
Navigation of the Scheduling Module
As you begin to understand the power of the Scheduling module, it’ll help to know where to locate important features and what options are available as you work towards building your weekly or monthly schedule.
Scheduling and Weekly Time Review
At the top, you’ll notice two tabs, Scheduling and Weekly Time Review.
Scheduling takes you to view the schedule board, and Weekly Time Review will take you hours recorded by your employees for the week that is selected in the calendar picker:
📑Access more information about Weekly Time Review here!
If you navigate back to the Scheduling tab, there are some drop down menus available for use:
Manager
The Manager drop down allows you to review the managers for the routes you have created. Managers are added to the drop down in the Schedule Board when their Routes are created. Typically, managers displayed here are the route’s Operation Manager.
📑To learn more about Route creation and Managers, read here.
Selecting a specific manager will display their calendar for the week and their routes with the crews that are set for their routes:
In this example, we are reviewing Camille’s schedule and her routes, which are Camille’s Route with the Main Spring Route underneath it! Under each Route Name, are Camille’s crew leaders and crew members for each route.
Routes
Routes are used for scheduling your crew leaders and crew members to jobs that need to be completed. In Aspire, routes are assigned a Manager, Crew Leader, and sometimes, Crew Members.
If you had multiple routes for a single Manager, then you could use the Routes drop down to single out the route you want to focus on:
📑To learn more about Routes, read this article.
Man Hours vs. Crew Hours
Understanding how Man and Crew Hours behave is important based on the type of scheduling you want to view.
Choosing Man will display man-hours. Choosing Crew will display crew hours.
To explain this further:
Man Hours are how many hours each crew member can work.
Crew Hours are how many hours each crew as a whole can work.
Occurrences
The Occurrences drop-down determines the meaning of occurrence numbers on the visits inside of the scheduling module. There are two options: Actual and Annualized.
For contracts with recurring services, Aspire creates a work ticket for each service occurrence when the opportunity is won.
The work tickets, which may occur over multiple years, are numbered based on the expected service order. This number is the Actual occurrence number of the job’s tickets.
If you select the Annualized option, Aspire will display a number representing the number of visits scheduled in the current calendar year.
Include Drive Time
By default, Aspire displays a progress bar on visit tiles for work orders and contracts on the Schedule Board.
🧠You can turn this off by selecting your Profile Icon ▶️Administration ▶️Configuration ▶️Unclick the checkbox for Hide Work Ticket Progress Bar.
The progress bar shows the percentage of scheduled hours worked on the job.
If the Include Drive Time toggle button is turned on, then drive time is included when calculating the percent complete of hours worked on your job.
If the toggle button is turned off, then drive time is excluded when calculating the percent complete of your job.
Working Days, Week View, Clipboard Icon, and the Three Dot Menu
The Working Days dropdown allows you to set the schedule board view to display the days of the week that there will be scheduled visits.
The Clipboard Icon is where Work Tickets generated from your Opportunities are stored. We will discuss this in the following section. Click here to skip to the next section!
The dropdown next to the Working Days drop down allows you to choose to view the Schedule Board in Week View or in Month View.
The three dot menu hosts a number of different options:
Work Ticket List
Displays the Work Ticket Search List. You can search and select work tickets to drag onto the schedule board.
Schedule an Event
Supports scheduling of visits based on an event, like a snow event.
Choosing this option takes you to the Schedule an Event screen.
Equipment Location Search
Displays the Equipment Location Search screen which is a map showing an icon for each vehicle assigned to a route.
Vehicles associated with routes will be colored based on their route color in this screen.
Route Scheduling
Helps with scheduling of visits on routes and setting the visit order for property locations displayed on a map.
Selecting this option displays the Route Scheduling screen.
As Needed Exceptions
This option supports scheduling visits for As Needed services that do not have existing work tickets scheduled during a certain time frame.
This option displays the As Needed Exceptions Search List.
Manage Routes
This option takes you to the Route Details screen.
You can add, edit, or deactivate routes here.
Optimize Routes
This option takes you to the Route Optimization screen.
To learn more about the Route Optimization feature in Aspire, please read here.
Adding Work Tickets to the Schedule Board
Now that you understand the many different dropdowns and menus of the Scheduling module, you can begin to schedule work tickets for your jobs!
Selecting the clipboard icon or choosing Work Ticket List from the three dot menu will bring you to the Work Ticket Search List.
The work tickets you will see in the Work Ticket Search List are automatically added here when your Opportunities are won.
🧠Remember, estimates that are in Won status generate work tickets and are also seen in the Work Ticket module, but also get added here!
📑To read about winning Opportunities, click here!
The Work Ticket Search List stores all of your opportunities’ work tickets that are available to be used on the Schedule Board.
To get a work ticket onto the schedule board, you can select your ticket and drag it to your desired day of the week.
Selecting the grab icon will allow you to pull the ticket onto the schedule board.
📑To learn more about searching inside of the Work Ticket Search List for tickets, read this article.
Once the ticket is on the Schedule Board, it will create a Visit.
🧠Visits are the planned work for the service that your team is responsible for. Occurrences are how many times the service will be completed at the property.
As you continue to add Visits to your Manager’s routes, it’s best to learn about the symbols you might come across to understand what they mean.
Work Ticket Statuses
Work Ticket statuses represent the progress of work tickets as they are added to the schedule board, are marked as in progress, or are marked as completed.
Here’s a quick explanation of what each status means:
*= optional
Status | Definition |
Open | This work ticket has not yet been scheduled. |
Complete | This work ticket has been scheduled and is now completed. |
Scheduled | This work ticket has been scheduled for future work. |
Pending Approval* | This work ticket has been scheduled, and completed by the Crew Leader, and is waiting for the work ticket to be approved by an office member or admin that has Approve Work Ticket added to their user role. |
Understanding Visit Tile Information
Once you schedule Visits on to the schedule board, you’ll notice that there are some icons and numbers attached to them!
Here’s a chart to explain what those mean:
Visit | Definition |
The recycle symbol on the left side of the tile tells you that the work ticket is part of a recurring schedule. | |
The clipboard on the left side of the Visit means that this is the last work ticket for the service. | |
The fraction before the name of the Property on the visit lets you know which occurrence the ticket is.
🧠In this example we have scheduled the fourth visit out of twelve total visits. | |
The check mark symbol on the left side of the tile indicates that the work ticket’s status is in Complete status. | |
Selecting the X in the upper right-hand corner of the tile will delete the visit. | |
The status bar represents a percentage of completed work ticket’s hours compared to the number of Budgeted Hours on the work ticket.
The system will use Work Ticket Actual Hours / Budgeted Work Ticket Hours.
If the Work Ticket Actual Hours exceed the Budgeted Work Ticket Hours, the status bar will appear in red. | |
The colored text indicates that the work ticket was marked as complete in Crew Mobile.
📌Note: The work tickets status may not yet be set to Complete if the time was not yet accepted on the Time Entry screen. | |
The blue mobile device icon in the bottom left corner of the Visit means that someone is clocked into a work ticket for that day. | |
The green circle means that time in Time Entry has been reviewed and saved. | |
When a route has been optimized on the Schedule Board, a green check mark shows the visits that have been optimized.
📌Note: If any changes are made to a the visit the check box is removed until the visit is re-optimized. |
In addition to visits that have been scheduled, you can move the visits to a different day by clicking and dragging.
You also have access to single or right click to get additional menus to appear to complete more actions which we will discuss in the next section!
Additional Options for Visits
As you begin to use the schedule board and your visits in real time, there are more options you have access to when it comes to completing your scheduling tasks in Aspire.
A lot of functionality is hidden under the right and single clicks when hovering over a work ticket or a schedule board day of the week!
If you right click in the box containing the Crew Leader and Members for the route, you will see the Print Weekly Timesheet, Print Weekly Work Tickets and Optimize Routes options.
Print Weekly Timesheet
Selecting Print Weekly Timesheet will allow you to print a timesheet layout for the route.
Print Weekly Work Tickets
Selecting Print Weekly Work Tickets allows you to print a Layout for all scheduled Work Tickets for that week.
Optimize Routes
Selecting Optimize Routes will optimize your visits on your routes.
If you choose to right click on a visit that has been scheduled, the menu opens to give you even more options!
Open Time Entry
This option allows you to view the Time Entry screen for the route and day of the visit.
Edit Visit
This option shows the visit screen for you to make edits.
Scheduling Assistant
Selecting this option takes you to the Scheduling Assistant.
The Scheduling assistant automates the recommended schedules of work ticket visits.
Open Work Ticket
This option displays the work ticket screen for the visit.
Edit Recurring Schedule
If the visit is part of a recurring schedule, this option is available. This allows you to edit the recurring schedule that the visit is on.
View Recurring Calendar
This option is displayed if your recurring schedule has been set for the visit and you need to review the recurring calendar.
Insert Blank Days
This option will allow you to shift visits forward so that no visits are scheduled on the day you had previously scheduled for.
When this option is chosen, Aspire displays a screen which asks you to set how many days the visit should be shifted forward, and if shifted visits should be allowed to land on weekends.
Show Property on Map
This option displays Google Maps in a new tab to display the location of the property for the visit.
Show Route on Map
This option displays Google Maps in a new tab to display the route for the visit.
Create Receipt
This option displays the Work Ticket Receipt screen and allows you to create purchase receipts for items that are on the work ticket for the visit.
📌Note: This option is only available if you have Add Receipt added to your user role.
Optimize Route
Selecting Optimize Routes will optimize your visits on your routes.
📑To learn more about Route Optimization, please read this article.
📹To watch our Schedule Board video, click here!