Often times our work can get cluttered with things that need to be approached at different times, seasons, or by different crew members.
This can also get confusing for contractors and crew members to log in and see many incomplete work records.
To help with this, we can use work priority, scheduled dates, and crew values to help clear these up.
Once everything is set up and the crews have been informed to start this new workflow, we can check on it’s progress through searching and reporting.
Instructions to Crews
When managing work records, we can instruct crews to focus on work that is has a status of scheduled and the crew value is set to them, performing work on a first in/first out basis by scheduled date, unless otherwise trumped by a higher Priority. If the work record is still Requested, or it is not assigned to them, they should not perform work.
Reports/Quick filters can be set up to highlight when and what work is to be performed each day.
Setup
When creating work records in advance, we can set up the work type, but leave the status as Requested and/or the Crew as TBD until the work is to be performedWork crews and contractors are often relied upon to find/search for the appropriate work that’s been assigned to them within the TreeKeeper software. This can become increasingly difficult when appropriate steps have not been taken to ensure they find the work you’ve intended them to perform quickly and easily.
When creating and assigning work records, properly assiging a work record’s “Project”, “Work Type”, “Crew”, “Status” and “Priority” will provide confidence that the appropriate work gets performed by the appropriate crews without hesitation. In the recommended workflow below, we emphasize using Crew, Status, and the use of Quick Filters for proper scheduling of work.
Once an effective workflow has been put in place, progress of work performed can be tracked through searching and reporting much more easily!
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Setup
When creating work records in advance, we recommend assigning the Project and Work Type, but leaving the Status as Requested and/or the Crew as “To Be Determined” until the work is ready to be performed.
Status (Requested, Scheduled, Completed): When future work is being planned, a work record having a Status of “Requested” can be created. The Crew can be set to “TBD”, and the actual Crew can be assigned or not. Once ready for the work to be performed, update the Status to Scheduled by entering a Scheduled Date. Internal Crews and Contractors can be instructed to ignore "Requested" work... Only "Scheduled" work that is assigned to their crew should be actionable.
Crew: Work can be pre-planned without triggering any crew or contractor action by using a "TBD" crewTo Be Determined" or “TBD” Crew list value. Once the work is ready to be donebe assigned, you can isolate and edit or batch (global) edit the work records to assign the crew Crew and change the status Status to "Scheduled" , with a date, if other than that today (which is the default).
Status: Requested, Scheduled, Completed. When work is first initiated the status of Requested can be used. The Crew can be set to TBD, or the actual Crew can be used. Internal Crews and Contractors can be instructed to ignore "Requested" work... Only "Scheduled" work that is assigned to them should be addressed as actionable.
Priority: Can be used to promote a crew or contractor to address certain work records before others.
Group Quick Filter
A group Scheduled Date. Work Crew Management
Priority: This can be used to signal to a crew or contractor that certain work should be completed before other work. Priority List Management
Pro Tip: Add a prefix to the priority attribute values to enable sorting work by hierarchy or severity.
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Also, sorting the data table within the Work Grid 1st by Priority (ascending) and then by Scheduled Date (ascending) can help crews organize their work!
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Work Type: Work Type should always be assigned before scheduling work. Crews can search the work assigned to them in a scheduled status filtering their results by Work Type if performing one particular task throughout their day.
Project: Projects can be used to both classify work records (for easier searching/filtering) and manage budgets for collections of work.Project List Management
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Create a Group Quick Filter
A Group can be created that has all the users of a particular crew. Once the this group is created, a quick filter Quick Filter can be created that returns and made accessible by only users assigned to that group. This Quick Filter should be constructed to only return Scheduled work records assigned to their crew with a scheduled date of ‘today’those group members (or crew).
When crews/contractors log in, if this filter is the first thing they run, they’ll have a quick list of all the work needed scheduled to be performed that day - by them and no other work.
Group Management: Group Management
Quick Filters: Quick Filters
Instructions to Crews
We recommend instructing crews and contractors that work should only be actionable when the Crew is assigned to them and the Status is set to Scheduled. Additionally, we would recommend instructing crews and contractors to prioritize their work using the Scheduled Date (first in/first out), unless trumped by Priority.
Alert Quick Filters and/or Reports can be set up to help crews more easily find the work that’s been scheduled for them to complete. These would incorporate using a criteria of Crew = their crew, and Status = “Scheduled”.
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