Work Schedule

pcplumber

I am lax and allow my employees to work when they feel like working. They are supposed to work every other weekend, but many do not work more than a few weekends a year. I have some installation crews that work 7 days a week and they are not listed on the following calendar. There are many weekends I need help and I don't because we do not take the time to make a new calendar every month.

This is a calendar I make with MS Word. It is very time-consuming to changed the numbers every month. It takes about 20 minutes and this is a lot of time when I have a million things to do, like write posts on CT. I have been looking for a canned program than can do something similar to this and I found one, but there was not enough room to enter more than one employee's name and the program was difficult to use.

If anyone knows of a program that can do something similar to this chart I would appreciate it.

Attached Files

Calendar June 2009.pdf (11.7 KB, 189 views)

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Pearce Services

I am sure this is not what you were looking for, but I'll take a shot in the dark with this.......Have you tried using a Gantt Chart?

http://www.vertex42.com/ExcelTemplat...t-MF_large.gif

instead of putting components of a project in the rows, just put their names. In this example, they have a Red Line that shows todays date, which would be a nice little visual reminder of who is up, and who is on deck

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Kevin

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KentWhitten

Microsoft Project, though I don't think it will be the same as what you have there. Flexibility may reward you with a better strategy.

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carolinahandyma

For a free, easy to use online calendar/scheduling system, take a look at Google Calendar. - www.google.com/calendar .

You can color code each of your staff, print out schedules and share with staff by giving them access online. One great time-saving feature it has is the ability to duplicate events. So once you have entered information once, you can duplicate it. Also, for repeating events, which it appear you have, you can select when events repeat.

WarriorWithWood

I'll second Microsoft Project.

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Warren

I'm not sure you need another program. Seems like no matter what you use as a program, if you don't enforce the rules it won't matter much. How many employees do you have? Are you working in the field as well and do you work weekends too? Setting a good example makes it easier to enforce the rules. In tough economic times such as these, rule enforcement should be easier.

Aggie67

We used a board system at first, and then went to the attached spreadsheet because we thought it would be easier to do with the PM's all over the state. We subscribed to a site called SmoothProjects and kept this spreadsheet up there for constant update. The spreadsheet is also used to track billing cycles.

It didn't work well. Turns out that we eliminated a great opportunity for the group to get together face to face and communicate, work out obstacles, strategize, etc. We went back to the board version late last year.

I personally use a piece of software called i-Lore for project management, but not scheduling. I haven't seen a good scheduler that beats a homegrown spreadsheet - yet. I'm anxiously awaiting something good to come along. I have 3 different companies that I'm trying to schedule, and the board system still works best.

Attached Files

manning sheet.pdf (35.5 KB, 95 views)

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pcplumber

I'll look into these suggestions and maybe get some good ideas.

Thank you very much.

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jimmys

We tried to use The Calendar Planner software. It's very logical and easy to use, but it is time consuming (boring) to make the adjustments to keep the calendar current. TCP will write to Outlook, import/export Excel spreadsheets, set reminders, isolate one job from another, etc. It's very thorough, costs around $90. Like any system, more use = more comfort.
Company's name is Reel Logix, tutorial on web site.

Jim

modterry

PCP Plumber - A couple of ideas

1) Why not get the staff involved - assign someone to take care of it. From the sounds of your operation you should be training a foreman / super any way - let them come up with a cover solution ( Like doctors do )

then;

2) You use Access and seem very good at it - I think I saw a calendar program written in access that can schedule. I will try and find it for you.

3) An on line calendar would work well - your staff could check in ( Yea right ! ) and see their schedule.

Do you pay some amount for being on call ?

Terry

greg24k

Been using this for many years, love it Active Desktop Calendar

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