Staff scheduling for construction and trades crews

Two or three crews, a different address each week, and a need to know people were where the job was. Roster Flow rosters the crews and records their hours. It does not quote, dispatch or cost jobs.

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What makes trades and site work hard to roster

The problems that come up in this trade whatever software you use, and what happens here instead.

The site movesAdd each site as a venue with its own address and clock in radius.

A record of attendanceThe distance from the site on every clock in, and a photo if you require one, kept with the time record.

Early starts get forgottenA reminder the night before, at whatever interval suits a five in the morning start.

No officeThe whole thing runs from a phone, for the crew and the leading hand.

Hours arrive as scribbles, a week lateA docket in a ute, a text at nine at night, a number remembered wrongly. Clocking at the gate makes the record while the work is happening instead of reconstructing it on Friday.

Nobody is sure who is starting whereTwo crews and three sites becomes a phone call every morning. The published roster is on each phone, and a change notifies the people it moves.

What you get out of it

The parts of the week that stop taking your evening.

Hours are captured at the gateNo dockets, no notebook, no typing anything up on Friday afternoon.

A missed clock in is fixableIt becomes a correction request with a reason, and you approve it.

Sites cost nothing to addTen sites and three crews is the same subscription as one site.

The estimate prices the crew you actually sentRates are per person, so an apprentice is priced as an apprentice and the leading hand as the leading hand, with your Saturday loading applied where you said it applies.

Friday afternoon stops being adminThe hours are already in, so closing the week is clearing the flagged ones and approving the rest, then sending them to Xero or exporting a CSV.

A typical week, as an example

SundayRoster the crews to sites for the week.

Night beforeReminders go out for the early starts.

On siteClock in with a photo and location check at the gate.

As neededA missed clock in becomes a correction request with a reason.

FridayApprove the week and send hours to payroll.

Two workers in safety gear going over plans on a building site

A carpenter in work gloves marking a length of timber

What it is used for in trades and site work

Specific things people in this trade do with it, rather than a list of modules.

A site set up as a venue, with its address and its own clock in radius
A crew rostered to a site for the days the job runs, then moved to the next one
Early starts with a reminder the night before, at the interval you choose
Distance from the site captured at clock in, and a photo where you require one
Apprentices with their own availability, including the day at trade school
The hours report showing each person with the sites they worked in the period
Leave requested and approved before the crews for that week are built
Approved hours sent to Xero, with no rekeying of a site diary

The week a job ran two days over

Three crews, nine on the tools, two jobs finishing and one starting Wednesday.

The week a job ran two days over: when each thing happened, what happened, and what was done
When	What happens	What you do here
Monday 6:30am	The crew is at the Fairfield site. One reminder went out at nine the night before.	Each clock in records how far from the site it happened.
Tuesday 4:00pm	Fairfield will not be finished by Wednesday.	The Wednesday crew is moved back a day on the roster, and the phones show it that evening.
Wednesday 7:10am	One of the crew clocks in 9 km from the site.	The distance is on the record. A manager can accept it or ask about it, and the answer is kept.
Thursday	The new job starts, two people short.	The shortlist shows who is free, and the apprentice is at trade school, so he is not offered.
Friday 2:00pm	The week is done and the invoice is somebody else’s job.	Approve the hours, send them to payroll, and take the report of hours by person and site.

Two jobs, one overrun, and nine people paid from what they actually worked.

The jobs that stop being jobs

Where the hours in a week like this go. No stopwatch: the left column is what the work takes without it, and the right is what is left of the same task.

Each job, the way it usually goes, and what it becomes here
The job	Usually	Here
Telling a crew where to be	A text the night before, sent to whoever you remembered	Published shifts with the site on them, on every phone at once
Knowing somebody started on site	Taking their word for it on Friday	A clock in with the distance from the site recorded at the time
Moving a crew when a job runs over	Rebuilding the week and hoping everyone heard	Change the shifts, republish, and the change is on their phones
Timesheets from a site diary	A book in a ute, read on Sunday and typed up twice	Hours already recorded, with only the exceptions to decide
Working out who is free for a new job	Memory, and a scroll back through the calendar	Availability, approved leave and who is already rostered, in one list

What the record shows, and what stays yours

Roster Flow keeps the record. Meeting the obligation is still the workplace's job, and these are the parts of it nothing here decides for you.

What is recorded, on the day it happens

Where each clock in happened, as a distance from the site
Which site each shift belonged to, and who was on it
Reminders sent before a shift, and the shifts that were never clocked
Every correction to an hours record, with the reason and the person
Hours by employee for a period, with the sites they worked, as CSV

What is still yours to decide

Site inductions, tickets and licences, none of which are held or checked here
Travel time, allowances and site allowances, which payroll decides
Safety obligations, which a clock in does not evidence
What the hours mean for a fixed price job, which this does not cost

What has to be kept, and for how long, is set out by the Fair Work Ombudsman. Nothing here interprets an award or certifies that a workplace complies with one.

A roster checklist for trades and site work

Checks worth running before a week is published. Where a rule applies, the check is to look it up in the award or agreement that covers your staff.

Roster the crew to the site, and set the clock in radius for each one
Check early starts against the span of hours in your award
Keep rostered days off in the pattern, and check them each cycle
Record the hours at each site, so they can be split later
Check weeks that run long against the ordinary week you set
Approve the week before the pay run, starting with the exceptions

Free templates and tools for trades and site work

Fortnightly roster templateFourteen days on one sheet, for teams rostered or paid by the fortnight.Employee time card templateA weekly card with in, out and break times and a manager sign-off.Work hours calculatorSeveral shifts across any dates, with breaks, totalled and saved as CSV.Roster to payroll checklistThe checks between the last shift of the week and the pay run.

Questions people in trades and site work ask

My team starts at a site, not at a depot. How do they clock on?

Each site is set up as a venue with its own clock in radius, and the crew taps one button on their phone at the gate. The time, the distance from the site and a photo if you require one are recorded with it, so a start on site is as provable as one at a shopfront.

Does it cost jobs, or track travel time between sites?

No. It rosters people and records the hours they work, and it does not do job costing, client invoicing, quoting or travel time. If you need hours against a job number for billing, the hours by employee export is the honest path. This is the payroll side of the week, not the job side.

Can somebody work at two or three sites in a day?

Yes. Each visit is its own shift with its own start, finish and place, so a sparky at three addresses is three shifts and the gaps between them are not paid. The week view reads as who is where rather than as one long block.

Apprentices and tradesmen are on very different rates. Does the estimate know?

Rates are per person, set once, so the estimate prices a first-year apprentice as a first-year apprentice and the leading hand as the leading hand. Add a Saturday call-out and the day reprices at the loading you set for it.

Half the crew have no phone reception on site. Does clocking still work?

The clock in still happens and is marked for you to look at. Blocking somebody from starting because a phone could not see a satellite would make the software the problem, so out of range is a flag rather than a locked door, and if you would rather it blocked, that is a setting.

Does it interpret the award for overtime and allowances?

No, deliberately. You set the rates and the loadings, the roster shows an estimate from exactly what you set, and the pay rules, which are overtime, allowances and anything award-based, stay in your payroll system where they belong. What crosses over is approved hours.