othing drains a company’s profit fasterthan an idle worker. An employee who islost, late, off task or unclear about what todo now and next will bleed the bottomline with every tick of the clock. Multiplythat by a whole crew, and you’re talking

hemorrhage.That makes scheduling critical to productivity. Know-

ing where your workers are today, tomorrow and nextweek—and making sure that they and your customersknow all that, too—can take a huge bite out of your laborcosts.All scheduling is complex and time-consuming; good

scheduling is dynamic. For optimal productivity, sched-ules need to respond nimbly to change orders, client sur-prises, weather shifts, illnesses, delivery glitches andemergencies.What can help? Scheduling software.The fact is, if you still rely on a dusty white board or pad

and pencil to organize your team and jobs, you are proba-bly falling behind the curve, leaking time, money andimage along the way.But don’t panic. Scheduling software is typically easy

to use and comes in a wide range of options, to fit yourcompany and your budget. The learning curve is gentle.And the payoff—in time, savings, accuracy, smoother op-erations, and professional polish—can be significant.

Overcoming resistance“Using a white board can be extremely time-consum-

ing,” says Eric Vallee, of softwaremakerWennSoft. “It can

30 PWC JULY/AUGUST 2009

limit an organization’s ability to grow, because the sched-uling manager has to manually coordinate and communi-cate all the details related to work orders.”True enough, says David Chism, director of marketing

and estimating for Hallco Painting in Maryland. “Sched-uling is a major work in progress, and most folks haven’tfigured it out,” says Chism. “Most painters either printtheir schedules or use the white-board approach. “Yet, evenwith the old system’s shortcomings, many con-

tractors cling to it. “It’s hard to get most contractors whohave been around a while to use software programs,” hesays.To push past that resistance in his own company, Chism

dangled an irresistible carrot: a digital schedule on a 42-inch plasma TV.“We bolted it to our wall to make it look like a white

board,” he said. “I then used our old-fashioned Excel pro-gram, color-coded each foreman, and put it up on the big

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N Smoother jobs. Tighterteams. Less downtime.Software takes your schedules to the next level.

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Software, like WennSoft's Scheduleand Dispatch System, makes sched-uling fast and dynamic.

Board. This web-based software product improves onChism’s basic solution by using a color-coded scheduleboard to quickly group, sort and scan the current status ofteam members. Users can also review schedule conflictsand future engagements in a Gantt-style calendar.“The functionality of a scheduling white board—even adigital one—isn’t that complicated,” says Nate Sullivan,of Bamboo’s product management team. “The real chal-lenge is setting it up to include everyone and keeping itup to date.“Most digital white boards struggle with the former, be-

cause you’ve got to enter a bunch of data to set the thingup,” he says, “and most physical white boards fail because

riod summary graphs, and much more.Steve Thompson, of Jerry Thompson & Sons Painting

and Decorating in San Rafael, Calif., uses FastTrack tomanage multiple crews on large sites. “The charts showcustomers where and when my crews are scheduled on aparticular job,” says Thompson. “And if they wantchanges, I can quickly and easily redo the schedule.”Thompson admits he has not yet explored all of Fast-

Track’s features. “It’s almost unlimited,” he says. But asa Mac user, he likes that FastTrack has both Mac and PCversions.

Web-based accessFor white-board form and function with minimal labor,

there’s Bamboo Solutions’ SharePoint In/Out Schedule

WWW.PAINTSTORE.COM PWC 3130 PWC JULY/AUGUST 2009

See SCHEDULING on next page

Jerry Thompson & SonsAt Jerry Thompson & Sons Painting and Decorating in California, Steve Thompsonuses FastTrack Schedule to manage crews at multiple sites.

Like all software, scheduling products come with awide variety of features. The first step is to determineyour company’s needs. What do you want to accom-plish? What systems and functions do you want thistool to provide or improve?Meanwhile, the experts at the research site TopTen-

Reviews.com recommend these basic features:

• Scheduling for multiple locations• Employee information management• Printable schedules for individuals and groups• Online schedule posting• Data importing and exporting• Data backup and restoration capabilities• Password protection

The software should also offer schedule creationtools, such as:

• A schedule setup wizard• Shift color-coding• Holiday and start-of-week definitions• Schedule conflict warnings

Reporting options should include the ability to viewand print daily, weekly and monthly schedules, shiftsummaries, and time-off analyses.As with all software decisions, do not base your

purchase on price. The right product should returnyour investment in short order.

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screen so we could look at the schedule on our computer,print it out, or turn around and see it on a 42-inch TV.”

Running multiple crewsExcel is handy, but the program is not designed for man-

aging projects. Scheduling software provides infinitelymore variety, flexibility and capability.Take FastTrack Schedule, by AEC Software Inc. Like

Excel, FastTrack Schedule has rows and columns to enterproject details. But the columns are specifically formattedto store many types of project information, with built-inoutliners to organize and summarize tasks. Gantt (project)chart time lines illustrate task dates and duration. Thereare monthly calendars, resource work calendars, time pe-

32 PWC JULY/AUGUST 2009

it’s annoying to update them unless they’re in a central,easy-to-access place.” SharePoint, on the other hand, allows users to view and

update schedule status remotely, from just about any-where. The data can even be exported to Word or Excelspreadsheets.

Integrated solutionsEntering customer and vendor information into a sched-

uling system doesn’t have to be time-consuming, espe-cially if users want to integrate their scheduling softwarewith QuickBooks.Tom Curren Companies, of Auburndale, Mass., chose

VirtualBoss over other programs for just that reason. Vir-tualBoss’ compatibility with QuickBooks helped the re-modeling contractor eliminate errors and duplicationduring setup. In the company’s post-tack-board world, jobs are tracked

more efficiently, and workers get work orders with spe-cific tasks.Employees “like being able to receive a Gantt chart of

their schedule instead of trying to keep track in theirheads,” says controller Kristin Morin. “We know whereeveryone is on a particular day.”The QuickBooks integration has been “a huge relief,”

she added, “ knowing we don’t have to wonder if recordshave been added in both programs. I enter it in one, [syn-chronize], and I see it in the other program. It’s been a greattime saver ... saving us at least two hours a week.”

Sales and ROI tracking Bill Hussel struggled with three-ring scheduling binders

before turning to Smart Service (which also integrates withQuickBooks). He calls the change one of his best businessdecisions ever. The president of Chimney Doctors, innorthern Wisconsin, used the software not only to sched-ule, but also to track his marketing campaigns.He generated monthly reports that compared the dollars

spent for a campaign to the resulting sales. This allowedhim to cut his advertising budget from $120,000 to $20,000while increasing overall sales by 4 percent to 5 percent.“As a business owner, you’re always looking for those

gold-plated ideas where you buy something and get a hugepayback,” Hussel says.

Targeting talent, speeding updatesEffective scheduling means more than putting bodies in

place. It means matching the right person to each task, evenas the work force grows, shrinks or changes.WennSoft’s Schedule and Dispatch System allows man-

See SCHEDULING on page 34

SCHEDULING from last page

Product FastTrack Schedule 9 SharePoint In/Out Smart Service Service Management VirtualBossSchedule Board Series: Field Service/

Work Order Mgmt.

Supplier AEC Software Inc. Bamboo Solutions My Service Depot WennSoft Quantum Software Solutions Inc.

Selected Project scheduling Centralized scheduling QuickBooks integration Manages service calls, QuickBooks Features and contacts documents, equipment. integration

Project performance Marketing campaignstracking User status display Service dispatch and Manages contacts,

via color-coded Management dashboards quoting punch lists, stop payments,Project plan presentation schedule board Invoicing work orders.Information sharing Mapping

Expense trackingGantt-style calendar Customer and job history Gantt charts status views

Remote update capability Pocket, palm andremote versions.

Web Site http://www.aecsoftware.com/ http://store.bamboosolutions. http://www.smartserviceinfo. http://www.wennsoft.com/ http://www.quantumss.com/products/fasttrack/ com com/ solutions/field-service VirtualBoss/virtualboss.htm

Price QuickStart bundle: $448 Server license $500 Initial license cost per user Standard edition: $299 and up Range Business bundle: $3,169 Support: $100 or $250 plus monthly support $25K - $30K

(e.g., $1,295 + $299/mo per user).

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agers “to schedule by area, skill set or employee schedule,which allows you to assign the best person available,” saysVallee.In addition, Vallee says, “All work orders are viewed on

a multiple-view dispatch board, making it easy to checkand adjust employee workloads, set or change appoint-ments and update call statuses—for example ‘dispatch,’‘arrived’ or ‘complete.’”

Streamlining and coordinationWennSoft’s scheduling software hugely improved inter-

nal efficiencies at Minnesota Exteriors Inc., in MapleGrove, Minn.Before using software, “we could never tell the status of

a job with any accuracy because each department hadExcel spreadsheets with their information,” said RobCorniea, director of operations. “Nothing was combineduntil the job was completed.”Adds IT project manager Lola Wagner: “In the past, if a

customer called with a question, we had to put them onhold until we could dig up their file.”Now, he adds, all external information is combined and

the job status can be found at the click of a button. The soft-ware “literally saves hours and hours” and even helps withfuture planning, Wagner and Corniea agree.Says Corniea “We can run a schedule for one week, two

weeks, even a month out, to schedule production andwarehousing.”

Moving upFor some business owners, scheduling software can

be a stepping stone to more comprehensive project man-agement. Bill Croghan, owner of multiple contractingbusinesses, including Boa Construction in St. Louis,Mo., depends on PM software to run his businesses.Scheduling is just one part of a multi-functional soft-

ware solution Croghan has developed in-house. His on-site project schedules streamline material orders andworker and subcontractor assignments. Other functionsincorporate customer selection schedules and tasks re-lating to permits, approvals and budgets, to provide anoverview for all parties involved.In the end, whether you manage five employees or

500, the bottom line in scheduling is efficiency, accu-racy and productivity. And with everyone attempting todo more with less these days, software may be your nextbest hire.As Morin, of Tom Curren Companies, says: “We waste

less time entering the information and fixing our mis-takes, and are able to concentrate on making sure work-ers stay on schedule and our customers are satisfied.”

Contact technology writer Anne Wolfe, M.S., atanne@annewolfe.com.

34 PWC JULY/AUGUST 2009

SCHEDULING from page 32

FastTrack Schedule, by AEC Software, tracks each step and taskof a project, from the preliminaries to final payment. Details in-clude day-by-day progress, changes, notes, estimates and more.

AEC Software

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