SUPPORT CENTER
PLANNER
The SolarGrade Planner feature is a work order management system designed to provide easy to use and at-a-glance visibility of all your on-site activity and progress. You can use this tool for scheduling future fieldwork, setting technician's’ schedules, managing budgets, and much more.
Essentially, the Planner helps management make more informed decisions by providing at-a-glance clarity for on-site operations across all projects and teams – all without leaving SolarGrade.
SolarGrade Planner functions similarly to any other CMMS software. However, it is geared specifically to managing the non-metered work that is already performed on-site within SolarGrade.
Another key difference? Simplicity.
Planner is divided into two main parts: work orders and tasks.
A Work Order (WO) is a group of tasks to be performed and completed for a client as part of a contract or specific scope of work. Like much of SolarGrade, how you choose to use work orders is still customizable. You can do them for each individual task/site visit, each contract and invoice, or for an entire scope of work spanning a calendar year.
As mentioned above, Tasks are the line items within each work order. There are three types of tasks.
- Site visits
- These are the standard site visits that you can create in SolarGrade under each project and using a template within your account. With the Planner feature, you can link existing site visits to Work Orders or create new ones through the feature.
- Punchlists
- Punchlists are a type of site visit where remedial work is performed. If the existing work is in SolarGrade, you can choose from open issues in that project and build your own task.
- Custom
- This is a text field where you can input items that need to be completed that are not related to a site visit. For example, you could create a task titled “Book travel and accommodations” and assign it to your teammate heading to site.
Once you have work orders and tasks created, you can track the progress of both the tasks within a work order and the work order itself. You can view this data on the Planner page by using the table view or the Gantt view (toggle at the top right next to the CREATE button). Together, it provides managers with visibility into the status of any particular report on its way to the client.
This article will walk you through the step-by-step process of creating and/or maintaining a work order (WO).
- Select the Planner tab in the top menu of your account
- Select the + icon in the top right corner of the page
- Enter the name of your WO in the WO title column
- Select the cell in the Client column. A dropdown menu appears with all the clients in your space.
- If you are adding a new client, select the + ADD CLIENT text beneath the client field and input the necessary information
- Click on the cell in the Project column to select a project associated with that client
- Click on the cell in the Scope column for a dropdown menu of preset scopes.
- If you are adding a new scope, select the + ADD SCOPE text beneath the scope field and input the name of the scope, as well as the abbreviation or acronym for the scope to be displayed in the table
- Click on the cell in the Dates column to enter the associated date(s) for the WO
- Choose a STATUS from the dropdown menu
- Created – light blue
- Contracted – dark blue
- Scheduled – yellow
- Completed – light green
- Delivered – dark green
- Invoiced – navy blue
- Archived – gray
- Note: selecting the status as Archived automatically archives the WO
- Click on the cell in the Team Members column to assign your team to the WO
- Note: only team members who are associated with that project will appear in the dropdown menu
- Click on the cell in the Budget column to input a numerical value for the budget
- Click on the cell in the Notes column to input any additional information you wish to include with the WO
If you click the title of the WO, that will take you to the landing page for that WO. You will see a summary of information at the top, along with a calendar view of selected dates.
Below is a tab of OPEN ISSUES for that site, from which you can create punchlists, as well as a TASKS tab, where you can create and edit Tasks.
There are two ways to edit a WO.
- You can alter the content of the WO from the Planner tab. If you select the table view, you can select the caret or calendar icon next to each cell text to choose another option – whether it’s the client, project, scope, dates, team members, or status.
- You are not able to edit the name or budget of a WO from the table. To edit these fields, use option 2.
- You can select the eye icon on the far right of the WO. Once in the WO, select the EDIT button in the top right corner to edit the WO information.
You can also edit the dates of a WO in the Gantt diagram by dragging the dates too.
- Navigate to the Planner tab
- Select the Work Order you wish to add a task to
- Scroll down to the bottom where the TASKS section is
- Select the "+" icon in the top right corner of the table
- This will add a new line item to the table
- Input the task data into the appropriate columns
- Type a name in the name column
- Select the Task STATUS
- To do – blue
- In Progress – yellow
- Completed – green
- Stuck – red
- Select dates for the task
- Use the dropdown menu to assign the task to a team member
- In the site visit column, click the pencil icon
- This will open a dropdown menu
-
- "Link existing site visit" allows you to attach an existing site visit for that project as a Task for this Work Order. When you select this button, you will be prompted to choose a Site Visit from the list of available Site Visits in that project.
- "Create new site visit" allows you to create a new site visit as a Task. When you select this button, choose the template you want to use for this Site Visit
- In the description column, add any additional information that describes the scope of work for this task
- Click out of that line item in order to save the task
- Navigate to the Planner tab
- Select the WO you wish to add a task to
- Scroll down to OPEN ISSUES section
- Click the section header to expand the field into a table of all issues associated with that project
- You can filter the display of available issues by selecting the caret icons in the column headers
- Select which issues you want to include in the punchlist by clicking the checkbox to the left of the issue name
- On the right side of the header, select the CREATE TASK button
- Input a NAME for the punchlist task
- Assign the punchlist task to a TEAM MEMBER
- Note: only the team members assigned to the WO will be an option in this dropdown menu
- Select the dates the task will be performed
- In the ADD TEMPLATE DATA? Field, you can choose to merge the punchlist with an existing template in your account to merge this punchlist with an ordinary site visit checklist for a comprehensive site visit. If you do not select this option, only the issues will populate in their own site visit
- Select CREATE CUSTOM TEMPLATE
This will add a line item to your list of tasks below.
- Navigate to the Planner tab
- Select the Work Order you wish to add a task to
- Scroll down to the bottom where the TASKS section is
- Select the "+" icon in the top right corner of the table
- This will add a new line item to the table
- Input the task data into the appropriate columns
- Type a name in the name column
- Select the Task STATUS
- To do – blue
- In Progress – yellow
- Completed – green
- Stuck – red
- Select dates for the task
- Use the dropdown menu to assign the task to a team member
- Do not complete the site visit column for custom tasks
- In the description column, add any additional information that describes the scope of work for this task
- Click out of that line item in order to save the task
There are two ways to edit a task.
- You can alter the content of task from its WO page. You can select the caret or pencil icon next to each cell text to choose another option for the status, team members, or linked site visit fields
- You are not able to edit the name of a task from the table. To edit this field, use option 2.
- You can select the eyeball icon on the far right of the task row. Once in the task, select the EDIT button in the top right corner to edit the task information.