Crew Scheduling & Planner

The Crew Scheduler is the central planning tool for managing who works where and when. It brings internal staff and connected freelancers into a single unified view, making it easy to spot gaps, resolve conflicts, and keep every project fully crewed.

Accessing the Scheduler

Navigate to Crew > Scheduler in the left-hand sidebar. The Scheduler page loads with the current week in view and all active crew members listed.

Unified planner

The Scheduler displays both internal staff and connected freelancers in one interface. There is no need to switch between separate views — every crew member who is active in your system appears alongside their current and upcoming assignments. Freelancers are distinguished by a type badge on their row or card.

Display modes

The Scheduler offers three display modes, toggled from the toolbar:

Timeline

A Gantt-style horizontal view with crew members listed on the Y axis and dates running across the X axis. Each assignment appears as a coloured bar spanning its date range. Overlapping assignments for the same crew member stack vertically, making double-bookings immediately visible. This is the default view and the best option for day-to-day scheduling.

Grid

A card-based layout showing each crew member as an individual card. Each card displays the crew member’s avatar, name, type badge (Staff, Preferred, or Freelancer), total assignment count, and a list of up to three current assignments. Two action buttons appear at the bottom of each card: View Timeline to jump to that crew member’s row in the timeline, and Assign to quickly assign them to a project.

List

A table view of all assignments with sortable columns including crew name, project, role, start date, end date, status, and hours. Use this view for data-heavy tasks such as bulk reviewing assignments or exporting schedule data.

View periods and navigation

The toolbar at the top of the Scheduler provides the following controls:

• Period selector — Switch between Day, Week, Month, Quarter, and Year views to control how much of the schedule is visible at once.
• Navigation buttons — Previous, Today, and Next buttons to step through dates. Click Today to snap back to the current date at any time.
• Zoom controls — Adjust the time granularity within the selected period. Zooming in on a week view, for example, shows hourly slots instead of day-level blocks.
• View mode toggle — Switches between Timeline, Grid, and List modes.
• Project filter chip — Filter the schedule to show assignments for a single project. Click the chip, search for a project, and the view narrows to only those crew members assigned to it.

Schedule entries

Each crew assignment on a project can have multiple CrewSchedule entries — one per day or shift. This allows different hours on different days within a single assignment. Each schedule entry includes:

• Schedule date — The specific day this shift applies to.
• Start time and end time — The working hours for this shift. Overnight shifts are supported (end time earlier than start time rolls to the next day).
• Time period link — Connects the shift to a project time period such as Build, Show, or Strike. This helps when a crew member works different phases of the same project.
• Call time — An optional per-shift override for the default call time. If not set, the call time from the parent assignment is used.
• Notes — Shift-specific instructions or comments visible to the crew member.

Conflict detection

The system automatically detects scheduling conflicts when a crew member is assigned to overlapping projects or shifts. Conflicts appear as a warning icon on the affected entries in the timeline. Clicking the warning shows details of both conflicting assignments, including project names, dates, and times. You can then choose to reassign, adjust times, or acknowledge the overlap.

Colour coding

Assignment bars in the Timeline view are colour-coded to convey status at a glance:

• Blue — Confirmed assignment. The crew member has accepted and is expected on-site.
• Grey — Assigned but not yet confirmed. The crew member has been added to the project but has not responded.
• Green — Completed assignment. The crew member has finished and checked out.
• Orange — Conflict detected. This assignment overlaps with another for the same crew member.

Availability entries also appear on the timeline as background shading: green for available and preferred windows, red for unavailable blocks, and yellow for tentative periods. This overlay helps managers see at a glance where crew are free and where they are blocked.

Side panels

Pending Requests

When freelancers receive booking requests, their responses appear in the Pending Requests panel on the right side of the Scheduler. Each pending request shows the freelancer’s name, project, dates, and a Cancel button to withdraw the request. Once a freelancer accepts, the request moves to a confirmed assignment on the timeline.

Projects Needing Crew

This panel lists all projects that have unfilled crew roles. Each entry shows the project name, the number of unfilled slots, and two action buttons: Quick Assign to open the assignment dialog with the project pre-selected, and Broadcast to send the role out to connected freelancers. This panel ensures no project falls through the cracks during busy periods.

Drag-and-drop

In Timeline view, you can drag assignment bars to move them between dates or reassign them to different crew members. Drag the edges of a bar to extend or shorten the assignment period. When you drop an assignment onto a new crew member, the system checks for conflicts before confirming the change. If a conflict is detected, you receive a warning with the option to proceed or cancel.

Tips

• Start each week in Timeline view — The Gantt-style layout gives the clearest picture of who is booked and where gaps exist.
• Use the Project filter for event-day checks — Before a big project, filter to that project to confirm every role is filled and no conflicts exist.
• Check the Projects Needing Crew panel daily — Unfilled roles are easy to miss when you are focused on confirmed assignments. The panel keeps them visible.
• Set per-shift call times for early starts — If a crew member needs to arrive earlier than the rest of the team for a specific shift, set a call time override rather than changing the entire assignment.
• Use the Grid view for team stand-ups — The card layout works well on a large screen during morning briefings, showing each person’s assignments at a glance.

Next steps

Continue to the next article to learn about the Time Clock and GPS tracking, where crew members clock in and out with verified locations, take breaks, and have their hours automatically calculated.