Use the Calendars
The calendars are two alternative views of the same day: one row per bay, or one row per technician, with time across the top.
They are for seeing shape — how tightly the day is packed, where the gaps are, who is carrying what. They are read-only pictures of the current plan.
Who can do this: everyone.
You do not schedule on the calendars. Work is changed from the bay cards and the action centre. The calendars show you what the plan currently is, not a canvas to rearrange.
Switching views
The view control in the toolbar offers Cards, Bays, Techs and Shop floor.
| View | Use it to see |
|---|---|
| Bays | How full each bay is, where the dead time is, which bay frees up next |
| Techs | Workload balance, who is free when, whether one person is carrying the day |
| Shop floor | Where the work physically is — your building drawn to shape, each bay coloured by what is in it. Needs a layout: Lay out your shop floor |
Reading a bar
Each bar is a piece of work. Its colour is the job’s phase — planning, production, quality or completion — so a day reads at a glance.
| What you see | Means |
|---|---|
| Solid bar | A same-day job |
| Step block | One stage of a multi-day job, with its label and technician |
| Full-width bar | A multi-day stage not yet placed into specific time slots |
| Amber diagonal stripes | The bay is physically blocked by a vehicle, typically during a multi-day repair |
| White diagonal stripes | Scheduled for later today or a future day — planned only, no live alerts apply |
| Faded | Delivered or completed. Historical work stays visible |
In the Bays view, the assigned technician’s name appears on the bar. Category icons show the kind of service.
Borders and glyphs
The borders are the alerts, and they are worth learning because they are the same language the board uses.
| Signal | Means | Action |
|---|---|---|
| Pulsing red border | The promised time has passed and work is not done | Call the customer or update the pickup time |
| Solid amber border | Scheduled to finish after the promise, but the promise has not passed | Reassign or expedite |
| Dashed amber border | A job whose scheduled slot has passed and which has not started | Investigate and reschedule |
| Clock glyph | The stage has run past its estimated finish, promise not yet breached | Check progress — there is still time |
| Orange bar | Work started and is on hold | Resume when the hold clears |
| Red flag badge | Delivered late. Historical record only | None |
| Amber tint | A multi-day stage nearing its estimated completion date | Watch |
| Red tint | A multi-day stage past its estimated completion date | Act |
Other markers:
- Red vertical line — the current time on today’s calendar, updating every minute
- Diagonal stripe cells — break periods, when no work is scheduled
- Stacked bars — several jobs overlapping in the same row
- Parking icon — a bay physically occupied and blocked
- Row status dots — free or busy, beside each bay or technician name
- Step progress bar — on multi-day cards: green completed, indigo in progress, grey pending, muted skipped
A built-in Guide in the calendar explains every one of these on screen, including the glyphs.
Viewing another day
The date control moves the calendars with the board.
On a past day, live alerts are suppressed — no pulsing, no amber, no dashed borders. Only the late badge remains, as a historical record. Past work cannot be acted on.
What the calendars are good for
Finding the real gap. A bay that looks busy on the cards may have forty minutes of dead time at 14:00 that only the bay calendar makes obvious.
Spotting an unbalanced day. One technician’s row solid while two others have holes is a skills-recording problem, and the techs view is where you see it.
Explaining a multi-day job. A collision repair as a sequence of step blocks across days is far easier to show a customer — or an insurer — than the same thing described in words.
Sanity-checking tomorrow. Move to tomorrow and look at the shape. A day that is already wall-to-wall at 09:00 has no room to absorb a problem.
Common questions
Can I drag a job to a different time? No. The calendars are view-only. Move work from the bay cards or the action centre.
Why is there a gap between two jobs in the same bay? That is the bay buffer — the changeover time your workshop set. It is deliberate capacity, not waste.
A bar has stripes over it. Diagonal white stripes mean it is planned for later or for a future day. No live alerts apply until the slot becomes current.
Why does a bay show as blocked with no bar? A vehicle is physically occupying it, typically mid multi-day repair. The block starts at the time it was initiated.
The calendars stopped updating. They refresh on the board’s rhythm while you are looking at them and stop when you leave the view. Returning to the view resumes it.