Planning

See Everything You're Building and When

Introduction

Planning gives every team a shared view of what's in progress across all projects — what's coming down the pike, how it's sequenced, and where things stand right now. Instead of chasing status updates or piecing together a timeline from individual orders, your office and field teams can see the full picture in one place and make scheduling changes without disrupting the work that's already moving.

Navigating to Planning

Planning is accessible from the main left navigation bar. You'll see a split view: a list of orders on the left, and a Gantt timeline on the right showing how everything is laid out across your schedule.

Permissions note: Planning is available to Administrators and users with Planning access enabled in their role settings. If you don't see Planning in the left nav, contact your administrator.

Adding New Work

When a new job comes in, you can add it directly to the schedule from Planning.

1. Click Add in the top right corner.
2. Select the Project the order belongs to.
3. Give the order a Name and set a Due Date.
4. Assign a Route if you know which production process applies. If you're not ready to assign one, you can skip this and update it later.
5. Enter a Duration or Cycle Time to estimate how long the work will take. This is useful for parking a rough window — like two weeks for a production phase — so the schedule reflects reality before work officially starts.
6. Add any additional fields as needed (quantity, cost code, assigned workers, tags, notes).
7. Click Save. The order will appear in the list and plot on the Gantt timeline.

Tracking Parts of Work

Every order can contain phases (like BIM, Detailing, Procurement, and Production) and components (specific parts or packages being built). Expanding an order shows the full picture of what's inside it.

1. Click the arrow (>) next to any order to expand it.
2. Phases and components appear as their own rows beneath the parent order, each with its own bar on the Gantt timeline.
3. Click the arrow again on a phase or component to expand it further if it has its own nested items.
4. To add components to an order, open the row menu (...) and select Manage Components. Here you can name each component, assign a quantity and route, and set a due date. Use + Add child to keep adding items.
5. Each component gets its own bar on the timeline under the parent order. The parent's window automatically grows to account for the components beneath it.

Adjusting the Schedule

If a due date shifts or the scope changes, you don't need to edit fields one by one.

Grab any bar on the Gantt timeline and drag it left or right to shift its window. Pull the end handle to extend or shorten the duration. Components can be offset from each other by dragging them independently — useful when you know one piece of work can't start until another finishes.

If a particular component is going to take longer than the default, open the row menu (...), select Edit, and update the Duration or Cycle Time directly. The timeline will recalculate immediately.

Keeping Work Moving

The row menu (...) on each order, phase, or component is where most day-to-day actions happen.

1. Update progress opens a sidebar showing every phase and component inside the order, each with a current status, a progress bar, and a Complete button. Teams can mark items done from here without needing to open the full order detail. Use View details next to any item to drill deeper.
2. Put on hold pauses the order and flags it visually so the team knows work has stopped. When you're ready to resume, the row menu will show Resume work instead.
3. Start form lets you attach and kick off a form linked to the order — useful for inspection sign-offs, QA checklists, or any paperwork tied to that piece of work.
4. Print QR Traveler generates a printable traveler for the shop floor, so field teams can scan it to pull up the order directly without needing to navigate the app manually.

Discussing and Documenting Orders

Two quick-access panels live on every row, to the left of the order name.

The comment bubble opens the Discussion panel, where anyone on the team can leave a comment, @mention a colleague to pull them in, or follow a thread without leaving the Planning view. Comment counts on the bubble tell you at a glance if a conversation is active.

The paperclip opens the Documents panel, where you can attach files or add URLs to the order. Drawings, specs, submittals — anything relevant to the job can live here and stay tied to the order.

Organizing the View

Planning is built to work for different teams looking at the same data through different lenses. Several tools let you cut the list to what matters most for your role.

Nested vs. Flat. The Nested toggle keeps components and phases indented under their parent order, so you can read the full production hierarchy at a glance. Switch to Flat if you want every item — orders, phases, and components — at the same level for easier sorting or filtering across the whole list.

Group by. Use Group by to reorganize the list by Project, People, Phase, Stage, or Tags. Grouping by Project is useful for office teams reviewing full job scope. Grouping by Phase or Stage helps production managers see where work is stacking up across the shop floor without being tied to a specific project.

Filters. The filter panel lets you narrow the list by Project, Assigned, Status, Risk, Phases, Stages, Current Phases, Current Stages, Tags, and date range. Combine filters to focus on exactly what's relevant — for example, all orders in the Detailing phase that are currently at risk.

Columns. Click the column header menu to show or hide columns. You can toggle Name, Route, ID, Project, Assigned, Phase, Status, Date, Progress, and Tags. Use Reset to default to restore the original column set.

Zoom. Use the + and — buttons to tighten or widen the Gantt timeline. Zoom in to work at a weekly level for near-term scheduling, or zoom out for a multi-month view across all active projects.

Saved Views

Once you've set up a combination of filters, columns, grouping, and display settings that works for your team, you can save it as a named view so you don't have to rebuild it each time.

Click the view selector in the top left (labeled Default by default) to see all available views. Switch to Mine to see views you've saved, or Shared with me to see views your team has shared. Built-in views include Team Workload, Stage Planning, and Standard View as a starting point.

To create a new view, configure the filters and layout you want, then click + Save as new view. Name it and choose whether to keep it private or share it with the team.

Note: Saved views are a Planning-specific feature. If you don't see the view selector, confirm with your administrator that your organization has this feature enabled.

Conclusion

Planning in Building Swell helps your office and field teams stay ahead of the schedule instead of reacting to it. Whether you're roughing in a new job, breaking a production package into components, adjusting dates as scope evolves, or just checking what's at risk this week — everything updates in one place so the whole team is working from the same picture.