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.

Step-by-Step Guide

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.

Three icons at the top of the page switch the view. The table icon shows the list on its own, the timeline icon shows the list beside the Gantt, and the calendar icon lays the same work out on a calendar. The calendar has its own section below.

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, say 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.

For what the percent done and man-hour figures on each row mean, see Progress & Man Hours.

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. This helps 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.

Using the Calendar

The calendar lays the same work out by day. Your filters, search and saved view carry over as they are, and Nested and Flat decide what shows: Nested shows your orders, and Flat shows the phases, components and stages inside them. A phase or stage is labelled with the order it belongs to.

1. Click the calendar icon at the top of Planning.

2. Choose Month or Week from the period menu. Week gives each day more room.

3. Use the arrows to move a period at a time, Today to come back, or click the date range to jump to a date.

The calendar reopens on the month you left it.

Reading a bar

Each order gets one bar, the way it gets one row on the Gantt.

• The outlined box is the planned dates.

• The filled bar inside it is what actually happened, with its progress.

• The tick is the due date. A due date outside the plan sits on its own day, joined to the bar by a dashed line.

Hover a bar to read every date it carries, including dates outside the month or week on screen. A September order with a November due date names that due date on hover. Late, at-risk and on-hold work carries the same warning it shows in the list and on the Gantt. Click a bar to open it.

Choosing which dates show

The Dates button decides what lands on the grid. It starts on Planned end and Due date, and you can add Planned start, Actual start and Actual completion.

Turn on Planned start and Planned end together and the work stretches across the days between them. Add the actual dates to see what really happened inside the plan.

Moving work

• Drag a bar to another day to move its planned dates. The length stays the same.

• Drag either end of a bar to move just that date, which makes the work longer or shorter.

• Drag the due date tick on its own to move only the due date.

While you drag, the dates the drop will write show beside the day under your cursor. Actual dates can't be dragged.

The same rules apply here.

You can only drag dates you could already edit, and Planning applies the same scheduling rules it uses in the list and on the Gantt. A move it would refuse there, it refuses here.

Busy days

When a day holds more work than fits, it shows how many are hidden, for example +3 more. Click it to page through the rest of that day.

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.

1. 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, including orders, phases, and components, at the same level for easier sorting or filtering across the whole list.

2. 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. Group by isn't available on the calendar.

3. Search. The search box takes more than one term. Type one and press Enter, type a comma, or click the + beside the box, and the term moves into a Search chip so the box is clear for the next one. The list then shows everything matching any of your terms, which is how you pull up three unit numbers in one pass. Your terms sit in the address bar, so a list you have built up can be sent to someone or bookmarked.

4. 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. Each filter also holds more than one value at a time, so picking three stages shows work sitting in any of the three. Reset clears your filters and your search terms together.

5. 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.

6. 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.

For who can see a view and how to share one, see Planning Views.

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.