Project Manager Visits
Jobs > Project Manager Visits is the shared calendar of every project manager’s site visits, personal block outs and calendar notes. It is visible to the management and operations roles. Project managers work their visits from the iPad; the office uses this screen to see the week, book or move visits, block out dates and set recurring appointments.
What you see
Section titled “What you see”Toolbar
Section titled “Toolbar”| Control | What it does |
|---|---|
| Filter (project manager dropdown) | Show one project manager’s visits. Defaults to the first PM. Clear it to see everyone. |
| Job Reference Number and Show Visits | Type a job reference and open a modal listing every visit on that job, with inline date editing, delete and save. |
| Add Visit | Opens the visit form (see below). |
| Calendar note button | Adds an all day note against a project manager for a date. Notes show in the Notes row at the top of the calendar. |
| Recurring appointment | Add new appointment opens the recurring appointment form (for example a weekly toolbox meeting). View all appointments goes to the recurring appointments list. |
| Block Dates | Block whole dates for everyone (public holidays, shutdowns). No visit can be auto booked on a blocked date and blocked dates show as black all day bars. |
| Refresh | Reloads the calendar. |
| Go to date picker | Jumps to a single day view with a map of that day’s visits alongside the calendar. |
| Date range picker | Choose the week to display. |
Calendar and colours
Section titled “Calendar and colours”The calendar runs 6:00 am to 7:00 pm in 30 minute slots, weekdays only. Each visit is titled with the PM’s initials, the customer surname, the suburb, and for sub job visits the sub job reference and its percent complete. Prefixes: (A) accepted by the customer, (R) declined, and (2/5) the visit’s position in the sequence for that sub job.
| Colour | Status | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| Dark blue | Scheduled | Booked, customer not yet told. |
| Light blue | Notified | The customer has been emailed or texted about it. |
| Green | Accepted | The customer confirmed attendance, or the visit was booked as Customer Confirmed, or a customer requested visit that the PM approved. |
| Red | Declined | The customer declined the visit. |
| Grey | Personal | A block out with no job (personal, travel time, meetings). |
| Amber | On hold | The job is On Hold. |
| Pink | Prestart | A pre-start site inspection. |
A visit drawn with a dark overlay already has a site report filed after its scheduled time, so it has effectively been done.
The single day view adds a Google map with a pin per visit coloured by status. Clicking a pin shows the customer, phone, address and time with an edit shortcut.
Visit types
Section titled “Visit types”| Type | Used for |
|---|---|
| Scheduled | A standard progress inspection (default). |
| Ad Hoc | An unplanned drop in. |
| Improvement Request | Visit to address a tradesperson improvement request. |
| Follow Up | Return visit. |
| Customer Request | Booked by the customer from an email link. Locked on the calendar and cannot be dragged. |
| Personal | Block out, no job. Cannot be dragged. |
| Old Job | Visit to a previous job (warranty or check). |
| Final Inspection | The final sign off visit at the end of a sub job. |
| Quote | Time reserved for quoting. |
| Travel Time | Travel block out. |
| Warranty Claim | Warranty inspection. |
| Wednesday Meeting | Weekly team meeting block. |
| Custom Block out | Any other reserved time. |
| Pre-start Site Inspection | The prestart visit before work begins. |
| Sample Pot Inspection | Checking sample pots on site. |
| Customer Confirmed | A visit the customer has confirmed; shows green immediately. |
What you can do
Section titled “What you can do”Add or edit a visit
Section titled “Add or edit a visit”- Click Add Visit (or the Add Visit button on a job page, or click an existing visit).
- Type at least five characters of the sub job Reference Number and pick the sub job. The job’s project manager is filled in as Visiting PM.
- Choose the Visit Type and add Comments (these appear on the iPad).
- Leave Force Schedule off to let the system pick the next free slot on that day. Turn it on to set an exact date and time; the form warns “Conflicts with other appointments” if the PM already has something at that time.
- Turn Notify on to email the customer about the appointment (they also receive their 24 hour reminder text regardless).
- Pick the Visit Date and a Duration from 15 minutes to 2 hours (default 30 minutes).
- Click Save. Editing an existing visit also offers Delete, Timeline, View Work Order and, for customer requested visits, Approve.
If you have the reassign visits permission, ticking Assign this PM to all future visits moves every future visit on the job to the chosen PM.
Move a visit on the calendar
Section titled “Move a visit on the calendar”Drag a visit to a new time or resize it. Dragging forces the exact time. If the customer has already been notified you are asked to confirm, because they will receive an updated appointment email. Customer Request and Personal visits cannot be dragged; open them to edit. If you are not in the management role and lack the reassign visits permission, visits are read only and you are told to use the iPad.
Block dates
Section titled “Block dates”Click Block Dates, pick one or more dates and save. Auto scheduling skips blocked dates and rolls to the next weekday. Click a black bar to delete a blocked date.
Add a recurring appointment
Section titled “Add a recurring appointment”Recurring appointment > Add new appointment creates a weekly, monthly or yearly block for a PM with a start and end time. Recurring appointments are treated as busy time by the auto scheduler and by conflict checks.
Show and edit visits for one job
Section titled “Show and edit visits for one job”Enter the reference and click Show Visits. The modal lists each visit with sub job, date and time (editable), PM and customer. Change a date and click the pencil to save, or the bin to delete. The same list appears on the job page under Project Manager Reports, sorted newest first with type and status.
How it works behind the scenes
Section titled “How it works behind the scenes”The four kinds of visit on a job
Section titled “The four kinds of visit on a job”Pre-start visits happen before work starts. Current policy (changed in 2026) is that prestarts are booked by the project manager, not automatically and not by the customer:
- When the deposit is paid the office contacts the customer and tasks the PM to book a prestart within the week (see Accepted Jobs).
- The PM books it as a Pre-start Site Inspection from the iPad or this screen with Notify on. The customer receives the prestart email (“Your job is starting in the near future…”) with Confirm Attendance and Request Reschedule buttons. A reschedule request emails the PM, who contacts the customer; customers can no longer pick times themselves.
- The automatic generator (Auto-generate pre-start inspections, 5:00 am daily) still exists and would create a prestart five working days before the job start for jobs with a PM and prestart not disabled, but it is switched off by configuration. Likewise the optional 24 hour delay that emailed the PM first and the customer a day later is switched off, so prestart notifications go to the customer immediately.
- Each job has a Turn off prestart visit toggle (on the iPad job view). When set, no prestart will be generated even if the generator is re-enabled.
- A prestart does not require the PM to book a next visit on their report, and is not counted as a first day visit in KPIs.
First day visits are created automatically when a sub job is confirmed with a start date, provided the sub job is over $3,000, is not a variation, is a trade that gets visits (everything except colour consultant and the office “other” trades), the job has a PM, and there is no visit already on that date. The visit is booked as a priority at the sub job start time (7:30 am by default). If the PM already has a movable visit at that time, the other visit is bumped an hour later so the job start is covered; if the slot is locked the first day visit takes the PM’s next free slot instead. Changing a job’s PM also creates a first visit if the job has none.
In progress visits are booked by the PM from each site report on the iPad (the report asks for the next visit), or from the job page Show Scheduler in the sub job modal, which suggests a number of visits based on the visit thresholds.
Final visits are created by the Create final inspection appointments task (3:30 am daily): for every sub job whose suggested end date is tomorrow, a Final Inspection visit is created for that date as a priority booking, and any later un-notified visits on that sub job are removed. If the customer declines the final inspection they can tell Rochele they will not be present; the sub job is then marked signed off and a sticky note is added to the job.
Visit thresholds
Section titled “Visit thresholds”Settings > Entities > Visit Thresholds holds price bands (low and high threshold in dollars) with a Visits Required count and an Expected Duration in Weeks. On the job page the sub job scheduler reads the band that matches the job price and shows, for example, “a recommended total of 4 visits are suggested for this job over a 3 week period”. The thresholds also appear on the work order so the tradesperson knows how many inspections to expect. See Visit Thresholds.
Auto scheduling rules
Section titled “Auto scheduling rules”When a visit is saved without Force Schedule, the system:
- Skips blocked dates and weekends, rolling forward to the next weekday.
- Refuses to put two visits for the same job on the same day, and caps a PM at eight visits per day, rolling forward when either limit is hit.
- Walks the half hour slots from 7:30 am to 4:30 pm (lunch 12:00 to 1:00 is never auto booked) and takes the first slot that does not overlap another visit or a recurring appointment.
- For priority bookings (first day and final visits) it takes the requested time and bumps a movable visit that is already there.
A visit that would overlap another visit on the same job, or a personal block out, is rejected. Logged in staff can force an overlap with Force Schedule; automated and customer bookings cannot.
Recurring meeting block outs
Section titled “Recurring meeting block outs”Two weekly tasks keep meetings out of the booking window:
- Wednesday meeting block-outs (Mondays at midnight) adds an 11:00 am to 12:00 pm Wednesday Meeting block for every PM for the next 14 weeks.
- Recurring meeting block-outs (Sundays at midnight) adds a fixed set of Monday, Tuesday and Thursday blocks for one named senior PM (fortnightly Monday mornings, Monday and Thursday afternoons, Tuesday mornings). These are hard coded and should be changed by a developer if that person’s routine changes.
Customer and tradesperson notifications
Section titled “Customer and tradesperson notifications”| Notification | When | Who |
|---|---|---|
| Visit booked | When a visit is saved with Notify on | Customer email “Job #ref has an inspection booked”, plus SMS to the customer and any SMS enabled site contacts. Prestarts use the prestart email with confirm and reschedule buttons. |
| Visit changed | When a notified visit is moved | One consolidated email to the customer after a short delay, so several quick edits produce one message. |
| Visit tomorrow | Daily 3:30 pm (PM visit tomorrow notice to customer) | Every customer with a visit tomorrow receives an email and SMS, and SMS enabled site contacts are texted. The visit is stamped as notified. |
| Painter reminder | Daily 3:30 pm (PM visit tomorrow SMS to head tradesperson) | The head painter on an In Progress painter sub job with a PM visit tomorrow receives an SMS. |
| Customer requested visit awaiting approval | Daily 10:00 am (Customer-requested visit alert to PM) | The PM is emailed about any customer requested visit for tomorrow that they have not yet approved or called about. |
| Prestart report completed | When the PM submits the prestart report | The customer is emailed the report (the office is copied via the Prestart Visits list in CC Emails). |
Customers who have email notifications off receive nothing; SMS follows the separate SMS flag. See Customers.
Prestart report, schedule of works and Gantt chart
Section titled “Prestart report, schedule of works and Gantt chart”The prestart visit ends with a prestart report submitted from the iPad. It differs from a normal site report:
- It records prestart notes as a checklist of yes and no answers.
- It lists the sub jobs (work orders) covered, with the PM’s recommended tradespersons for each. Those recommendations appear on the Planning Board job modal for the scheduler to click.
- It captures a schedule of works: rows of task name, start date, end date and duration. On the internal timeline these rows are drawn as a Gantt chart (day, week, month and year views, hover for the dates and duration).
- The customer signs off on the iPad as for other reports.
Prestart reports are shown on the internal timeline (the Job History option under the job’s Timeline button) and hidden from the customer’s timeline. Ordinary site reports appear on both, and in the Report Gallery.
Leave and reallocation
Section titled “Leave and reallocation”When a PM is on leave, record it on the Reallocation tab of their user record in User Management with a from date, to date and replacement. The nightly Process project manager reallocations task moves the PM’s visits in that window (and the jobs and zones behind them) to the replacement, and moves them back when the period ends. Visits carry a “previous PM” marker so the hand back is exact. This does not change KPIs for visits already completed.
Tips and gotchas
Section titled “Tips and gotchas”- Only management and operations see this menu item. Being able to drag visits also needs the management role or the reassign visits permission; otherwise you can look but must use the iPad to change anything.
- A job with no project manager gets no first day visit, no final visit and no prestart, and its customers get no visit emails. Fix the PM first (see Jobs).
- Force Schedule ignores the eight per day limit and the same job same day rule. Use it for genuine exceptions only.
- Moving a visit that has already been notified re-emails the customer. If you are tidying the calendar for an un-notified visit, nothing is sent.
- A visit rejected as a duplicate (same job, same day) will not save and the form shows an overlap error. Check the job’s existing visits with Show Visits first.
- Customers cannot reschedule prestarts themselves any more. When a customer clicks Request Reschedule the PM gets the email and must call them.
- The prestart Gantt chart only appears when the PM filled in the schedule of works on the iPad; otherwise the report says no schedule of works was recorded.