As the industry grows, it is more important than ever for solar and renewable companies to streamline operations, optimize solar project schedule processes, and make the most of your existing employees. It is imperative that you avoid site surveyors sitting idle or on the flip side, getting double booked. In order to keep up efficiency and momentum within your solar operations, clear communication, easy to access calendars, and efficient scheduling are a must.
Along with industry expansion, the solar industry has also experienced a shift towards remote and hybrid work models. As these changes take place, your company must empower your employees and implement tools and processes that allow you to maintain the transparency and efficiency of working side-by-side, while harnessing the productivity gains and flexibility of remote work. This need is further amplified for industries centered around field work and one that is simultaneously battling a skilled labor shortage.
Connecting Work Orders with Technician Scheduling Calendars
While there are certainly many calendar tools available as part of office software suites, solar companies that use tools such as Outlook or Google Calendar report on the disconnect between scheduling and the actual work orders. In these systems, an event on the calendar is just that – an empty event. Typically a field technician must then switch to another tool in order to view and execute the work order. For the purpose of optimizing efficiency, an ideal system would allow the user to access the work order from the calendar event with one simple click.
Dispatch and access control are additional areas where solar scheduling coordinators need improvements. It is important for a solar project schedule tool to send real-time alerts to your project manager or field operations admin as new site surveys, field installations, or job closeouts are required, allowing them to quickly evaluate who is best positioned to take on this assignment based on crew availability and location. Since many solar and renewable energy installers work with partners and subcontractors, it quickly becomes cumbersome to manage and control access to a variety of user types.
Given the mobile and remote nature of solar and renewable energy work sites, software access through mobile apps is another important consideration. Not only should the calendar and relevant schedules be available on your technicians’ mobile device, but the related work order, checklist of instructions, and site photo capture must work smoothly on their device. An additional factor is whether or not the mobile app can function without a reliable internet connection. Solar companies need a system that is designed for field work, provides transparency and flexibility, and allows field technicians to plan ahead.
Enter: Scoop Solar.
Solar Project Schedule + Project Management
The Scoop Platform
Scoop is a comprehensive project management and operations platform for growing solar and renewable companies. Scoop enables efficiency through workflow automation, data centralization, and in-field workforce engagement. Managing operations is complex, so Scoop simplifies and automates every day processes, allowing your team to focus on the performance and success of your business.
Scoop Schedule Feature
The calendar and scheduling features of the Scoop platform are fully integrated, meaning users are not required to access other tools for scheduling or viewing project and work order details. The Scoop Solar mobile app provides on-the-go access to in-field and remote workers, meaning site surveyors that have just arrived on-site can click through the calendar event to access customer data, work order details, and more. As the site survey is complete, these employees can upload relevant data, photos, and videos on the fly. This information is saved in the Cloud and synced back to your office teams to assess next steps.
Available Integration with Your Office Team Calendar
The Scoop calendar and scheduling feature can be integrated with your office team scheduling system, such as Google Calendar. This integration allows work order assignments as well as ‘free’ and ‘busy’ blocks to be synchronized across the two systems, creating a seamless and up-to-date solar project scheduling solution.
Filter Specific Calendar Views
In order to reduce the administrative effort required to create and manage access controls across your business, personalized views within Scoop are predetermined according to a user’s account-level access. This feature streamlines account permissions but still provides you with the flexibility to grant some users with team-wide calendars, others with individual-level, and so on. Administrative and scheduling roles can be assigned which allow these specific users to access all calendars across your organization. Employees with these permissions can view free and busy time slots, schedule hourly or multi-day events for others, as well as view the status of work as it is completed.
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Benefits of an Integrated Solar Project Schedule + Project Management Tool
An integrated solar project schedule and project management solution allows your solar team to keep up efficiency, transparency, and momentum. Scoop Solar:
- Reduces admin tasks and steps involved for scheduling site surveyors and field technicians
- Eliminates project risks due to missed handoffs of work context and site information
- Gives project managers the ability to filter appointments by role and job type
- Provides field crews visibility to team-wide and individual calendars and job context
To learn more about this feature or the Scoop project management platform, reach out today.