An install that goes wrong on site went wrong in the office a fortnight earlier. The date was promised before the scaffold was booked, the kit list was in somebody's head, and the crew found out what had been sold when they opened the van.
Between the deposit and the handover an install passes through seven stages. Each has one principle and one way firms break it. This is the map. Run it with one calendar and a list per job, on paper the first time. Where a guide goes deeper, the section links to it.
1. Before a date is promised: a list of what has to be true, with a name and a date on every line
A free crew is not a job that can go ahead. Before anyone says a date out loud, write down everything that has to be true on the morning the van arrives. The usual lines: the consents (planning, the network operator's, the landlord's), the kit with a delivery date, the scaffold or access equipment, the other trades, and the customer's own jobs: the loft cleared, the drive free, the battery location agreed, someone at home. Each line gets an owner and a date. A line without both is a dependency nobody is holding. While any line is open the date is provisional, and the customer is told that, with the day they will hear by.
The mistake: the date promised from the diary alone. Somebody sees the crew free on the 14th and says it, and the scaffold, the kit, the consent and the roofer are assumed. Read keeping an install date three other people control for the list and the weekly walk through it.
2. Booking the crew: one calendar for everything that takes a person's day
Installs, surveys and dated tasks all take someone out of the yard. Keep installs in one diary and surveys in another and nobody sees that the lead installer is surveying on the day the crew needs them. One calendar holds all three, with a filter by person. Booking an install means four things, not one: the first day, the lead installer, the crew, and how many days it takes. Count a multi-day job in working days, and treat its second and third days as booked as firmly as the first. Before anyone is booked, check the days they are already out, later days of another job included.
The mistake: booking the first day only. The crew look free on the Wednesday because the calendar shows a job starting on Monday with no end, and somebody books them twice.
3. The week before: confirm every line again, then build the job pack
Seven days out, walk the list from stage one a second time. Scaffold confirmed for the day before. Kit in the yard and checked against the design. Consent on file. The other trades confirmed for their day. Then tell the customer the arrival time, the days on site, and what they still have to do. With every line closed, build the job pack: access and parking, the kit list, the drawings (layout, strings, cable routes, where the inverter and battery go), and what was promised in the sale, because "the battery under the stairs" and "bird proofing included" are promises the crew has to keep. The pack starts at the survey, and a survey sheet with blanks on it is a pack with blanks on it. What to capture at the survey lists every line the pack needs.
The mistake: the pack held in three heads. The salesperson knows what was promised, the designer knows the strings, the office knows about the parking permit, and the crew is given the address.
4. The days on site: capture everything, so there is no second visit
The crew needs three things to hand: the job pack, the customer's number and the office's, and the name of the person who decides when the site does not match the drawing, so a changed layout is settled by a call and not by the crew's best guess. Then everything is captured before the van leaves: photographs at each step, from the roof before work to the labels on the finished system, the serial number of every panel, inverter and battery, the test results, and a snag list with an owner and a date against each item. A second visit costs a day of labour and the customer's goodwill, and it starts as something not done, or not written down, on the first.
The mistake: the serials and test results written on a sheet in the van and copied up a week later, or not at all. The certificate goes out with the wrong serial and the warranty registration never happens.
5. Commissioning and handover: the customer shown their system, and the clocks that start
Commissioning is not finished when the inverter turns on. It is finished when the system is generating, the monitoring is connected, and the customer has seen it working and been shown how to read it, how to isolate it, and what the lights mean. Monitoring that never connected is a second visit nobody pays for. Write the commissioning date down the same day, because the paperwork runs from it: the certificates, the network operator's notification, the warranty registrations and the handover documents. Every one gets an owner and a due date on the day of commissioning, and the customer is told what will arrive and when.
The mistake: the paperwork started when the customer chases. The commissioning date went in nobody's diary, so nothing was counting down.
6. When a date moves: move early, tell the customer first, and keep the way back
Dependencies slip. When one cannot be recovered, move the install now, while it is still two weeks away, not the day before. The customer hears it from you the same day, before they have a reason to ring, and they hear the new date rather than "we will be in touch". The move and its reason are written on the job. And a move must be easy to put back: a scaffolder who comes good after all should take one action to undo, not a fresh booking.
The mistake: moved in silence. The crew knows, the calendar knows, and the customer finds out when nobody arrives. The routine for the move is in keeping an install date three other people control.
7. Capacity: know what the team can fit in before sales promises it
A firm that sells faster than it fits is making promises it cannot keep. Count the install days the team has in a month: people, times working days, less holidays, surveys and the days already booked. The gap is what sales can sell with a date on it. Look at it per installer as well as in total, because one lead installer booked solid with two others idle is the same number and a different problem. Review it in the same half hour as the pipeline, every week.
The mistake: capacity measured by feel. The diary looks full because it is full of this week, so the enquiry that wanted a date in six weeks was turned away.
Installa keeps the install on track for you
- Stop keeping three diaries. One calendar holds installs, surveys and dated tasks, filtered by person and by type, with the jobs waiting to be booked beside it, ready to drag onto a day.
- Stop double-booking day two. Book an install with its lead installer, crew and number of days, and before you save Installa tells you who is already out on any of those days, the later days of another multi-day job included. The days are counted over working days, skipping weekends and public holidays.
- Stop moving dates in silence. Drag an install to a new day and Installa warns of a clash before it saves, writes the move on the job's history, offers one click to email the customer the new date, and one click to undo. The same email is offered when a job is first booked, and the customer portal shows them the install date and the days on site.
- Stop carrying the list in your head. Each line on the dependency list is a task on the job with a name and a due date, and the owner is told in Installa when it falls due. When an install's last day passes without the job moving on, the job's manager is told. Each person has a private feed of their surveys, installs and dated tasks for their phone's calendar app.
- Stop starting the paperwork when the customer asks. Recording the commissioning date on the job sets the due date on every item that runs from it, and anything overdue or due within the fortnight sits on the dashboard's needs-attention list. Photographs and documents attach to the job, and the ones you share appear in the customer's portal.
- Stop measuring capacity by feel. The workload report shows each installer's open jobs and the installs in the next thirty days, and the crew utilisation report sets capacity against bookings per installer for the period you choose.
A list per job before a date is promised, one calendar, the pack built the week before, everything captured on site, and the clocks started on the day of commissioning. That is the whole routine, and it is what the team calendar and the job file are for. See how scheduling in Installa works.