Crew scheduling for a small trade business is the job of deciding who goes where, on which day, with what. Dispatch is the same plan on the day itself: getting the right people to the right address and knowing they got there. With two to ten people, most of this lives in the owner's head, a whiteboard and a group chat. That works until someone books off sick, a job runs two days longer than quoted, or a new hire shows up at the wrong site.

Why scheduling breaks for small crews

Big companies have a dispatcher. Small crews have an owner who is also on the tools, quoting at night and answering the phone between cuts. The schedule usually breaks in the same few places:

  • Multi-day jobs. A job that runs Monday to Thursday gets written down once, then forgotten when something else gets squeezed in on Wednesday.
  • Time off. Someone mentions a dentist appointment in passing, and nobody connects it to the job they were supposed to lead that morning.
  • Who is doing what. Tasks get handed out by text, so the only record of who owns the punch list is a message thread.
  • Where everyone is. The owner calls around at 8 AM to find out who actually made it to site.

None of this needs a complicated system. It needs one place that everyone looks at.

A simple weekly rhythm

You do not need software to start. A rhythm like this works on paper too:

  1. Friday afternoon: plan next week. Put every booked job on the calendar, including how many days it runs. Mark who is on each one.
  2. Check time off before you assign. Look at approved vacation, appointments and holidays before you lock in a crew, not after.
  3. Give every job a lead. One person owns the job on site. Open tasks with no owner go to them.
  4. Each evening: look at tomorrow. Confirm addresses, crew and what needs to be on the truck.
  5. Each morning: confirm who is on site. Not by phone call, if you can avoid it.

The hard part is not the plan. It is keeping one version of it that the whole crew trusts.

What to look for in scheduling software

If you are moving off the whiteboard, these are the questions that matter for a small crew:

  • Can you see the week and the month, not just today?
  • Can one job span several days without retyping it?
  • Does time off show up on the same schedule as the jobs?
  • Can you assign tasks to a person and see everything that is overdue?
  • Can you tell who has clocked in, and whether they were actually at the job address?
  • Does it sync to the Google calendar you already use?

How MackOps handles crew scheduling

MackOps is job management software built for small trade crews. On the scheduling side, it covers:

  • A Schedule with List, Week and Month views. Jobs can run over several days, and you can tag which trades are on site with your own colours.
  • Jobs linked to projects. A job can be tied to a project, and the checklist for that project's current stage shows on the job.
  • Tasks with a job lead. A Tasks tab shows My tasks, Everyone, or one person. Open tasks are grouped by job, unassigned tasks go to the job lead, and due labels show Overdue, Today and Tomorrow.
  • Time off on the schedule. Crew request sick days, vacation or personal time. Admins approve or deny it with a note. Approved time off shows on the Schedule and on Today, and a job whose crew is off that day gets a chip so you see the clash. Nothing is reassigned automatically; you decide. Ontario and Canada holidays can be shown as a layer.
  • Google Calendar. Approved time off is mirrored into the Google calendar your jobs go to.
  • Clock in with location. When someone clocks in on a job, the phone's location is checked against the job address, so you can see whether they are on site or how far away they are.
  • A Today view. Today's jobs, who is on the clock, and what is coming up tomorrow, in one place.
  • Employees. A crew list with weekly hours from Clock in, with pay rates visible to admins only.

What it costs

MackOps plans are priced in USD per month, plus applicable taxes:

  • Solo, $49. For one-person appointment businesses: online booking, clients, reminder texts, receipts and expenses.
  • Trades, from $99. Crews, projects, quotes, invoices and social posting for your own business.
  • Agencies, from $249. For agencies posting for several businesses.
  • Trades and Agencies prices depend on team size.

The short version

For a small crew, good dispatch is mostly about one shared schedule: multi-day jobs written once, time off visible before you assign, one lead per job, and a quick way to see who is on site. Start with the weekly rhythm above. When the whiteboard stops keeping up, move it into a tool your whole crew can open on their phone.

To see it on a real job, join the MackOps trades waitlist.

About the author: Tomas Makacek is the Toronto-based founder of MackOps and Makacek Media. He runs a content agency serving trades and built MackOps from working with contractor clients.