Availability
Your availability calendar fills itself. You don't type in "design slots". landplan.io already knows the designs you're working on, the jobs homeowners paid for, the requests waiting for your price, and the staking days and site visits on your projects. It turns them into hours per day. From that you get your next opening and an earliest delivery date, and homeowners see when you can take a new design.
Open it from the app menu (Work › Availability), from My availability on the Jobs page, or go to landplan.io/availability.
What fills it
| Kind | Where it comes from | How it looks |
|---|---|---|
| Design in progress | Jobs you're designing and projects with a due date. Hours left = your estimate minus the time already spent in the design. | Blue |
| Paid job | Jobs a homeowner paid for that you haven't started. The full estimate is booked before the date you promised. | Navy |
| Held request | A new request holds its hours for 72 hours while you price it and the homeowner pays. | Dashed orange |
| Project work | Staking days, site visits, soil tests and inspections, from your projects and from requests. | Teal |
| Busy | Busy times from your Google, Outlook or Apple calendar, if you connect it. Only "busy" comes in, never the event titles. | Grey |
| Time off | Days or hours you add yourself. | Hatched |
The calendar places them in this order:
- Each working day has your design hours (for example 6 hours, Monday to Friday). Weekends and time off have none.
- Fixed work (project work, busy times, time off) takes its hours first.
- Designs fill the hours that are left: designs in progress, then paid jobs, then held requests, earliest due date first.
- A design can start no earlier than a date you set (waiting for a soil report, say).
- The delivery date is your buffer (1 working day by default) after the hours run out, so a small overrun doesn't break a promise.
- You can cap new designs a week. A full week shows as Booked on your page even if hours are left.
My availability
- The headline numbers: your next opening, the earliest delivery for a new job (small and large designs), this week's hours used, and new designs this week against your weekly limit.
- The calendar shows five weeks, Monday to Friday. Each day shows its hours used of your design hours and a bar. Use ‹ and › to move a week, and This week to come back.
- Drag a design (blue) or a paid job (navy) to another day: it starts no earlier than that day, and everything after it moves.
- Click a block for its menu:
- for a design or a paid job: Hours left, Start no earlier than, Save, Back to automatic and Leave off the calendar;
- for time off or project work you added: Delete (every day of it);
- Open job, Open request or Open project.
- What fills it: untick a kind to hide it from the view. It changes nothing else.
- Next openings: the first days with free time.
- Held request: each request waiting for a price or a payment, with when the hold ends and which days free up if it isn't paid.
- Outside calendars: whether your Google, Outlook or Apple calendar is connected.
- Pause new requests…: pick a date. Your page says "Not taking new designs until" that date, and your earliest dates start after it. Jobs you have keep going.
A red banner warns you when a promised date is at risk: the plan delivers a design after its due date. Add hours, move other work, or pick a new date with the homeowner.
Add time off and Add project work open a small form: the date (and an end date for time off), the whole day or some hours, and a note only you see.
Settings
Click Settings on My availability. Set these once; your calendar and the dates homeowners see work them out from here.
| Setting | What it does |
|---|---|
| Your time zone | "Today" and every date on your calendar are in this time zone. |
| Design hours | Hours you spend designing each weekday, not your whole working day. Leave room for calls and driving. |
| How long a design takes you | Hours per system: repair or replacement, conventional trench, mound, aerobic + drip, commercial. Next to each is your average from the time you spent on finished jobs. |
| Buffer before the delivery date | Working days between the hours running out and the date you promise. |
| Most new designs a week | A full week shows as Booked on your page. 0 means no limit. |
| Hold a new request for | How long a new request keeps its hours while you price it and the homeowner pays (24 to 168 hours). |
| Send a price within | After this the homeowner gets an email that you're running late (4 to 72 hours). |
| What fills your calendar | Turn each kind on or off, and set how long a staking day, site visit, soil test or inspection blocks. |
| Outside calendar | Paste your calendar's secret iCal address (see below). |
| Your landplan.io calendar in another app | A link to add your planned work to Google, Outlook or Apple Calendar. Make a new link stops the old one. |
| Site visits homeowners can pick | The times homeowners can choose in the request form. A picked visit goes on your calendar as project work. Allow "no visit needed" when there's a soil report. |
| What homeowners see | Earliest delivery date and weekly bands (recommended), weekly bands only, or nothing. |
| Put my earliest date on jobs board applications | Fills in "Ready by" from your calendar when you bid. |
| Paused until | Not taking new requests until this date. |
Click Save.
Connect an outside calendar
Only busy times come in, as "Busy". Titles never come in, and nobody else sees them.
- Google Calendar: on a computer, open Settings, pick your calendar under "Settings for my calendars", then copy "Secret address in iCal format".
- Outlook: Settings › Calendar › Shared calendars › Publish a calendar. Pick the calendar, choose "Can view when I'm busy", Publish, then copy the ICS link.
- Apple Calendar: on iCloud.com, share the calendar as a public calendar and copy its link.
Paste it in Secret iCal address, pick the calendar and click Connect. If landplan.io can't read it, it says so.
Pricing a request
How requests, quotes, bids and payments work is in Jobs.
When a homeowner sends you a request, the job page shows Held until and Price by at the top. Above your quote, Where it lands in your schedule shows the weeks the new job would use, striped, and checks such as "No date you've already promised moves".
- Design hours starts with your hours for that system. Change it and the preview updates.
- Delivery by starts with the earliest date your calendar allows, with your buffer. A later date is fine.
The homeowner sees the price and the date, never your schedule.
When you bid on an open job, the same preview is folded above the bid. With "Put my earliest date on jobs board applications" on, Ready by starts with your calendar's date, and the homeowner sees Live schedule. If you type another date, they see Set by designer.
After the homeowner pays
The job page shows Booked · on schedule, the date you promised and the days the plan does the design work. If you need more time, click Propose a new date, pick the date and say why. The homeowner gets an email and accepts it or keeps the date you agreed.
What homeowners see
Homeowners never see addresses, names or what a block is for.
- On your designer profile and your company page, When can they do it?: pick a system to see the earliest delivery date, the next six weeks as Open, Limited or Booked, and the site-visit times still open. Request a design plan opens the job form with you picked.
- In the job form, once you're picked, When do you need it?: your earliest date for their system, the timing (as soon as possible, by a date, or flexible), a site visit from your times, and a note that your time is held for them.
- On their job: when your time is held until, when the price comes, the booked date, the site visit (with Add to my calendar), and any new date you propose with your reason.
- On the bids: each bid's delivery date, whether it came from your live schedule, and how it fits their date ("✓ 15 days early").
Organizations
A company's owners and admins see Organization › Availability: each designer's hours used over the next ten working days (leave hatched), their next opening and when a large design would be ready. New requests to the team are listed with the designers ranked by who can deliver first. Pick one and click Assign to …: they get the request in Jobs with the hold on their calendar, and they send the price. See Organizations.