Smart Contractor uses Critical Path Method (CPM) project management to automatically create and manage job schedules. CPM is a method of project scheduling and management that is based on the following points:

• A project consists of some number of activities.
• Activities must be completed in a particular sequence. For example, framing cannot be started until the foundation is completed.
• Each activity takes some amount of time (duration) to complete.
• Activities that must be completed before others can start are considered "critical". If a critical activity is delayed, then all following activities must be delayed.
• "Non-critical" items are activities that can be started and completed within a range of time that spans other "critical" items. This date range is called the "earliest start" and "latest completion" dates.
• "Non-critical" items can become "critical" if they are not completed by their "latest completion" date.
• Based on the job start date, and the sequence and duration of all job activities, it is possible automatically generate a job schedule, and to determine the job completion date.

Smart Contractor implements the Critical Path Method to make job scheduling very quick and easy.

How it works

Smart Contractor allows you to pre-define the following information that is used to automatically create a job schedule:

• Sequence and typical duration of job items. This is called a "schedule model". Smart Contractor comes with two schedule models: Remodeling, and New Construction. You can modify these, or create any number of new schedule models using the Schedule Model entry form.
  
• Whether to schedule work for Saturdays or Sundays. By default, Smart Contractor does not schedule work on Saturdays or Sundays, but you can change whether work is scheduled for Saturdays or Sundays in the Job Options entry form.
  
• Holidays. Smart Contractor does not schedule work on holidays. Smart Contractor comes with a schedule of all of the national holidays, but you can modify that in the Holiday Schedule entry form.
  
• Typical Resources. After you define the resources that you use on jobs (in the Resource Entry form), you can define typical schedule resources in the Job Phase entry form.

When you create a new job, the Edit Job form prompts you to enter the schedule model to use in scheduling the job. The schedule model determines the duration and sequence of job activities by Job Phase.

If you do not want to use CPM Scheduling for a job, you can select the "Not CPM Scheduling" option in the prompt for Schedule Model. See notes on not using CPM scheduling below.

The Schedule Setup form allows you to enter the job start date (and also prompts for the schedule model).

Items in a job are assigned an Job Phase (in the Edit Estimate form). Based on the Job Phase, Smart Contractor assigns the work sequence and duration that you define for the Job Phase in the Schedule Model entry form. Also based on the Job Phase, Smart Contractor assigns the typical Resources that you define for the Job Phase in the Job Phase entry form.

When you are done creating a job, Smart Contractor can automatically create a schedule for the job because all the information needed for the schedule has already been defined based on the Job Phase of the items in the job. At that point, the job schedule can be easily modified in the Edit Schedule form, and printed in the Schedule Listing report.

Not Using CPM Scheduling

Sometimes the schedule for a project may be too complicated or un-ordinary to be able to be scheduled under the principles of CPM scheduling. For example, some remodeling jobs have schedules that are very convoluted, with job activities following a sequence that would be very difficult to define in a schedule model. In that sort of situation, the best thing to do is to not use CPM scheduling, and just schedule the job manually.

Smart Contractor provides for this situation as follows. If you do not want to use CPM scheduling on a particular job, select the "Not CPM Scheduling" option in the prompt for Schedule Model (in the Edit Job form, or the Schedule Setup form). The program will automatically generate a schedule for the job based on the "New Construction" schedule model, but when you view the job in the Edit Schedule form, you will notice that the scheduled dates are all represented in blue (none in red or light blue). You will also notice that when you change the schedule for any of the job items, the schedule for the rest of the job items will not be changed. To change dates for multiple schedule items, you can use the prompts available in the Item Resource form. See the "How Do I... Move The Schedule?" topic for more information.

See the How Do I... Schedule A Job? topic for more information about what you can do with job scheduling.