Labour run and weekly planner · unlimited users

Who is on which site,
weeks ahead.

Unibuild’s labour run is the planning grid for UK trades: every operative against every site, weeks and months out, checked against who actually clocked in. Operatives see their own week in the app, and approved leave cannot be booked over.

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Operatives working among reinforcement on a slab: the people whose week the labour run allocates

Try it

Eight people, four jobs,
one week you can hand to somebody.

People down the side, days across the top, the project in the cell. This one works: set somebody’s Monday and repeat it across their week, split a day between two sites, and then try to put M. Whitfield on a job on the Thursday.

An example weekly labour run. Names, sites and colours are illustrative
Operative	Mon	Tue	Wed	Thu	Fri	Sat	Sun
A. Fenton Electrician	Elmfield	Elmfield	Call-outPriory Court, no power	Elmfield	ElmfieldPM off, half day	Off	Off
M. Whitfield Improver	Elmfield	Elmfield	Elmfield	Annual leave	Annual leave	Off	Off
J. Hadley Labourer	St Aidan's	St Aidan's	St Aidan's	St Aidan's	The Yard	The Yard	Off
D. Marsden Agency	The Yard	The Yard	The Yard	Sick	The Yard	Off	Off
Redline M&E Subcontract 4 men	Northgate	Northgate	Northgate	Northgate	Northgate	Northgate	Off
T. Ashcroft Plumber	Northgate	Northgate	Day offJury service	Call-outMarsh Lane leak	St Aidan's	Off	Off
G. Whitaker Groundworker	Northgate	Northgate	Northgate	Northgate	Northgate	Off	Off
R. Cowley Carpenter	Elmfield	Elmfield	St Aidan's	St Aidan's	Elmfield	Off	Off
On the plan	8 of 8	8 of 8	7 of 8	6 of 8	7 of 8	2 of 8	0 of 8

Scroll the run sideways to reach Sunday

Where the four jobs stand

Applied for to date, from each job’s applications for payment. The count is this week’s plan.

Elmfield74%

3 of 8 this week
St Aidan’s46%

3 of 8 this week
The Yardn/a

2 of 8 · nothing to value
Northgate12%

3 of 8 this week

The colour is the projectOne per project, repeated on the bars below. The cell names the site too, so the week reads in black and white.
The weekend, and any other non-working daySaturday, Sunday, bank holidays and your own non-working days. Hatched is not blocked: you can plan onto one.
Annual leaveApproved in the holiday planner, so the run draws no selector at all. The one thing here you cannot set.
A call-outRed because nobody planned it. Counted on the plan, but not a job: no project colour, and nothing on the bars below.
Sick, and any other day offEntered straight onto the run with a mandatory reason. Neither touches anybody’s entitlement, and both block allocation.

Problems we solve

Eleven labour planning problems. All eleven solved.

From the plan in one person’s head to the leaver still booked on Monday.

Next week lives in one person’s head.

Solved One labour run anyone can open, on the phone or the office wall.

Six calls a morning asking where to go.

Solved Each operative sees their own week in the app, and is told when it changes.

Booked on a job, flying to Alicante.

Solved Approved leave blocks the allocation before it is made.

Planned for site two. Not on site two.

Solved The plan is checked against the QR clock-ins as the day starts.

Four copies of next week’s spreadsheet.

Solved One live run. Every change seen by everyone.

Subbies and agency planned somewhere else.

Solved Subcontract and agency labour on the same grid as your own.

Nobody knows what next week will cost.

Solved Planned labour cost per job, before the hours are worked.

Nobody plans past Friday.

Solved Weeks and months ahead, with last week copied in one step.

Sent to site without the right ticket.

Solved Competence shows on the person before they are allocated.

Off on Thursday, and nobody wrote it down.

Solved Day offs entered with a reason, and they block allocation.

A leaver still on next week’s plan.

Solved Deactivate once. Off the run and out of the app together.

11/11Solved in one module

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In plain terms

The labour run is the weekly plan of who is going to which site. Most contractors keep it on a whiteboard in the office, or in a spreadsheet one person owns. It answers the most-asked question in any business with people on site: where am I on Tuesday, and who have I got on site three.

In Unibuild it is a grid. People down the side, days across the top, each cell holding the project that person is on, coloured by project so a week reads as a pattern rather than as text. It runs weeks and months ahead rather than to the end of the current week. It carries subcontract operatives and agency labour alongside your own people, and it already knows about approved leave and bank holidays before you start planning.

How next week is usually planned

Accurate, current, and visible in exactly one room.

A whiteboard is a good tool. It is just a tool that stops working the moment anybody needs it while standing somewhere else.

The board

Magnets and a marker pen. Genuinely the clearest thing in the building, for the people in the building.

One room, office hours

The spreadsheet

A copy emailed on Friday. By Monday there are four copies and nobody knows which is live.

Four versions of next week

The phone calls

Six a morning, all asking the same question, all answered by the same person.

The plan is a person

The holiday

Approved in April. The man is booked on Tuesday's job and lands in Alicante on Sunday.

A team short, on the day

The subbies

Planned separately, in a different place, by somebody else, if at all.

Half the labour, off the plan

Beyond Friday

Nobody plans past the end of the week, because the board is only as wide as the wall.

No view of the month

The underlying issue The plan is not written down. It is remembered And the person remembering it takes leave too

Weekly labour runWeeks and months aheadColour coded by projectEvery person, every daySubcontract operativesAgency labourApproved leave overlaidBank holidaysCompany holidaysDay offs with a reasonPer-day notesCopy previous weekLive attendanceOn the phoneOn the wall screenRead only for the board Weekly labour runWeeks and months aheadColour coded by projectEvery person, every daySubcontract operativesAgency labourApproved leave overlaidBank holidaysCompany holidaysDay offs with a reasonPer-day notesCopy previous weekLive attendanceOn the phoneOn the wall screenRead only for the board

What the module does

Six things a whiteboard cannot.

A week you read
as a pattern

Every project carries its own colour, so a cell is recognised before it is read. A team split across three jobs, a site with nobody on it on Thursday, a week where one project has quietly taken everybody: all of it is visible as shape rather than found by reading names.

People down the side, days across the top
The colour is the project, consistently, everywhere it appears
Which is what makes it work at arm's length
And what makes the wall screen worth putting up

Seen, not readLive

Weeks and months,
not to Friday

The run is not bounded by the width of a wall. Plan the next week properly, then keep going: the shape of a month tells you where you are short before it is somebody's problem on a Monday morning.

Copy the previous week where the plan repeats
Then change the four cells that are actually different
Per-day notes for the thing the grid cannot say
So planning ahead costs minutes rather than an afternoon

Ahead, not just currentLive

Subbies and agency
on the same grid

Subcontract operatives and agency labour are planned in the same run as your own people, because on most jobs they are most of the labour and planning them somewhere else is planning half the job.

Employed staff, agency and subcontract firms on one grid
Marked so they read differently from your own people at a glance
Which is what the site actually looks like on the day
Rather than the half of it you employ directly

Everyone on the gateLive

It already knows
who is away

As the week renders, the run asks for every person and every date whether there is approved leave. On an approved full day the project selector is not drawn at all, so there is no control to click and no allocation to make by mistake.

A half day keeps the selector, because a morning off still leaves an afternoon
Day offs block allocation on the same terms, with a mandatory reason
Prevented at the point of planning, not flagged on the Monday
The planner will not offer you a man who is away

Prevented, not reportedLive

Bank holidays are
a register, not a view

Public and bank holidays, and the company's own non-working days, are a maintained list of named dates that shades both the labour run and the holiday planner. Whether Good Friday is on it is a decision somebody made once, on a date.

Rather than an answer that changes depending on who is asked
Weekends and shaded days are drawn before anybody plans onto them
The same register the leave module counts entitlement against
One list, two modules, no second opinion

Decided once, applied everywhereLive

Checked against
who actually turned up

The plan is cross-referenced with the live QR clock-ins, so the difference between who was allocated to site two and who is standing on site two is visible immediately rather than at the end of the week.

The gap on a site shows up while the day can still be fixed
The same grid is on the phone for whoever is not at a desk
And on the wall screen for the office that keeps being asked
Which is where most of the phone calls stop

Planned against actualLive

Ask to book somebody onto a job he is on holiday for.

It is the fastest way to judge this, because you cannot. Watch somebody try it on the labour run and the control is simply not there to click.

Book a demo → 30 minutes. The demo runs on our own data.

How it fits

What feeds it, and what it feeds.

The run is worth having because of what it reads automatically.

It reads the holiday planner

Leave is requested from the app or the web portal as individual dates, each a full day or a half, and approved by a named committee rather than one supervisor who might be on a roof. The moment it is approved the run stops offering that person. The two are separate modules doing separate jobs: the holiday planner manages entitlement and approval, the labour run decides where people go, and the join between them is the reason either is worth having.

It feeds the wall screen

The same week renders as a read-only board for a television in the office, refreshing itself every two minutes, with no edit control of any kind on the page behind it. A screen on an open office wall cannot alter next week's plan by accident. Changes are made here, by whoever is meant to make them, and the board shows the result within two minutes.

Day offs are not leave

The office needs to record that somebody is unavailable on Thursday for reasons that have nothing to do with annual leave. That is a day off: entered directly on the run with a mandatory reason, not requested and not approved because it is not a request, touching nobody's entitlement, and blocking allocation on exactly the same terms.

People come from one record

Everybody in the run is a row on the personnel record, whether they are on PAYE, trading through their own limited company, supplied by an agency or working for a subcontract firm. Deactivating somebody takes them out of the run's dropdown in the same operation that revokes their app access, so a leaver stops being plannable immediately rather than at the next tidy-up.

More than one company

Where a group runs several businesses, staff belong to a business. Somebody employed by one does not appear in the other's labour run, timesheet grid or dropdowns unless you deliberately give them both. That is what stops a team being planned onto a job that is not theirs. There is more on running more than one company.

What stays your call, and what we build

Who goes where stays the contracts manager's judgement. Competence sits beside it on the same personnel record, held in the training matrix. The run lets you plan a man onto two sites on the same day, because sometimes that is exactly what you mean. What it removes without being asked is the class of mistake nobody makes on purpose: planning a man who is on holiday, and planning a week nobody else can see. You may want it to refuse a double allocation, or to check a ticket before a man can be placed on a task. Tell us at implementation and we build it into your run. Unibuild is bespoke software, written to each firm, and changes asked for after go-live are included in the monthly fee rather than charged at a day rate.

The plan is only half of it. The other half is who turned up.

Clock in and out by QR on the phone, timed by the server rather than the handset, against the same person and the same project the run allocated.

Workforce and time → Or call the office on UK hours

Questions

Asked by whoever
plans the week.

Does each operative know where they are going, and when it changes?

Yes. Each operative sees their own allocation for the week in your firm’s own staff app, published on the App Store and Google Play under your company’s name and icon. When the plan changes, they get a push notification, so a Monday move reaches everybody before Monday. Supervisors have the whole run on the phone, with the same approved-leave rules as the desk version.

How does it stop somebody being booked while they are on holiday?

As the week renders, the run checks approved leave for every person and every date. On an approved full day the project selector is not drawn at all, so there is nothing to click. A half day keeps the selector, because a morning off still leaves an afternoon to plan. Leave is approved in the holiday planner, and the run reflects it the moment it is approved. Bank holidays and your own non-working days come from one register and are shaded before anybody plans onto them.

Will it stop us double-booking somebody?

It prevents the case that is never intentional: planning somebody who is on approved leave or has a day off recorded. A day off that is not annual leave goes straight onto the run with a mandatory reason, and touches nobody’s entitlement. The run still lets you put one person on two jobs in a day on purpose, because on a call-out or a split day that is what you mean. Who goes where stays the contracts manager’s judgement. If you want the run to refuse a double allocation, tell us at implementation and we build it in.

Can it stop somebody being sent without the right ticket?

Everybody on the run comes from one personnel record with their cards and training on it, held in the training matrix. Competence is visible before anybody is allocated. If you want an expired ticket to stop an allocation outright, that rule is built in at implementation.

Somebody rings in sick at seven on a Monday. How long does it take to redo the day?

You change the cells that have to move, and everybody looking at the plan sees the new one. The wall board picks it up within two minutes, and the operatives affected get a push notification in the app. Moving four names is quick on a whiteboard too. The difference is that nobody has to ring round to tell people.

Can we plan subcontract and agency operatives on it?

Yes, on the same grid as your own people. On a fit-out or M&E job where most of the workforce belongs to somebody else, planning only your direct employees means planning a minority of the site. Subcontract and agency operatives are marked so they read differently from employed staff at a glance, in the run and on the wall board.

Can we see what each job’s labour will cost before the week starts?

Yes. The run shows the planned labour cost per job for the week, before the hours are worked. Beside each job sits the value applied for to date against the order value, from that job’s applications for payment. A job at 12% with four of your six on it, and one at 74% with nobody, is a conversation worth having on the Monday.

What happens to a leaver who is still on next week’s plan?

Everybody on the run is a row on the personnel record. That covers PAYE staff, people trading through their own limited company, agency labour and subcontract operatives. Deactivating a leaver takes them off the run and revokes their app access in the same step. They stop being plannable immediately rather than at the next tidy-up.

Can we put the plan on a screen in the office?

That is what the TV board is: the same week rendered for a television, read only, refreshing itself every two minutes. The page behind it has no way to write, so a screen on an open office wall cannot change next week’s plan. It needs a signed-in session, so it is an internal screen rather than a public link.

We run more than one company. Do the two get mixed up?

No. Staff belong to a business, so somebody employed by one does not appear in the other’s labour run, timesheet grid or dropdowns unless you give them both. That stops a team being planned onto a job that is not theirs, and costs landing on the wrong company. Directors, a shared compliance officer and the group’s buyer are the usual cases for access to both.

Can we plan plant, vans and equipment on it as well?

The labour run plans people. Plant, tools and stock are tracked in assets and inventory, and vehicles with their MOT, service and insurance dates in vehicles and fleet. If you want plant allocation drawn onto the same week, say so at implementation and we build it into your platform.

How is this different from planning the week in a spreadsheet?

A spreadsheet will draw the same grid, but it does not know anything. It lets you book somebody with approved leave on Thursday, and it does not know Monday is a bank holiday. A leaver sits on it until a tidy-up. Once it is emailed, there are four copies and no way of telling which is live. The run goes weeks and months ahead, and copying last week where the plan repeats takes minutes.

How can I plan the daily labour run and see where all my site workers are?

Plan it on a grid and check it against the scans. In Unibuild the labour run holds every operative against every site, day by day and weeks ahead, with approved leave and bank holidays already on it. Operatives clock in by scanning a QR poster at the gate. A live map of who is on which site plots those scans, coloured by job with a headcount on each. The plan and the clock-ins read the same records, so the gap between who was planned and who arrived shows while the day can still be fixed.

Does it cost more if we put every operative on it?

No. Unibuild is a flat monthly fee for the firm, never per person and never per seat, so the run holds everybody, whether that is twenty people or three hundred. That matters more here than on most modules, because a labour run only works if the whole workforce is on it. How the fee is worked out is on the pricing page.

Can I try a labour run before booking a demo?

There is a working one on this page: eight operatives, four sites and a full week. Allocate anybody to anything, carry a day across the week, split a day between two sites and record a day off. Nothing is saved, and there is no sign-up. Try booking somebody who is on approved leave: on that day the run draws no site selector at all. The 14-day trial of the full platform needs no card.

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