¶ The three levels
Fundamental for event planning is the creation of jobs. Jobs are created by clicking on the date in the calendar or, alternatively, via the plus sign at the top right. A job created this way is initially a solo job. If you create subjobs within the job, the solo job automatically becomes a main job. Together with projects, up to three levels can thus be mapped.
Example:
- Project (the tour of an international artist)
- Main job (the stops of the tour: Hamburg, Munich, etc.)
- Subjob (the individual shifts at the stops: setup, event, dismantling)
¶ How many levels do you need
How many of the levels you use primarily depends on the size or duration of the job, or how precisely you want to structure it. Sometimes it also makes sense to create a project for the jobs in order to have an overview of costs or working hours, for example, within a year. For example, you can create projects for specific clients, locations, etc., and under them create the individual events as main and subjobs. Via the "Statistics" icon in the project, you can then output the total working hours, personnel costs, travel expenses, or even expenses that have been incurred for a specific location or client.
If you have difficulties structuring your jobs, please feel free to contact our support.
When creating the next lower level (from the project to individual jobs — which then automatically become the main job again as soon as you add sub-jobs to the individual job — or from the main job to sub-jobs), the short-record function is always important. This way you can create additional jobs very quickly. In general, you create subjobs whenever employees are supposed to be present at different times.
If you work with multiple levels, always remember that all employees should always be in the lowest level. An exception exists if you initially block your employees for the duration of the main job. This makes sense if, for example, you already know the date of an event but the exact planning is not yet finalized. Then you can book your employees for the period of the event so that they are blocked for that period. Once the detailed planning is done, you can, via the personnel plan, remove your employees from the main job with one click and distribute them to the individual subjobs. In the course of this, it may happen that employees are temporarily in both main and subjobs.
¶ Creating jobs
You create jobs by either clicking on a date in the calendar—if this has not been changed to projects under Administration > Calendar > General—or by clicking the plus sign at the top right and creating a job. In both cases, a form opens where you can create the complete job including personnel, subjobs, time recording, and much more.
¶ Information
On the left side of the form, all job-relevant information is entered first. This includes the title, date, possibly the time zone (if the job takes place in a different time zone), the type, and the status. Type and status can be customized under Administration > Jobs > Job Types and Job Status.
You can select the scheduler, client, location, and project manager directly from your database or create new ones in the pop-up window by clicking the plus sign at the bottom and entering all relevant information.
Under Administration > Jobs > Additional data you can create further individual information fields.
For even more detailed information, you can also add a description (text templates can be used here), upload documents (you decide for whom these are released), and write comments. The comment function acts like a chat, where you can decide for each comment whether everyone, only schedulers, or only project managers can see it. Comments you write yourself can be edited or deleted afterwards. With the corresponding access rights, comments from others can also be edited or deleted. Documents can also be uploaded in the chat.
¶ Quick start
When you open the form for a new job for the first time, you see three different options on the right side that represent how you want to continue planning your job. If it is a small job for which you "only" need a few employees, then go to Plan personnel requirements. If you have a larger job with several subjobs or different shifts, then go to Plan production or tour. Or do you want to request which employees are available for your job first? The choice depends on what the goal of your job is. Depending on which option you choose, you will be redirected directly to the correct page. With "Plan personnel requirements" (one-day job), you can directly specify how many employees per category you need for your job. With "Plan production or tour" (multi-day job), you will be taken directly to the page for planning subjobs or shifts. With "Request employees" all employees are displayed.
¶ Scheduling employees
In every job you can request employees, set them as available, or book them directly.
¶ Further settings
In every job, you will find a number of icons at the top right that support you in the clear planning and management of your job:
- Employees
- Subjobs
- Overview
- Tasks
- Working hours
- Locations
- Invoice insert
- Risk assessment
- Travel expenses
- Homepage export
- Statistics
¶ Individual tabs
If you have created one or more of these tabs under Administration > Jobs > Individual tabs, they will also appear with the corresponding icon at the top right in the job dialog. With these individual tabs, you can create additional information such as time, material, guest lists, or other additional data fields individually. The contents of the individual tabs can be copied or imported here in the job from any other job or project.
Automatic sorting of rows is possible. To do this, click once on the respective title row of a table. The sorting set in this way will be adopted when saving and automatically displayed next time.
¶ Download data
Here you will find all important job data in CSV or XLSX format. You can edit these tables and combine them as you need.
¶ Print view (PDF)
Once you have created a job, requested, entered, or booked employees, and then click "save", you can output various employee lists via the print view at the top right. These include a job overview, a personnel plan, the statistics, signature lists, distribution lists, participant lists, time sheets, task lists, booking confirmations, a QR code for time clock, a list for Covid-19 tests and a calculation. If you use our feature for personnel leasing you have even more printing options. For almost all lists, you can select which information should be included.
¶ Contact employees
¶ Send request and booking emails
Via the e-mail symbol, the corresponding mails are sent during the request and booking process. Without the active sending of these mails, employees/freelancers or subcontractors will not be requested or booked in the new request dialog. Next to each employee involved in the job, you see an e-mail symbol with a red X. Only when the request or booking mail has been actively sent does this symbol disappear, so you know that the corresponding mail has been sent out.
¶ Send tender email
If you want to request all employees, freelancers, and/or subcontractors of the required categories for a job at once, you send them a tender email here. If multiple categories apply to a person, only one e-mail for the job with all categories will be sent. The recipients of the tender can now actively offer themselves in the job and thus respond to the tender. Afterwards, the scheduler or project manager can choose which of these persons they want to finally book.
If you send the tender email from a main job or project, this allows you to tender a tour or project in a single step. It is also possible to add free text to the email.
Read here how to send the tender email step by step and select the right employees.
¶ Send free-text email
Send a free-text email here to one or more recipients. You can also choose from your text templates here.
¶ Send confirmation email
If you have planned your job some time ago and are now unsure whether all participants will be present, send them a confirmation mail. This way, all booked employees receive an email or push notification in which they have to actively confirm their participation in the job.
¶ Copy
Since you cannot create templates in CrewBrain, we solve this problem with the help of the copy function. If certain jobs are to be repeated, you can copy them at the top right. You can determine the intervals yourself, from one-time to daily, weekly, monthly, yearly, or for example every second Tuesday of a month.
You can choose a title and select what exactly should be transferred. Among other things, you can choose whether the subjobs, employees, or documents should be transferred. The job status can also be selected individually.
If you have recurring events, e.g. festivals that take place every year, you can also place these recurring projects or jobs on a specific month of a specific year, so that you can quickly find all your templates there and copy them from there.
¶ Options
At the bottom left under "Options" you can hide individual jobs from the calendar. This function becomes particularly interesting if you use synchronization with a rental management software and do not want to see some of the synchronized jobs constantly in the calendar. Hidden jobs can also be displayed again if necessary via filters in the calendar.
In addition, you can convert a job here. Into a solo job or a project.
You can also officially cancel or completely delete the job here.
¶ Record times
If an employee is firmly booked, his working time can be recorded manually or via time clock.
¶ Use cases
¶ Solo job
You create a solo job if you need personnel for a maximum of one day, who start at the same time and work at the same place. Examples would be personnel that you lend for a few hours a day in the context of temporary employment, video productions that send their employees for a few hours to the shoot, or internal meetings.
¶ Main and subjob
Create two levels if personnel should be present at different times, or if, for example, the locations of deployment, i.e. the locations, are different within a job.
An example here would be the setup and dismantling of an event. The main job would then have the name of the event with the complete time, i.e. with the times of setup and dismantling. The subjobs would then be the setup and the dismantling, which take place at different times.
¶ Project - main job - subjob
All three levels are mainly needed when you have events that span several days or even weeks. Examples are festivals or tours of artists. The project would then cover the entire period of the tour or festival, possibly including setup and dismantling times. At a festival, the main jobs could be the individual days or the individual stages, depending on what you are setting up or planning. The subjobs would then be what happens on the individual days or on the individual stages.
On a tour, the individual stops of the tour would be the main jobs and the subjobs would be the individual shifts at the stops.