A plan that knows how much time you have
flow@work fits tasks into the week based on each person's working hours, absence and meetings. When something changes, the plan is recalculated, so it still holds on Thursday and not just on Monday morning.
We're launching shortly.
Why we're building this
Most planning tools let you put any number of tasks on a person. The plan looks fine on Monday, and by Wednesday it has already fallen apart.
We wanted a tool that accepts that the working day ends, that there are meetings and that people are sometimes away. That way you can see ahead of time when a week doesn't add up.
How planning works
- Working hours come first
- Everyone has a weekly schedule with working hours, lunch and breaks. What's left is the time that can be planned. If someone is off for a day, or starts later, you only change that day.
- Tasks are scheduled automatically
- A task with an assignee and a time estimate goes wherever there's room, taking priority and deadline into account. Every night the plan is redone based on what happened during the day. If something needs to happen at a fixed time, you can pin it.
- Meetings are subtracted
- Connect your Outlook (Microsoft 365) or Google Calendar and meetings are deducted from the time available for planning and shown in your week view. We only fetch the time and title of each meeting, never attendees or content, and you can choose to read free/busy only.
- You see when it's too much
- The week view shows how full each day is. An overbooked day stands out while there's still time to do something about it.
- Plan and outcome
- When you open a day, the plan is saved as it looked at that moment. Afterwards you can compare it with the time you actually spent, and with the cost if you track it.
Recurring tasks and the annual wheel
Recurring tasks
Work that needs doing at regular intervals is set up once as a task template. You choose the interval, for example every other week, the first Monday of each month or in March and September every year. The tasks are created automatically a few weeks ahead, with assignee, time estimate and checklist filled in, and are then scheduled like any other task.
The annual wheel
The annual wheel brings together every recurring task for a year and shows how many there are each month and how much time they take. You can look at the whole company or a single unit, so busy months show up long before they arrive.
| Recurring task | Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fire safety check | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 12 |
| Safety inspection | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 4 | ||||||||
| Forklift service | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 6 | ||||||
| Stock count | 1 | 1 | 2 | ||||||||||
| Workshop clean-up round | 2 | 2 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 26 |
| Planned time | 4 h | 2 h | 7.5 h | 2 h | 4 h | 11 h | 4 h | 2 h | 7 h | 2.5 h | 4 h | 11 h | 61 h |
Multi-step processes
Work that's done the same way every time can be saved as a template. You lay out the steps and how they depend on each other. Steps that don't wait for anything else can run in parallel.
- Each step can be assigned to a role or to whoever starts the process.
- Changes to a template only affect processes started afterwards.
- Ongoing and finished processes are tracked on their own board.
Also included
Board
Tasks move between statuses according to set rules. Anything waiting on another task is marked as blocked automatically.
Follow-ups
When a task is done, the system can suggest a follow-up. There's also a limit on how many times something can be postponed.
Inspections and 5S
Recurring inspection rounds and 5S reviews are handled as their own task types.
Key figures
Overdue tasks, the week's flow and how the workload is spread across the team, for the whole company or per department.
Organisation and resources
Departments and teams, and physical resources such as rooms and machines. Everyone can use the interface in Swedish, English, German or Norwegian.
Sign in with your work account
Sign in with your Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace work account. You can turn off password sign-in and require two-step verification. Permissions are set per role.
Want to try it when we open?
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