Build a project schedule
Lay out milestones and see when each phase happens.
The Schedule tab auto-populates from awarded bids, and you can add milestones by hand.
WHEN ONE TRADE SLIPS, EVERYTHING BEHIND IT MOVES. Press Set Dates on a vendor waiting to be scheduled, fill in the start and end dates, and SyteNav asks "Can't start till another trade finishes?" as soon as the line exists. Adding a milestone does the same, and you can open any existing line and answer it there. Pick the trade under "After:" and press Save. From then on, moving that line by three days moves this one by three days - and anything waiting on THIS one, all the way down the chain.
THAT IS THE WHOLE THING FOR MOST JOBS - "after the sheetrock guy" and nothing else. If you need more, "More options" holds two extras: "Wait till they're __% done" holds this trade until the one ahead is far enough along, and "Plus __ extra days" leaves clear days in between. Leave both blank and it simply starts when they finish.
NOTHING IN THAT PANEL SAVES ON ITS OWN. Save inside the panel puts the link in the list; Save Changes at the bottom of the dialog is what writes it. Cancel throws the lot away.
IT WILL OFTEN SUGGEST THE ANSWER. Open a line with nothing linked and you may see "Probably: After Framing" with a sentence under it saying why. Tap it and the link is staged - exactly as if you had picked it yourself - and Save Changes still has to be pressed. It is a suggestion and nothing more: it never links anything on its own and it never emails anybody.
WHERE THE SUGGESTION COMES FROM, so you can judge it. Two things have to agree. First, the trades: SyteNav has a plain list of what usually follows what on a job - site work, foundation, framing, roof, closing the shell in, the rough-ins, insulation, drywall, and so on - and it offers the NEAREST one below, not the earliest. Second, the dates you have already typed: it will only suggest a trade that already finishes before this one starts. If your own dates say otherwise, it says nothing, because your dates are a decision and the list is only a habit.
WHEN IT SUGGESTS NOTHING, AND WHY THAT IS ON PURPOSE. A trade the list has never heard of - a typo, an abbreviation, a milestone like "Substantial Completion" - gets no suggestion rather than the closest guess, because a link to the wrong trade moves the wrong dates and emails the wrong sub. It also stays quiet on a line you have already linked (you have thought about that one), on a delivery, and on any pair that would create a loop. A suggestion never carries a percent gate or extra days either - those are things you say, not things a list can know.
No suggestion on a placeholder line? Give it a trade. A line with a sub gets its trade from the subcontract, but a placeholder only has the name you typed - there is a Trade box in its edit dialog, and filling it in is what lets SyteNav have an opinion about what it waits for.
WHAT COUNTS IS THE FINISH DATE. A line that starts on the same day but runs three days longer has taken three days longer, so everything behind it moves three days. A line that starts earlier and still finishes on the day it always did moves nobody - nothing was waiting on its start.
SAYING A TRADE IS RUNNING LATE. Open the line and press "Running late?" - the date boxes are replaced by two questions: how many days, and what happened. Both dates move by that many days, so the trade keeps its length; it just starts later. It goes through the same review screen as any date change, so you still see what else moves and still choose whether to email anyone. The difference is what gets written down: the reason, what the dates were before, and that it was a DELAY rather than somebody changing their mind.
WHY THIS DATE MOVED. Every line now carries its own history, at the bottom of its edit dialog: each move, oldest first, with the reason where there was one - and for a line that moved because something else did, which trade pushed it. A line that has slipped shows how far it has slipped from where it was FIRST planned, so a line that has moved four times still says nine days late rather than the last move only.
A plain date edit is not recorded as a delay. Changing your mind about when something happens is a re-plan, and it shows as "later than planned" rather than "late" - amber is kept for the times somebody actually said the work ran late.
- 1Open the line and change its dates.
- 2A screen lists everything that moves: each trade, its old dates, its new dates, and which sub is on it.
- 3Choose "Notify subs" to email everyone affected, or "Shift silently" to move the dates without telling anyone.
- 4Cancel moves nothing at all.
EVERY LINKED TRADE IS ON THAT SCREEN, INCLUDING THE ONES SITTING STILL. A trade that is not moving says which of three reasons it is: its dates were changed by hand after it was linked, the trade ahead of it still finishes on the same day, or something between the two is not moving so where it lands cannot be worked out. A linked trade is never simply missing from the list - if it is not there, it is not linked.
AND EACH ROW SAYS WHAT ITS LINK ACTUALLY SAYS - "waits on Sheetrock at 80%", "waits on Sheetrock plus 2 days", or just "waits on Sheetrock". Two trades behind the same one under different conditions do not read the same, so you can check the rule from the screen rather than opening each row.
AND IF THERE IS NOTHING TO SAY, THERE IS NO REVIEW. A save that moves nobody and changes nothing else just saves. But a change that moves NOBODY is worth hearing about, so the screen does open for that - and tells you why: nothing is linked to this line, or the trade waiting on it was hand-dated since being linked, or the finish did not actually move. With nothing moving there is nobody to email, so the buttons are simply Save and Cancel.
THE ONE THAT CATCHES PEOPLE: if the line you are editing FOLLOWS something, typing dates on it takes it out of that chain - from then on the trade ahead can move and this line will not move with it. The screen says so before you save, and linking it again puts it back.
ONE EMAIL PER SUB, NOT PER LINE. A sub with two phases on your job - electrical rough-in and finish - gets one email listing both, saying what moved and which trade pushed it. Replies come straight back to you.
WHAT THAT EMAIL LOOKS LIKE. The subject is your job and their new date - "Your start on QA Ground-Up 2026 moved to Oct 24" - so it reads in a phone's inbox list without being opened. Inside, each line says "was Wed Oct 21, now Tue Oct 24 (+3 days)", with the old date struck out and the new one in green. Weekdays, not ISO dates, and the number of days is signed - three days early is as much of a problem as three days late.
YOU CAN WAIT ON A DELIVERY, NOT JUST A TRADE. Anything on the schedule can be waited for, including a supplier's delivery - pick it under "After:" and the link reads "Once the ACME Supply delivery lands". If the delivery slips, everything waiting on it moves with it, exactly as a trade would. The one thing a delivery cannot have is a percent: it either arrives or it does not, so "Wait till they're __% done" is not offered on one.
THE TRADE YOU NEED HAS NO LINE YET? Press "My trade's not here" inside the panel and add a placeholder - a trade name and rough dates, nobody assigned. Other work can depend on it immediately. When you later award that trade to a real sub, a new line appears for them and SyteNav shows a banner on the Schedule asking whether it takes the placeholder’s place - say which line it is and everything waiting on the placeholder is moved onto the real work, then the placeholder goes.
IT ASKS RATHER THAN MATCHING BY NAME, and that is deliberate. A trade name is free text on both sides, so a wrong automatic merge would quietly rewire another trade’s chain onto the wrong sub with nothing on screen to show it. Where one awarded line matches the placeholder’s trade exactly it is marked "same trade" and offered first, but every other line on the board is in the list too - which is the only thing that helps a placeholder you named yourself through "My trade’s not here", since a name nobody picked from a list can never match one. Until you answer, the placeholder stays put and anything gated behind it stays shut: a placeholder can never report progress, so a percent gate waiting on one never opens.
TYPING HOW FAR ALONG A TRADE IS. Open any line and there is a "How far along is it?" box. Leave it empty and SyteNav uses that sub's budget lines instead - rolled up by money, so a $90k line at 10% beside a $10k line at 100% is 19% done, not 55%; the box shows that number greyed out so you can see what it would use. A number you type beats the roll-up, and clearing it with "Nobody has said" puts it back. Empty is not zero: zero would claim the work has not started, and "nobody has said" is the honest answer that holds a gate shut.
WHAT A PERCENT GATE ACTUALLY DOES - and it is narrower than it sounds. It only ever stops a trade being pulled EARLIER. If the trade ahead slips, everything behind it slips too, whatever percent anyone is at: a crew always hears that their date moved. But if the trade ahead moves earlier and is not far enough along, the one behind stays where it is, and the review screen says so and names the percent it needs and the percent it has. Nobody gets told to turn up to a wall that is not there. SyteNav will not do that based on a number nobody has entered either - an unknown percent holds the line and says it is holding because nobody has said.
YOU CAN SEE WHICH LINES A GATE IS HOLDING. In the List view a line sitting behind a percent gate carries a "Waiting" badge, and one whose gate has opened says "Clear to start". Hover or tap it for the reason - which trade it is waiting on and the percent it needs. A gate that is holding a line because nobody has reported progress says that instead, because "they are not far enough along" and "nobody has told us" are different problems with different people to chase.
AND WHEN A GATE OPENS, YOU CAN TELL THE SUB. Once the trade ahead reaches the percent you set, a green banner appears at the top of the Schedule saying how many trades are clear to start. Press "Review and tell them" and you get the same kind of screen as a date change: every line that has come free, which trade cleared it and the percent it reached, and exactly who would be emailed. Untick anyone you do not want written to. Nothing is sent until you press the button - SyteNav never emails a sub off the back of a number changing.
EACH LINE IS ONLY OFFERED ONCE. When you send, that line stops appearing in the banner, so a second press cannot put a second identical email in the same sub's inbox. The send is recorded against the job either way. If a sub has no email address on file, the screen names them before you send and the send tells you afterwards how many letters actually went out - a missing address is something to find out now, not when nobody turns up.
OPENING A ROW ASKS WHAT IT WAITS FOR, so the links section says "Checking..." for a moment before it fills in. If it cannot load them it says so - that is not the same as the trade having no links, and it is worth reloading before you change anything there.
A LINE YOU EDIT BY HAND STOPS FOLLOWING - BUT ONLY IF YOU CHANGED THE DATES AFTER YOU LINKED IT. Linking says "this follows"; changing a date yourself says "leave it alone"; whichever you did LAST is the one that counts. So a date you typed before linking never takes the line out of the chain, and LINKING IT AGAIN PUTS IT BACK: open its own row, pick what it comes after, and Save. This is the same for a plain link and for one with a percent or extra days on it.
- 1Open the project and go to the Schedule tab.
- 2Click Add Milestone.
- 3Give it a name, start/end dates, and (optionally) tie it to a subcontractor.
- 4Save - it appears on the timeline alongside the auto-generated items.
THREE VIEWS, AND THE CALENDAR SHOWS MORE THAN THE OTHER TWO. The Calendar is the whole job on a month: schedule bars and deliveries, BOOKED inspections on their confirmed date with the time you were given, and tasks on the day they are due (struck through once done). Click a schedule bar to edit it; click an inspection or a task and it opens its own tab. Timeline and List are the schedule editor - every row there opens the edit dialog - so they show schedule items only, because an inspection in a list of editable rows is a row nothing can save.
ON A PHONE, TAP THE DAY. A month is seven columns, so a square is about the width of a thumbnail - too narrow for a name. Each square shows a coloured dot per item instead (the key is under the grid), and tapping the day opens everything on it in full: what it is, whose it is, and the time an inspection was booked for. Tap a row there to open it. On a laptop the squares keep their labels.
AN INSPECTION NOBODY HAS BOOKED IS NOT ON THE CALENDAR. A calendar is appointments, and a requested date is a day you asked for that nobody has agreed to. It is on the job's Overview instead, in the Today band, under "needs booking".
Awarding a quote adds that sub's work to the schedule automatically, so the plan fills in as you hire.