Scheduling in Chatter with the Calendar and Kanban

If scheduling and job tracking are bottlenecks in your machine shop, we want to solve that. Our new Calendar and Kanban features are designed to make your workflow more efficient and intuitive.

Accessing the Calendar

To access the Calendar, head to your Chatter dashboard and click on the Calendar tab in the side menu. This will bring up a view of all your machines and their scheduled jobs for any given day.

Calendar View

In the Calendar view, you’ll see all your machines listed on the left and their scheduled jobs on the right. This allows you to quickly see what each machine is up to on any day. Adding and managing jobs is straightforward — just right-click on a machine and select "Add Job."

Kanban View

The Kanban view provides a visual workflow with jobs in three stages: waiting, active, and completed. This view interacts with the Calendar, so when you drag and drop jobs in the Kanban, it automatically updates the Calendar in real time.

Adding and Managing Jobs

You can add jobs in a few easy steps:

1. From the Calendar View:

   • Right-click on a machine and select "Add Job."
   • Create a new job by entering the job details and save it.
   • Drag the job to the desired time slot on the Calendar.
   • Adjust the duration, setup time, and other parameters as needed.

2. From the Kanban View:

   • Click "Add Job" and select or create a new job.
   • Drag the job to the appropriate stage in the Kanban view.
   • The job will automatically appear on the Calendar.

Dynamic Reordering and Gap Filling

• Dynamic Reordering: Drag and drop jobs in the Kanban view to reorder them based on priority. The Calendar updates automatically.
• Fill Calendar Gaps: Use the "Fill Calendar Gaps" feature to compress your schedule by removing idle times, ensuring efficient use of machine time.

Additional Features

• Maintenance Scheduling: Easily add maintenance tasks like chip cleanouts to your schedule.
• Extending Shifts and Running Lights Out: Extend shifts or enable lights-out operations to meet deadlines. Adjust working hours to ensure jobs are completed on time.
• Automatic Reordering: The system can automatically reorder jobs based on priority, ensuring high-priority tasks are completed first.

Conclusion

These new Calendar and Kanban features are included with every Chatter core plan, providing a powerful tool to manage your machine shop schedules efficiently. Check them out and let us know your thoughts.

If you have any questions or need further assistance, please contact our support team.