Phantom Screens · 2008–2010
A Schedule That Carried Through to the Field
A scheduling tool connected installer availability and appointments with a daily materials checklist.
- Starting Point
- Office staff booked jobs, while installers needed the right materials before leaving for the day.
- Design Decision
- Make each appointment carry the information that feeds a daily materials checklist.
- Outcome
- One scheduling tool connected availability, booked work, and what installers needed in the field.
- My role
- Marketing Manager Designed and built a scheduling tool around how office staff book jobs and installers prepare for them.
- People involved
- Scheduling staff and installers
In This Case
The Appointment Was Only the Start
At Phantom Screens of Southern California, booking an installation meant coordinating where the job was, who could take it, and what the installer would need to bring. An appointment could look complete on a calendar while the crew still needed information to prepare for the day.
Alongside my marketing role, I designed, usability-tested, and built the scheduling tool in PHP and MySQL. I worked across both the booking and field sides of the process.
The work started with the gap between an office decision and what had to happen at the customer’s door. Booking staff needed to know who could cover the appointment and where it fit. Installers needed the schedule and the materials for each job. I designed and tested those two views around the same day’s work.
Connect the Schedule to the Materials Checklist
The tool connected installer availability and geography with appointment scheduling. A daily materials checklist showed installers what to bring for each scheduled job.
Book
Use installer availability and location to schedule the appointment.
Prepare
Check which materials are needed for the day’s jobs.
Install
Arrive with the materials each job requires.
The unit of design was the job from booking through preparation. A calendar answers when an installer is available. A checklist answers what they need to take. Connecting those answers made the schedule useful to the people doing the field work.
That relationship was the design decision. A booked job becomes an input to preparation, so the office’s work helps the installer get ready. It also gave me a concrete way to test the workflow through to the next person instead of ending the test when an appointment appeared on the schedule.
The Appointment-to-Installation Handoff
Book
Use availability to find a workable appointment.
Prepare
Turn the schedule into a materials checklist for the day.
Install
Arrive with the appointment information and materials ready.
What the Tool Supported
The company launched the integrated tool on the web. The work connected the customer-facing appointment to the operational handoff the installation team depended on.
I’d take the same approach today. Follow a booking through to delivery and find out what the next person needs to do their job.