How to Create Your Project Schedule

The Houzz Pro Schedule is both a project management and client collaboration tool that helps you make sure everyone (your team, subcontractors, and clients) is on the same page. It's a place where you can easily see the next steps in your project – you can even use the schedule overview to view all your projects in one place.

To access schedule, simply navigate to a project or lead in the left-hand column, and then select Schedule from the left menu.

Once in the schedule, you can either create a schedule from scratch, convert an estimate to a schedule, or you use preset templates or custom templates.

You can choose from the three views available on the top of the page. These are Gantt, Calendar or List view. You can select the one that works best for you and change back and forth between views depending on what you want to see.

Adjust Schedule Settings

As you set up your schedule, the Actions dropdown at the top of your schedule allows you to make adjustments to ensure it accurately reflects your project or lead. Here, you can:

• Set your schedule baseline (details here)
• Change your work day settings
• Add work day exceptions
• Sync your calendar (details here)
• Move project start date
• Save and manage templates (details here)
• Export schedule (details here)
• Add or remove from client dashboard (details here)
• Delete your schedule

Let's go through a few of these actions – Work Day Settings, Work Day Exceptions, Move Project Start Date and Delete Schedule.

Work Day Settings

If you select Work Day Settings, a new screen will appear where you will be able to select the days of the week that you are available to work – you can select all day or adjust to specific times. Be sure to click Save once complete.

Work Day Exceptions

If you select Work Day Exceptions, you will be directed to your Houzz Pro settings where you can identify company holiday closures. Here, the national holidays will automatically populate – click the check box next to the holidays your company is closed for. You can select the recurring icon next to the holiday to continue the closure every year.

When you de-select a holiday, you will be asked to confirm if you want to remove just that holiday, this and following public holidays, or all public holidays.

If you have a custom company holiday you would like to add, click Add Exception. A new screen will appear – input the holiday name, start date and end date. Click the box next to Recurring if you would like to continue the closure every year. Be sure to click Save once complete.

Move Start Date

If you select Move Project Start Date, a new screen will appear where you can select the new start date from the calendar. Be sure to click Save once complete.

All the phases and items in your schedule will now automatically adjust to reflect the new start date.

Delete Schedule

If you select Delete Schedule, a new screen will appear that confirms you would like to delete. Please note that once deleted, it cannot be recovered.

Once you click delete, you will be able to start a new schedule from scratch, use a template, or create from an estimate.

Create Phases, Items, Milestones, Dates & Tasks

The Houzz Pro Schedule is broken into several tiers to best reflect your workflow. We have Phases, Items, Milestones, Dates and Tasks.

• Phases — You can group your items into a phase and at a glance see how long that portion of the project/lead is due to take. 
• Items — You can create multiple items and group them under a phase. Here you will be able to create multiple dependencies between items. 
• Milestones — You can add important dates or events to your schedule for more context on your project/lead.
• Dates — Similar to milestones, you can add important dates to your schedule, but dates are linked to specific document due dates. These due dates will appear on your schedule with a link to the project/lead document for reference.
• Tasks — You can break your items into smaller tasks and assign them to your team.

Use the dropdown menu in the left-hand column or the top right to add a new phase, item, milestone or date. 

Add Phase

There are two ways to add a phase – you can either use the dropdown menu in the left-hand column, or scroll all the way down to the bottom, then select Add Phase.

When you add a new phase, it will appear in the left-hand column. Name the phase, then click the checkmark to confirm. You can then click to edit and add items to the phase as needed.

Hover over a phase in the left-hand column for the option to add an item, edit, delete or rename the phase. You can also change the order of phases by clicking and dragging the line item and moving it to the preferred spot.

Add Item

There are several ways to add an item – you can use the dropdown menu, click add item under a specific phase, or click directly on a date in the Gantt view of your schedule.

When you add a new item, it will appear directly on the schedule. Name the item, then click the checkmark to confirm. You can then click to edit the item and drag to move around as needed.

When you click on the item within your schedule, you will see a panel on the right side of your screen where you can make multiple edits including:

• Start & Finish Date
• Start & End Time (if relevant, in 15-minute increments)
• Assign to stakeholder 
• Create a dependency (or multiple dependencies)
• Give a description of the item 
• Create a task 
• Colour coding
• Attach any documents to a task

Add Milestone

To add a milestone, use the dropdown menu in the left-hand column. When you add a milestone, it will appear directly on the schedule with a diamond icon. Name the milestone, then click the checkmark to confirm. You can then click to edit the milestone and drag to move around as needed.

Add Date

To add a date, use the dropdown menu in the left-hand column. A new screen will appear to ask you to select the relevant project/lead document – click the check box next to the corresponding document(s), then click Add to Milestones. On this screen, you can also choose to automatically add future documents to your schedule.

Once you select a document, your left-hand column will automatically update with a project due date phase, and the date will appear with a diamond icon on your schedule. You can then click to open the date details – the corresponding document will be linked here for quick reference. 

To edit the date, you can drag to move around as needed, or you can adjust the date within the details page by clicking the calendar icon.

Add Task

To add a task, click on an item in your schedule to open up the item details in the right-hand column. Under Tasks, click the + icon to create a new task for that item. You can also view existing tasks, where you can add a due date and assign items to team members or clients (more details below).

Create Dependencies

When building out your schedule, you can easily make multiple items dependent on the completion of another item. Creating dependencies in your schedule is useful if there are certain stages of the project that can't move forward until another stage is complete.

To create a dependency:

1. Click on the item you want to edit to open the item details.

2. Within the edit screen on the right-hand side, click on Add Dependency.

3. From there, you can select whether this item should begin after or end before another item. Select the relevant option from the dropdown.

4. Select the item you want to create a dependency on – you can also adjust the lag time (the waiting time between the two items) in the text box. In this instance, ordering materials needs to begin after the site measure is complete.

5. You will now see a dependency shown in your schedule. You can add another dependency by clicking + Add Dependency. You can also delete the dependency by clicking the x next to it.

Assign Items and Tasks

Within schedule, you can also assign items to your team members or clients. This will notify the assignee and make sure they are keeping up to speed with the project or lead. 

When you click the item and bring up the panel on the right. You will see there is a dropdown automatically selected to Unassigned. Here you can either invite team members to the system and assign them that way, or choose from a list of team members who are already using the system. 

On this screen, you can also view existing tasks associated with the item, or create a new task. To do this, select the Add Task icon at the top, or select one of the plus icons under the Tasks section.

Share Your Schedule

It's easy to share your schedule to keep the whole team informed of changes as they come up. Team members assigned to the project will have access by default, but you will need to set access for clients and subcontractors. To do so, click the Share button above your schedule.

Client Access

If you allow your client access to a schedule, they will be able to view it within the client dashboard (share to Client Dashboard not available for leads). Read more about the client dashboard in this article: Preview and Share the Client Dashboard

Subcontractor Access

For subcontractors, you can grant access to view a schedule on an individual basis. To set individual access, select Subcontractor Access in the Share modal. You will see the subcontractors currently invited to the project listed, and can set Access/No Access on each one individually. If a subcontractor is set to Access, they can view the full schedule. If a subcontractor is set to No Access, they can only view schedule items assigned to them.

Click View More to see your subcontractors who are not invited to the project – you can add them with one click and set their access. You can also invite a new subcontractor to your team by clicking Invite Subcontractor in the top right.

Read more about subcontractor access in this article: How to Invite and Collaborate with Subcontractors

Export and Print Schedule

If you prefer to print and share, no problem. You can export your schedule in the Gantt, Calendar or List view as a PDF or PNG.

To start, select Actions in the top right of your schedule screen. Select Export as… from the dropdown – you can then select from a PDF or PNG format. For Gantt view only, you can choose to export the schedule in the "Current view" to see the schedule as it appears on your screen with filters applied, or in the "Full gantt view" to see the entire schedule.

Click Export to download the file and print from there.

Advanced Settings for Schedule

Professionals with Custom packages have access to two additional schedule features – Live/Edit Mode and Baseline.

Live/Edit Mode

You can use the live/edit mode feature to make changes to your schedule and adjust what your client and subs can or cannot see as you work. There are two different modes — live mode and edit mode.

Live mode is the default. When you make changes in live mode, edits will immediately be visible to clients and subcontractors with the correct permissions. Email notifications are only sent when something is assigned to a client or subcontractor.

You can use edit mode when you are making a lot of adjustments to your schedule and don't want those changes to be visible yet. In this mode, clients and subcontractors will not be able to view your schedule, and assignees will not receive email notifications until you turn it live again. Only you and your team will see the edits you make to the schedule while in this mode.

To change your mode, click on Live Mode (or Edit Mode) at the top of your schedule, and select the alternative mode from the dropdown.

You will see a confirmation screen that informs you of the difference between edit and live mode notifications and visibility. Select Confirm to adjust.

Create a Baseline

Once you set up your project or lead schedule, you can use the baseline feature to take a snapshot of the current schedule. This will log the start and end dates for every item and phase. If the project/lead timeline changes, you can compare the actual dates against the initial plan to help track and manage projects more efficiently in the future.

To create a baseline:

1. Open up your schedule, and select Set Baseline from the Actions dropdown menu.

2. A popup will appear to give you more information about the feature, as well as how to reset it if needed. Click Confirm.

3. Your project/lead dates will now save as an outline within your schedule. If the dates move, it will show the projected timeline as well as the actual timeline. In this example, the site measure was delayed by two days, so adjustments made to the schedule reflect that.

4. You can select the baseline toggle to turn the feature on and off. If you would like to reset your baseline, you can select Reset Baseline from the Actions menu.