Possible to create a no overlaps job scheduling calendar??

[buachille]

We run a small business - construction.

We only do one job at a time so there are never 2 jobs done on one day.

Often we get a job that has to be done straight away. It jumps straight to the top of the queue and all the other jobs are shunted into the future by the number of days this "do it straight away" job will take.

I've been looking for a scheduling calendar (software, browser based, anything would do) but I cannot find one that does what I need it to do so I'm wondering if I could make one in excel?

I'll try to explain the functions I need:

At the moment we have about 2 months of work lined up. One job will take 5 weeks, others 2 weeks, 2 days, 1 day, etc. I need a calendar that will allow me to create a new job and insert it at any point on the calendar, and if I've inserted it, say, on the 1st of September and it's going to take 4 days then all the jobs that were going to take place after this date should be shunted 4 days into the future. And, weekends should be ignored - no work should land on a Saturday or Sunday.

Do you see what I mean. If so, can it be done in Excel?

[Pete_UK]

If you are part-way through a longish job (e.g. the 5-week one) and a "do it straight away" job comes in, will you leave off the first one for a few days to complete the new one, or will you always see a job through to completion if you have started it?

It's an intriguing problem, which I'm sure could be done in Excel. I think it might be better to have one sheet where you record the jobs as they come in, along with proposed start date and "priority", and then get Excel to display the jobs on a separate sheet in calendar format.

Hope this helps.

Pete

[buachille]

Thanks for replying.

Sometimes we would decide to finish a job before inserting the "do it straight away" job, but on other occasions we would just put the current job on hold. Depends on urgency really. I gather this adds an extra layer of complication?

<<edit>>

In fact we frequently put jobs on hold while we go and do another smaller job.

[buachille]

I tried using google calendar. Simple enough to put the jobs in initially, but then I had to add some jobs which puts subsequent jobs further into the future and it was such a nightmare trying to adjust all the dates that I gave up. When I was rearranging the dates the jobs were going over the weekends which meant I was losing 2 days per week which blew the schedule to pieces.

[buachille]

I can't believe there isn't a raft of software available that does this. I've searched and searched and not finding the right thing.