Building and Updating Your Construction Schedule

Add tasks, set dates and dependencies, import templates, apply rain delays, and read what the Schedule page does and does not change.

Your schedule is the order and timing of the work. In OwnerDraw it is a list of **tasks**, each with a start date, an end date and a status. The **Gantt** view draws those tasks as bars on a calendar so you can see what overlaps.

Nothing on this page contacts a contractor, books an inspection or bills your lender. It is your plan and your record of what happened.

Start here

1. Open **Schedule**. The **Gantt** tab opens first.
2. Select **Import Template** if you want a standard task list to start from. Pick a template, set **Project Start Date**, then select **Import Template** again to confirm.
3. Or select **Add Task** and enter **Title**, **Start Date** and **End Date** — those three are required.
4. On tasks that must follow other work, set **Depends On (Previous Task)**.
5. Set each task's **Status** as work happens: **Not Started**, **In Progress**, **Completed**, **Delayed**.

If you are not sure of exact dates yet, put in your best guess. Moving a bar later is easy; having no schedule at all is what causes trouble with a lender.

The five views

All five show the same tasks — they are just different pictures of them.

| Tab | What it is best for |
| --- | --- |
| **List** | Editing quickly. Columns are **Task**, **Start**, **End**, **Status**, **Assigned**. You can change a status straight from the table. |
| **Gantt** | Seeing overlap and sequence. Bars can be dragged. |
| **Month** | A calendar month at a glance. |
| **Week** | The coming week's work. |
| **Day** | A single day's timeline. |

Creating and editing a task

**Add Task** opens a form with:

• **Title \*** — for example *Foundation Pour*
• **Description** — details for yourself
• **Start Date \*** and **End Date \***
• **Status** — Not Started, In Progress, Completed, Delayed
• **Assigned Vendor** — from your vendor directory, or **None**
• **Depends On (Previous Task)** — another task, or **None**
• **Mark as Milestone (e.g., Inspection, Draw Date)** — shows the task as a diamond instead of a bar

Selecting a task anywhere opens its detail window, where the same fields can be edited, and where scope of work and a QC checklist live. In **List** view the shield icon opens **QC Checklist** directly.

**Assigned Vendor** is a label on the task. It does not notify the vendor, and it is separate from assigning a vendor to a Budget line for compliance checks.

Dependencies — what they do and do not do

Setting **Depends On (Previous Task)** records that this task follows another one. Two things then happen:

• In the Gantt view, a task cannot be dragged to start before the task it depends on finishes.
• If you save dates that make a task start on or before the day the task it follows ends, a warning appears naming both tasks and offering to move the dates for you. You can select **Ignore** and keep your dates.
• The warning checks the overlap either way round: whether you pushed the earlier task later, or pulled the later task back. It always judges the dates as they stand after your save, so it will not quote figures from before your edit. If the save itself fails, no warning appears — only the error, with your entry still in the form.

Dependencies do not lock the schedule. There is no automatic recalculation of your whole plan, no critical path and no percentage complete — status is the only progress record. Deleting a task releases anything that depended on it; those tasks keep their dates and simply no longer follow anything.

Moving dates

• **Drag a bar** in Gantt to move a task; drag its edge to change how long it takes. Tasks that depend on it are pushed later so they still start after it ends. A task is never pulled earlier by this.
• **Rain Delay** pushes work forward by a number of days. It affects tasks that are **Not Started** or **In Progress** only, and it counts calendar days, including weekends. Completed work is left alone.
• **Shift Dates** inside **Mass Actions** moves every selected task by the number of days you type — a positive number moves it later, a negative number earlier.

Dates are calendar dates. OwnerDraw does not skip weekends or holidays for you, so build that slack into your durations.

Doing several tasks at once

Tick tasks in **List** or **Gantt**. A bar appears at the bottom of the screen showing how many are selected, with **Actions** and **Clear**. **Actions** opens **Mass Actions**, which can:

• change **Status** for all of them
• **Shift Dates** by a number of days
• **Assign Vendor**, or **Unassign**
• delete them, under **Danger Zone**, after a confirmation

Templates

**Import Template** creates a whole set of tasks from a saved template, spaced out from the **Project Start Date** you choose. Each template task carries its own offset — the number of days after that start date — and task links come across too. A template task with no offset keeps whatever date the template gives it, so check the results before you rely on them.

Right after an import, the confirmation offers an undo, which removes the tasks it just created.

**Manage Templates** lists the templates you have already imported under **Imported Templates**, with a task count and the date you imported, and lets you remove all tasks from one import at once. That removes the tasks — including any edits you made to them — so use it when an import was the wrong choice, not for tidying up.

Only templates built for new construction can be selected. Others appear dimmed and marked **(Coming Soon)**.

Weather

The strip above the buttons shows a seven-day forecast for the project's ZIP code. If it is empty, the project has no ZIP code yet — add it in project settings. It is information only; it never moves a date.

On a phone

• The five view tabs show icons only; button labels collapse to icons too.
• The Gantt scrolls sideways; **Project start**, **Today**, zoom out, zoom in and reset zoom sit above the chart, and there is a scrollbar under it. Dragging bars is easiest on a computer.
• The selection bar sits above the bottom navigation, so **Actions** stays reachable.
• **List** view is usually the fastest way to change statuses on site.

What do I do next?

| If you… | Do this |
| --- | --- |
| have no tasks yet | **Import Template**, or **Add Task** for the first few weeks |
| got rained out | **Rain Delay**, then check the tasks that moved |
| need to move a whole phase | tick those tasks → **Actions** → **Shift Dates** |
| want inspections visible | create the task and turn on **Mark as Milestone** |
| finished a stage | set **Status** to **Completed**, then open **Expenses** to record the bills |
| need the QC record | open the task → **QC Checklist** |
| are sending your lender a plan | your schedule is not part of the Bank Ready packet — export or screenshot the Gantt separately |

Common questions

**Does the schedule change my budget or my draws?** No. Task dates never touch budget amounts, expenses, draw requests or a draw schedule. The **Draw Schedule** page is a separate thing — it is about money stages, not task dates.

**Is a milestone different from a task?** Only in how it looks. It is still a task with dates; the diamond marks it as something worth noticing, like an inspection or a draw date.

**Do statuses update themselves?** No. Nothing infers progress from dates. A task that ended last week still reads **In Progress** until you change it.

**Can I have two tasks depend on one predecessor?** Yes. Many tasks can follow the same one. A task can only follow one predecessor itself.

**Will it warn me if my schedule slips past my loan term?** No. There is no comparison to loan dates.

Professional builder notes

• One predecessor per task, finish-to-start only. No lag, lead, start-to-start or finish-to-finish relationships, no calendars, no resource levelling and no baseline comparison. If you work from a critical-path programme, keep it in your own tool and use this for the owner-facing sequence.
• Cascade is forward-only: pushing a predecessor pushes successors that would otherwise overlap; pulling one earlier leaves successors where they are.
• Rain Delay is a calendar-day shift on incomplete tasks, not a weather-day accrual against a contract.

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