Scheduling an order — suggestions and traffic light

Instead of "sometime next week", the scheduling dialog answers the real question: when can your business realistically manage this order? It runs in two stages — the gate first, then the planning.

How to get to the suggestions

1. Open the scheduling dialog. Two routes lead in:
   • Offers → open the offer (status "Accepted") → "Schedule Order", by default for admin and planner.
   • Orders → open the order → status card → "Plan" or "Release". "Plan" is open to team leads too by default, but only for orders assigned to them; "Release" only to admin and planner.
2. Add any missing time estimates if the gate asks for them (see below).
3. Click "Continue to planning".
4. Pick one of the date suggestions by its traffic light. If none fits, "Search further (16 weeks)" widens the window.

What happens next — team, fine distribution, work location and completion — is covered in Scheduling and assigning.

An order does not have to originate from an offer to get suggestions.

Stage 1: the gate

Before Gantway calculates, it checks the order's line items:

• A time estimate is mandatory. Without it, "Continue to planning" stays locked. Gantway then names how many line items lack an estimate and marks them as "required before scheduling". Without a duration no date can be calculated; this is a hard block.
• Qualification and work location are recommended but skippable. The more of them is set, the more accurate the suggestions.

Stage 2: suggestions and traffic light

Gantway searches the next 8 weeks and returns up to 4 date suggestions, each with a traffic light. At the top, under "Recommended start", sits the first completely free window ("Best window"), below it the "More suggestions". The search starts no earlier than now: if today's working hours are already over, the suggestions begin on the next working day.

• "Quiet" — utilization up to 80 %, comfortably feasible
• "Tight" — above 80 %: coverable, but not throughout by the same people
• "Full" — from 100 %, or the work location is taken
• "Absent" — the required person is away, on leave or sick

A suggestion's overall rating is always the worst individual signal: a single overloaded day colours the whole suggestion. On a resource with capacity 1, a single order already counts as "Full".

Choosing your own start date

Below the suggestions is the field "or your own start date"; for the chosen day Gantway immediately shows the traffic light and, if the day is full, the next free date.

• Pre-filled: if positions of the order already have dates from today onwards, the field is pre-filled with the earliest of them. Underneath it then says "Pre-filled from the existing position dates – they are kept when planning." If you leave the date as it is, the positions keep their set dates, including the gaps between them. If you pick a different day, the note disappears and Gantway recalculates the dates from that start.
• Today: if you pick today during working hours, planning starts from now (rounded to the next quarter hour), not retroactively at the start of the working day. If today's working hours are over, the field jumps to the next working day and Gantway reports "No working time left today".
• The past: a day in the past is allowed, for example to record work after the fact; Gantway only points it out.

Keeping an eye on the delivery date

If the order has a delivery date, it appears above the suggestions ("Delivery date: 08.10.2026"). Suggestions that only end after it are already marked "Ends after the delivery date" in the list. If you pick such a window, the warning "Expected end … is after the delivery date …." appears before you click. Scheduling remains possible — the delivery date is a promise, not a lock.