Planner feature
Onetrace
Role
Product Designer
Challenge
Designing a scheduling tool to replace fragmented workflows within a single source of truth, enabling contractors to plan, align, and operate in real time.
Business Impact
Without a structured planning layer, there was no reliable way to track compliance status, operative availability, or visit adherence, creating significant operational risk and reducing client trust.
Discovery
Creating a single source of scheduling truth
Overview
Onetrace is a compliance and traceability platform for subcontractors in the construction industry.
Before Planner, there was no centralised scheduling tool. Admins set jobs on our desktop app and Operatives on site recorded the jobs on mobile.
I designed Planner as a built-in scheduling layer that connects real-time visit planning, operative assignment, job schedules, and compliance tracking all within Onetrace.
01.
Scheduling lived everywhere except Onetrace
Coordination happened across Excel, WhatsApp, and calls the system of record was always behind.
02.
Operatives were invisible until something went wrong
No way to see who was assigned where. Gaps only surfaced through missed visits or compliance failures.
03.
Jobs and schedules existed in separate worlds
No connection between job data and planning meant manual cross-referencing and inevitable errors.
04.
One view served no one
Admins needed the full picture and operatives their own schedule on mobile. A single static view couldn't cover it.
First Build
MVP Planner tool
Principles
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Single source of truth
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High density, low friction
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Surface different mental modals simultaneously
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Bridge Planner visits with mobile
Features
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Multiple views for Operative or Project
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Flexible visit creation and editing in cells
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Add and Edit visit card
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Drag and drop function
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Operative view on mobile visit section
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Click through on visit for full schedule or details page.
01.
Positive response
This first iteration was very well recieved, with some users stating 'I would use this tomorrow'.
02.
Streamlining information
We had assumed some of the subcopy eg. team name, users wanted clearer information upfront like qualifications and live job information.
03.
Customisation and flexibility
Users wanted more filtering, views and a way to incorporate time as well as date.
04.
Visit states
Users requested visit view for annual leave, unnasigned shifts, sickness and more information within the visit cards.
Next steps
Exploring V2 Live feed
At this stage, Planner is a forecast. The next step is making it a live picture to feed in what's actually happening on site in real time.
I explored ideas of leveraging information we collect on the platform, like time sheets and job information to provide a live feed of information into the Admin view on desktop, whislt exploring ideas from user feedback.
Business change
Strategic Pivot
During the build, the company restructured how Onetrace was sold to new business. Going from one product offering, to two.
Planner now had to work in three distinct ways:
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Combined With Traceability: promoting visits over the legacy ‘schedule a job’ modal
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Standalone: The central selling point of the Workforce product with visits as the primary unit of work
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Advertised: Locked for Traceability only users - a snippet shown behind an upgrade modal.
Next steps
Exploring the three Planner modes
I began to look at defining the Planner experience end-to-end, from the locked snippet through to a converted Workforce customer and trying to make this self-serve.
This is an ongoing exploration, I'm continuing to design ways to improve the functionality of Planner and present it to different subscription tiers.