Working with Unscheduled Bookings

What is an Unscheduled Booking?

"Unscheduled" means two related but different things in Cooledge, and it's worth separating them before you go looking.

Unscheduled work is the practical one, and it's what this article is about: a job that has nothing booked in the future. Either it has no bookings at all, or every booking it has is already in the past. That's work that needs a date, and the calendar sidebar can filter down to exactly that list.

An unscheduled booking is a specific record: a booking row with no start or end time. These exist in the data model, but neither app has a screen that creates one. Every booking you make through the portal or the mobile app asks for a time, and supplying a time makes it Scheduled straight away. Unscheduled bookings only arrive through the partner API, or from older data. If you were looking for a way to park a booking on a job without a date, that isn't built yet: leave the job unbooked instead and use the Unscheduled filter to find it again.

The Jobs Sidebar

The calendar page has a sidebar on the left headed Jobs. By default it lists all active jobs, not just unscheduled ones, with a count in the corner. Filtering it to Unscheduled is what turns it into a to-do list of work needing a date.

To show or hide it:

• The sidebar is open by default
• The button at the top of the calendar toggles it: ← Hide Jobs when it's open, → Show Jobs when it's closed

What You See in the Sidebar

Job Cards

Each job card displays the job number, the customer name, a status badge reading Quote or Work, the job description, the site address and, if the job already has bookings, a count of them in the corner.

The status colours match the calendar: amber for Quote visits, blue for Work Orders, green for completed jobs, purple for work on hold and red for cancelled jobs.

Filters and Search

At the top of the sidebar you'll find filters to narrow down the list:

Search jobs...

• Matches job number, job description and customer name
• Results update as you type
• It does not search the site address, even though the address is printed on the card

Status Filter

• All Active Jobs (default) - open Quote and Work Order jobs
• Quote - only jobs in the quote stage
• Work Order - only approved work
• Unscheduled - the one this article is about, covered below
• Completed, On Hold, Cancelled

Staff Filter

• All Staff (default)
• Pick a person to see only jobs that already have a booking assigned to them

Sort (the ⇅ button beside the search box)

• Job # (Newest First) - the default
• Job # (Oldest First)
• Customer Name
• Job Title
• Last Updated

Your filter and sort choices are remembered between visits.

What "Unscheduled" Actually Filters

Choosing Unscheduled shows open jobs with no booking in the future. A job qualifies if it has no bookings at all, if every booking it has is already in the past, or if a booking has no time on it.

That last part surprises people: a job you worked last week, with its booking still sitting in the past, reappears under Unscheduled once that date rolls by. That's usually what you want (it means "nothing more is booked on this"), but it does mean the list is "needs a next date", not "never been booked".

Scheduling an Unscheduled Booking

Method 1: Drag and Drop (Fastest)

1. Find the job in the sidebar
2. Click and hold on the job card
3. Drag onto the calendar, into the right staff member's column or row, at the time you want
4. Release to drop

The booking is created immediately. No modal opens and nothing asks you to confirm: the job, the time and the staff member all come from where you dropped it, and the duration comes from your default booking duration setting.

Two things follow from that:

• Drop carefully. The booking is live the moment you let go. If you land it wrong, drag it again on the calendar to fix it
• If the staff member is already busy, the Booking Conflict Detected modal appears and you can cancel or override

This creates a new booking on the job. It doesn't convert an existing unscheduled booking into a scheduled one.

Method 2: Book It From the Job

When you want to set the staff, the duration or a crew properly rather than eyeballing a slot:

1. Open the job
2. Go to its Bookings tab
3. Click New Booking
4. Set the start date and time, the duration in hours, and tick everyone who's going
5. Click Create Booking

This is also the only way to put more than one person on a booking as you create it.

What Happens After Scheduling

When you book a job that was showing as unscheduled:

1. It appears on your calendar at the time you chose
2. The job drops out of the Unscheduled filter, because it now has a booking in the future
3. It's still in the sidebar under All Active Jobs, with its booking count updated
4. Assigned staff get a push notification only if the booking is for today. For anything further out, tell them yourself

Tracking Work You Can't Date Yet

There's no "create it now, schedule it later" toggle. New Booking always asks for a start time, and once it has one the booking is Scheduled.

So when you know more work is needed but not when:

• Leave the job unbooked. An open job with no future booking is exactly what the Unscheduled filter surfaces, so it won't get lost
• Put the reason in the job, in the description or a job note ("waiting on parts", "customer to confirm date"). The description shows on the sidebar card, so you can read it without opening the job
• Set the job On Hold if it's genuinely parked, which colours it purple on the calendar and keeps it out of your active list

When you'd do this:

• You know more work is needed but not when yet
• You're waiting for parts to arrive
• The customer hasn't confirmed a date

If a proper unscheduled placeholder booking would be genuinely useful to you, let us know. The status exists in the data, so it's the screen that's missing rather than the concept.

None of This Is on the Mobile App

Everything on this page is the portal. It is worth saying plainly, because the gap is bigger than it looks.

• There is no Jobs sidebar on mobile, so there is no Unscheduled filter and no list of work that needs a date. The mobile Schedule tab shows bookings, not jobs waiting to be booked
• A booking with no time can never appear there anyway. Both the Day view and the List view ask the database only for bookings that have a start time, so an unscheduled booking is invisible on the phone even where one exists from the API or older data
• The Schedule tab shows one person at a time, chosen from the avatar at the top left and starting on you. There is no all-staff view to scan
• Bookings only run forwards. List view starts at today and goes on from there, so it is a "what's coming" list rather than a record of what was booked

So the mobile app is for working the schedule you already have. Finding the jobs that still need a date is a portal job.

Sidebar Best Practices

Check it daily Start the day with the sidebar on Unscheduled. It's the shortest list of work that needs a date, and checking it stops jobs falling through the cracks.

Use filters when busy With dozens of jobs waiting, filter to Work Order to deal with approved work first, and leave the Quote visits for a second pass.

Drag the same job more than once A job can carry as many bookings as it needs. Drag the same card onto several slots to book a multi-day install, and each drop creates another booking on that job.

Keep job descriptions clear The job description is what shows on the sidebar card, so "Install ducted system, ground floor" tells you far more at a glance than "Work".

Common Questions

Why isn't a job showing in the sidebar? Check the filters first. By default the sidebar shows All Active Jobs, which means open Quote and Work Order jobs only, so anything Completed, On Hold or Cancelled is hidden until you choose that status. If you're on the Unscheduled filter, a job drops off it as soon as it has a booking in the future.

Can I drag a job to multiple staff at once? No. Dragging from the sidebar creates one booking for the one staff member whose column or row you dropped it in. To put a crew on it, either add the others to the booking afterwards, or create it from the job's Bookings tab, where you can tick several people up front. See Multi-Staff Bookings.

What if I drag to the wrong time? The booking is already created, so drag it again on the calendar to move it, or delete it from the job's Bookings tab and start over.

Does any of this change the job status? No. A job's status (Quote Visit, Work Order, Completed, On Hold, Cancelled) is entirely separate from whether it has bookings.

Related Articles

• Creating Bookings - How to create new bookings
• Moving and Editing Bookings - Drag, resize and edit scheduled bookings
• Multi-Staff Bookings - Put a crew on one booking
• Using the Calendar - Master all calendar views and navigation