Scheduling AV crews is a process that involves a lot of communication and organization. The larger the crew and the bigger the project, the more difficult scheduling becomes. Time consuming tasks like searching through records and databases to find the appropriate crew members, creating and sharing schedules for multiple crews, and making last minute scheduling changes can put a major strain on AV schedulers as events draw near. However, many of these scheduling pains can be solved by introducing the proper scheduling system. Here are some of the most common AV workforce scheduling pains, and the tips and tools you need to solve them.

Over and under-scheduling

When you’re managing your employees and freelance crew members in separate spreadsheets or systems, it can be difficult to get a full overview of your crew’s schedules as a whole. Moving back and forth between the schedules of employees, freelancers and labor brokers, creates opportunities for human error. In order to get a better view of your project’s schedule as a whole, move your schedules into an all-in-one system that will allow you to schedule all of your crews, for all of your projects, in one place.

Instead of having to utilize multiple platforms to schedule project labor, an all-in-one AV scheduling system allows AV schedulers to easily and seamlessly schedule and adjust schedules for multiple crews across different projects and events. This will save a lot of time and hassle and will prevent any possible mix-ups from that can occur by using multiple platforms to keep track of many schedules.

Fielding repeat questions

There’s nothing more tiresome and needlessly repetitious than answering the same scheduling questions over and over again. As project start dates get near, the scheduler’s phone won’t stop ringing and their inboxes get flooded with emails from crew members requesting clarification or schedule confirmations. Many of these questions start to look and sound the same and can become very frustrating to give the same answers over and over.

Instead of individually managing these questions, which can take up unnecessary time, make this unavoidable process more efficient by moving your scheduling system online. By keeping online schedules that your crew members can view at any time, you’ll be able to provide the same project and schedule details to everyone so there’s little room for misunderstanding. If the questions begin to creep back in anyway, you can add notes to your project that provide answers for these FAQs so that your crew members can get instant answers to their questions without having to go through you.

Finding crew members

When projects start to confirm and crews are ready to be selected, it can take time and be a hassle to locate your lists of frequently used AV contractors to find the ones you’ll need for the positions on each project. However, finding crew members you’d like to schedule on your project doesn’t have to take up as much time. With a tool that allows you to create, save and search lists of the contractors you can count on with profiles that they keep up to date with contact info and skills, you can easily find the ones you need to contact to complete your schedule.

Communicating last minute changes

Some projects last multiple days or even weeks when you include site-visits, pre-production, dedicated set & strike days, and more.. With so many variables in dates, times, and crew members involved, changes are bound to occur. Whether your project has pushed past a deadline or you want to make call time an hour earlier, communicating these changes to the appropriate crew members can take time and you may not always be able to reach them when changes occur last minute.

In order to avoid communication breakdowns and misinformation, creating your schedule in an online AV scheduling tool, like MertzCrew, will allow you to update your crew’s schedules and provide real-time updates to those involved.

Centralizing is key

Most crew scheduling pains come down to a lack of centralized, streamlined communication and organization. By centralizing your crew members, messaging, and scheduling components, you can eliminate many of the scheduling headaches you face daily.

MertzCrew is the go-to scheduling tool in the AV industry for AV schedulers and planners looking for a centralized, online solution that provides more connectivity and automation than traditional scheduling processes. See how this solution works by signing up for a free live demo of MertzCrew’s all-in-one AV crew scheduling and management tool.