TreeBossPro Blog — Scheduling

Property Records That Make Tree Jobs Easier to Schedule: DBH, Height and Access Notes

The person scheduling tree work is constantly making educated guesses. How long will this take? Which crew should go? Will the chipper fit through the gate? Is there anywhere to drop wood? Every one of those guesses gets better with good property records, and every visit is a chance to make the record a little more complete for next time.

The Record Behind Every Job

In Using the Route Map to Group Tree Jobs by Area and Cut Drive Time the focus was on where jobs are. Property records are about what is waiting when the crew gets there. Both shape how a day gets scheduled, and weak records undo good routing every time.

In TreeBossPro, clients can have multiple properties, and each property keeps its own record. A landlord with four rentals, a homeowner with a lake place, or a business with several locations gets a separate record for each site, so the details for one never get confused with another.

Number of Trees, DBH and Height

The core tree fields are the number of trees, trunk diameter (DBH) in inches and tree height in feet. These three numbers give a fast sense of the size of a job. A 30-inch DBH tree at 70 feet is a very different day from an 8-inch tree at 20 feet, and the scheduler can tell at a glance.

Record what was measured rather than what the customer guessed on the phone. If a number is an estimate from the curb, say so in the notes until someone confirms it. Update the numbers as trees grow or come out; a record that still lists a tree you removed two years ago misleads the next estimator.

Watch for change, too. Trees grow, decline and fail. A tree recorded as healthy three years ago may now have significant deadwood. Ask estimators and crew leaders to update the numbers and add a note whenever they see something different from what the record says, so the record reflects the trees as they are now.

Crew Notes: Access, Gate Codes and Drop Zones

Access is where tree jobs most often go sideways. Crew notes should cover gate width and whether the chipper or grinder fits, gate codes, where to park, where wood can be dropped or stacked, overhead lines, soft or wet areas to stay off, irrigation heads, fragile beds and anything about neighbors or shared driveways.

Write notes that someone who has never been there can follow. "Drop zone in back left corner past the shed, keep off the patio pavers, side gate code in notes" is useful. "Backyard" is not. Crews see these notes in the crew app before they pull up, so the details travel with the job automatically.

Custom Fields and Tags

Every company has details the standard fields do not cover. Use custom fields for the things your crews actually ask about: whether a bucket truck can reach, how many stumps are left, whether the customer keeps firewood, HOA contact details. Use tags for quick sorting on the job board: climber needed, commercial, recurring, HOA approval, customer must be home.

Keep the list short. A handful of fields everyone fills in beats a dozen that nobody does. If a field has been empty on every property for six months, it probably is not worth keeping.

Photos and Service History

Photos from the crew app attach to the job and the property. A picture of the tree from the gate, the drop zone and the finished work gives the next crew a head start and protects you if a customer has questions later about a broken sprinkler or a rutted bed.

Service history shows what was done and when. When a pruning customer calls back, you can see the last visit, what was noted and how it went, and schedule the right crew for the right amount of time. For recurring customers, service history is what turns a guess into an accurate plan.

Make Updating Records a Habit

Records stay useful only if they get updated. Ask crew leaders to check the notes and add photos before they mark a job complete in the app. The office can tidy wording later. Over a single season, records improve noticeably, and the scheduler's guesses get sharper.

Good records start with good intake, which is the subject of the next guide. See how property records fit with the job board and crew app on the TreeBossPro scheduling software page.