How to plan your next 8 weeks in ServiceM8

What ServiceM8's schedule shows today

ServiceM8's new schedule, released in September 2026, is a real step up for planning booked work:

• The Week and 2 Weeks views show each person's remaining capacity for each day, based on your operating hours and overlapping bookings.
• The Month view shows a summary of booked hours for each date.
• Staff leave and other unavailable time appear as grey blocks.
• Future recurring jobs appear as tentative bookings and count toward the workload.

That's from ServiceM8's own help article on the staff schedule. For booked work over the next fortnight, it's often enough.

What the diary can't see

Whether week five is quiet or chaotic is usually decided by work that has no booking yet:

• Jobs you've won but not booked. Waiting on parts, a deposit or the customer's date.
• Quotes you're likely to win. They land in clumps, not evenly.
• Hours you won't have. Leave that's been mentioned but not entered, apprentices at TAFE, public holidays.

That's why a week can look half empty in the diary and still end up overbooked.

Step 1: Work out the hours you have

For each week, multiply your field staff by their usual weekly hours, then take off leave, RDOs, TAFE days and public holidays.

For example, six techs at 38 hours is 228 hours. One tech on leave takes that to 190. A public holiday takes 7.6 hours off each person who would normally work that day.

Step 2: Build a labour table

A labour table lists your common job types and how long each one really takes, including travel. It turns "we've won 11 jobs" into "we've sold 102 hours".

Made-up examples to show the format. Use your own job history: look at your last 20 of each job type and take the typical time, not the best one.

Step 3: Count jobs won but not booked

In ServiceM8 these are usually jobs in Work Order status with no booking yet. Give each one its labour-table hours and place it in the week you expect to do it. If you don't know, spread it across the next two to three weeks.

Step 4: Weight your open quotes

Don't count every quote. Count the share you usually win: if you win about one quote in three, count a third of the hours. As a rule of thumb, drop quotes older than about six weeks, because most of them aren't coming.

Step 5: Read each week in ten seconds

Divide the hours committed by the hours available:

• Under 65%: room. Fill it now with quotes, follow-ups and marketing.
• 65 to 90%: steady. Keep going.
• 90 to 100%: tight. Be careful taking on big jobs.
• Over 100%: over. Move a job, add overtime or push a start date.

These bands are a starting point. Adjust them to how your business runs.

A ten-minute Monday routine

1. Fix any week over 100% in the next three weeks.
2. Look four to eight weeks out. Anything under 65% needs work now: chase quotes, call past customers, turn on ads.
3. Book or put a date on any won job older than two weeks.
4. Check that leave for the next eight weeks is in the diary.

Questions

Does ServiceM8 have capacity planning?

Yes, for booked work. ServiceM8's Week and 2 Weeks schedule views show each person's remaining daily capacity, and the Month view shows booked hours for each date. It doesn't count jobs you've won but not booked, or open quotes.

How far ahead should a trade business plan its workload?

Most air-con and plumbing businesses get the most from four to eight weeks. Inside two weeks it's often too late to change much, and beyond eight weeks too little is booked to tell you anything.

What is a labour table?

A labour table lists your common job types and how long each one really takes, including travel. It turns a count of jobs and quotes into hours, so you can compare them with the hours your team has.