Install Pipeline Board
Every sold job in its current stage, with aging flags you set for permits, utility work and inspections.
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A Generator Company Management App for the Person Running the Board
We build a generator company management app that shows a general manager every install in the pipeline, which crew holds which job, where permits and utility work are stuck, and how the service side is keeping up.
01
A Monday Morning Review on the General Manager's Tablet
The general manager opens the app at 6:45 and lands on the install pipeline. Forty sold jobs sit in columns: awaiting site survey, permit submitted, waiting on gas meter upgrade, ready to set, awaiting inspection. Seven have been in the utility column longer than the threshold you chose, and they glow amber.
Tapping the amber group shows that five are with the same gas utility district. The manager reassigns the permit coordinator to chase that district first, then drags two ready-to-set jobs from a crew that is short a helper to a crew with an open day.
Before the sales meeting, the manager checks the service queue: maintenance visits due this month against tech capacity, open warranty claims, and parts on backorder. One screen replaces three spreadsheets and a whiteboard photo.
02
Hurricane Season, Ice Storms and the Months In Between
Generator demand follows the weather. After a major outage, sales leads multiply, and existing owners file emergency service calls in the same week. The months that follow bring a long install backlog limited by permits, utility scheduling and unit availability from distributors.
The oversight app should switch modes when that happens. In storm mode, the default view becomes emergency service by county and crew location, while the install pipeline drops to a summary. Once the backlog phase starts, the view flips toward permit aging and crew utilization.
Quieter months need their own lens. That is when maintenance plans renew and crews can catch up on installs that waited on inspections, so the app should surface renewal counts and idle capacity side by side. Ownership can then decide whether to pull an installer onto service routes for a few days.
- Storm mode view sorted by county and emergency priority
- Backlog view sorted by days in each permit and utility stage
- Distributor backorder list linked to the sold jobs waiting on units
- Off-season view pairing renewals due with open crew days
03
Oversight Projects That Go Wrong, and How to Avoid Them
Building the dashboard before agreeing on definitions is the first trap. If sales counts a job as sold at deposit and operations counts it at permit approval, the backlog number will start arguments instead of ending them.
The second is asking crews to enter extra data just so the manager has a chart. Oversight should read what the field and office already record. If a metric needs new typing in the driveway, question whether you need it.
The third is a phone layout squeezed from a desktop report. A general manager often checks the board from a truck or a job site, so the key views need to be readable on a phone without pinching and scrolling sideways.
What you get
Key features
Crew Reassignment
Move a job between crews from your phone, and the change writes back to the schedule your dispatcher uses.
Storm Mode
A one-tap switch that reorders the main view around emergency service calls by county and priority.
Weekly Operations Summary
A plain report of backlog movement, crew utilization and service coverage, ready for the Monday meeting.
04
Cost Drivers and Keeping the First Build Tight
Mobile apps start at $4,500 with SIZ Group. An oversight app costs more when it has to merge data from several sources, such as your field service platform, accounting system and a permit spreadsheet, and when it needs drag-and-drop reassignment that writes back to the schedule.
Keep the first release to the views you will use every week: install pipeline, crew assignments and service capacity. Profitability by job, commission tracking and distributor ordering are tempting, but each adds integrations that can follow once the core board is trusted.
We put scope and price in writing before work begins, and any new view requested mid-build is priced separately so the original plan stays intact.
05
Getting Supervisors and the Office to Live in It
Retire the old tools on a set date. If the whiteboard and the shared spreadsheet survive alongside the app, people will update whichever is closest, and the numbers will drift apart within days.
Give each role a reason to open it. The permit coordinator sees a personal list of stalled applications, the service manager sees tomorrow's coverage gaps, and crew leads see only their own reassignments. A dashboard that only helps the boss gets ignored by everyone else.
Customers feel the change indirectly. When the office can answer where a job stands without calling around, the homeowner gets a clear answer on the first call.
06
The Operating Numbers Worth Watching
Set a baseline from your current records before launch, then compare each quarter. The goal is fewer stalled jobs and steadier crew use, not prettier charts.
If a number does not change a decision in a weekly meeting, drop it from the main screen and keep the board focused.
Watch the service side as closely as installs. A growing install business that lets plan visits slip will see renewals fall a year later, and the board should make that trade visible early.
- Average days from signed contract to startup
- Jobs held in permit or utility stages past your threshold
- Crew days lost to reschedules or missing units
- Maintenance visits completed against visits due
Does the generator company management app replace our field service software?+
No. It reads from the system you already use and adds a management layer on top. Dispatchers and techs keep working where they are now.
Can we track permits that live in a spreadsheet?+
Yes. If permits are tracked in a spreadsheet or shared drive, we can import them on a schedule or give the permit coordinator a simple form inside the app.
Will supervisors see the same data I do?+
Only if you want them to. Roles control which views and figures each person can open, so financial data can stay with ownership.
Can it show which distributor units are holding up installs?+
If your office records the unit model and order status on each job, the app can list sold jobs waiting on stock, grouped by model.
What does the build cost?+
Mobile apps start at $4,500. The total depends on data sources and how much writes back to your schedule, and we confirm both in writing first.
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See the Whole Install Backlog Without Calling Around
Share your current spreadsheets and software on a free scoping call, and we will sketch the oversight board your managers would actually use.