How to build and keep a construction schedule (free construction schedule template)

Download the construction schedule template

Download the construction schedule template (Excel, .xlsx). No sign-up and no email. It opens in Excel and in Google Sheets: in Google Drive choose New, then File upload, then open the file with Google Sheets.

One file per job, with these tabs:

• Schedule — one row per activity: duration in working days, up to two activities it waits on with a lag, baseline dates, actual dates, percent complete, and what it needs before it can start. It works out the start and finish of every activity, the latest it can finish, its float, whether it is critical, its slip against the baseline, and flags anything missing.
• Gantt — a weekly bar chart of the whole job: red for critical, amber for in progress, green for done, diamonds for milestones, and a marker on the week of the data date.
• Lookahead — every activity that is not finished and falls in the next three weeks, with what it needs and whether it is ready.
• Summary, Setup, Checklist and Start Here — the forecast finish against the contract date, late starts, critical work, the biggest slips, your working week and holidays, and how to use the file.

Blue text is what you type. Black text is a formula. Yellow cells are settings. The file comes with a sample job, an office fit-out with 32 activities, a rooftop unit forecast 10 working days late and a storefront install waiting on its delivery. Its dates are set from today, so the flags keep showing; type your own over them.

What a construction schedule has to show

The federal construction clause is a fair summary of what an owner expects. Within five days after work starts, or another period the contracting officer sets, the contractor submits a practicable schedule showing the order in which it will do the work and the dates it expects to start and finish the main parts of it, including getting materials, plant and equipment. Acquisition.gov

The same clause asks for a progress chart that shows what percentage of the work is scheduled to be done by any given date, and lets the contracting officer withhold approval of progress payments until the schedule is in. Acquisition.gov

The Army Corps of Engineers goes further. Its scheduling specification requires the Critical Path Method for every project schedule, and makes the schedule the basis for working out what the contractor has earned in each update period, and so the amount of each progress payment. WBDG

How to build a schedule in six steps

• List every activity, not just the work on site: permits, submittals, fabrication and delivery of long-lead items, inspections, and the milestones the contract names.
• Give each one a duration in working days. Keep activities short enough that a slip shows up early.
• Link each activity to what has to finish first. Most links are finish-to-start; add a lag for curing, drying or a notice period.
• Set your working week and holidays, so every date lands on a day you actually work.
• Read the critical path and the float, and check the finish against the contract date.
• When everyone has agreed it, save it as the baseline and leave the baseline alone.

On activity length, the Corps specification is a useful rule of thumb: activities other than procurement should not run longer than 20 workdays or 30 calendar days. The template’s Check column flags anything longer than the limit you set, unless the activity is marked as procurement. WBDG

The template lists each activity below the ones it waits on. That keeps every formula simple and fast, and the Check column tells you if a link points to an activity further down.

The critical path and float, in plain words

Work forward from the start and you get the earliest each activity can start and finish. Work back from the forecast finish and you get the latest each one can finish without moving the end date. The difference, counted in working days, is the float.

Activities with no float are critical: lose a day on any of them and the finish moves a day. Activities with float can slip that many days before they matter. In the sample job the rooftop unit is forecast 10 working days late, but it has float, so on its own it does not move the finish. A two-day slip on the overhead duct and sprinkler mains, which are critical, puts the finish one working day past the contract date.

How to keep the schedule up to date

Pick a day and update it then: actual starts, actual finishes, and how much of each started activity is done. The Corps requires an update monthly at a minimum; on a short job, weekly is more useful. WBDG

Two habits from the same specification are worth keeping on any job. Set percent complete from a realistic assessment of earned value, and the remaining duration from the workdays it will really take, as two separate judgements. And make the actual start and finish dates match your daily reports; on Corps jobs they must match the contractor’s quality control reports. WBDG

In the template you set the data date, type the actual dates and percent complete, and everything not yet finished moves forward from the data date by itself: a started activity finishes after its remaining duration, and work not started cannot start in the past.

Falling behind has consequences on a federal job. If the contracting officer thinks the contractor is behind the approved schedule, the contractor must take steps to improve progress without additional cost to the government, which can include more shifts, overtime and days of work. Failing to comply can lead to the contractor’s right to proceed being terminated for default. Acquisition.gov

The three-week lookahead

The schedule says when work should happen. The lookahead asks whether it can: for every activity in the next few weeks, are the drawings answered, the materials on site, the inspection booked and the crew available? The point is to find what is missing while there is still time to fix it.

A 2012 study in the Lean Construction Journal looked at lookahead planning on projects in North America, South America and Europe, through case studies, interviews and an industry survey. It found lookahead planning was often inadequate, constraints were identified and removed slowly, and the reasons plans failed were not analysed. Lean Construction Journal

The template’s Lookahead tab lists everything not finished that falls between the data date and three weeks out, with what each activity needs and whether it is ready. Anything not ready is highlighted; give it an owner and a date at the weekly meeting, and mark it ready on the Schedule when it is.

When the schedule slips

Record why, the day it happens. A slip with a cause written down, an inspection failed, a delivery late, an answer not back, is a slip you can recover or claim. A slip noticed at the next update is just a later date.

Late answers from the design team belong in your RFI log, with the dates. Delay caused by the owner or a change to the work belongs in a change order request, with the days as well as the cost. Then put the recovery in the schedule: resequence, overlap, or add crews, and see where the finish lands.

Construction schedule checklist

These are the checks on the template’s Checklist tab.

1. Is every piece of work an activity?

   What a good answer sounds like: Permits, submittals, procurement and inspections are on it, not just the work on site.

2. Are long-lead items on it?

   What a good answer sounds like: Fabrication and delivery of anything with a long lead time, linked to the work that needs it.

3. Are durations in working days?

   What a good answer sounds like: The working week and holidays are set first, and each duration is counted in working days.

4. Are activities short enough to track?

   What a good answer sounds like: Anything over about 20 working days that is not procurement is split, so a slip shows early.

5. Does every activity wait on something?

   What a good answer sounds like: Each one is linked to what has to finish first, except the start.

6. Do you know the critical path?

   What a good answer sounds like: The chain with no float, where a day lost is a day on the finish.

7. Is the baseline saved?

   What a good answer sounds like: The agreed starts and finishes are kept as the baseline and not changed.

8. Is it updated on a set day?

   What a good answer sounds like: Actual dates and percent complete as of the data date, at least monthly and weekly on a fast job.

9. Do the actual dates match the daily reports?

   What a good answer sounds like: Starts and finishes come from the daily report, not memory.

10. Is the lookahead reviewed every week?

    What a good answer sounds like: Every activity in the next three weeks has what it needs, or an owner and a date to get it.

11. Do slips have a recovery plan?

    What a good answer sounds like: When the forecast finish passes the contract date, the schedule shows how the time will be made up.

12. Are delays recorded?

    What a good answer sounds like: The cause and the days in the daily report; delay caused by the owner goes to a change order request.

When a schedule spreadsheet stops being enough

The template works for one job with someone keeping it up. These are the signs it has been outgrown:

• The superintendent works from a printout that was out of date the day after it was printed.
• Subs find out their start moved when they turn up and the area is not ready.
• The owner asks for the schedule and someone has to update it first.
• You run several jobs and cannot see who is where next week across all of them.

At that point the schedule belongs on the job itself, with the tasks, the crew and the owner looking at the same dates.

Where WorkHoist helps

WorkHoist puts the schedule on a Gantt chart for each project: phases with their tasks, links drawn as arrows from each task to the ones that wait on it, milestones as diamonds, and a line for today. Bars are coloured by status: done, in progress, planned, and overdue once a task is a working day past its planned end. Durations count your company’s working week, Monday to Friday or Monday to Saturday.

Linking a task that would start too early moves it to the working day after the task it waits on, keeping its length, and a link that would make a loop is refused. A project made from a template whose tasks name their links comes already scheduled from each task’s own duration. The company schedule shows every project’s tasks by person: drag a task to move it, or onto someone else to hand it over.

Crews see their tasks for the day in the Field app and tick them off from site, and the owner can see the schedule, read-only, in the client portal. WorkHoist does not move the tasks that wait on one that slips, so when a task runs late, open the tasks after it and move them too.

Questions contractors ask

What is a construction schedule?

A construction schedule is the plan of every activity on a job in the order it will be done: how many working days each activity takes, what it waits on, and when it starts and finishes. It shows the critical path, the activities where a day lost is a day on the finish, and it is updated with actual progress as the job runs.

What should a construction schedule include?

Every activity, including permits, submittals, procurement and inspections; a duration for each in working days; the links between them; the working week and holidays; milestones such as substantial completion; a saved baseline; and, once work starts, actual start and finish dates and percent complete as of a stated data date.

What is the critical path in construction?

The critical path is the chain of activities with no float: each one has to finish on time for the job to finish on time. Lose a day on any of them and the finish date moves by a day. Activities off the critical path have float and can slip that many working days before they affect the finish.

What is float in a construction schedule?

Float is how many working days an activity can slip before it moves the finish date. It is the difference between the latest an activity can finish without delaying the job and the date it is forecast to finish. An activity with zero or negative float is critical.

How often should a construction schedule be updated?

As often as your contract requires, and on a set day. The Army Corps of Engineers scheduling specification requires an update monthly at a minimum; on short or fast jobs a weekly update, with a three-week lookahead, catches slips while they can still be fixed.

What is a three-week lookahead schedule?

A three-week lookahead is a short list of every activity due to start or run in the next three weeks, checked at the weekly meeting for whether it is ready: drawings answered, materials on site, inspections booked and crews available. Anything not ready gets an owner and a date before the work is due.

Is there a free construction schedule template?

Yes. WorkHoist’s construction schedule template is a free Excel file, with no sign-up or email, that also opens in Google Sheets. It schedules activities in working days with links and lags, works out float and the critical path, keeps a baseline, draws a weekly Gantt chart and lists a three-week lookahead.