Still Using Whiteboards and Paper to Manage your Teams Workloads?

As we start this journey and I speak to different business owners, it’s apparent that there are still so many companies using paper or whiteboards to manage and schedule work. If this sounds like you, then you’re certainly not alone.

Plenty of small businesses have made do with handwritten diaries or tables drawn on whiteboards to keep everyone in the loop. But as you grow—or simply get busier—this approach starts to show its age.

FieldPal’s Simple Diary is designed to replace the old routines with something a touch more reliable (and considerably less prone to getting wiped clean by accident).

One business owner I spoke to would note down every job that came in during the week. Then, on a Sunday, he would gather all the notes, work out when in the coming weeks he could book each job in, and copy them to a paper schedule—hoping desperately that he hadn’t missed anything.

We sat on a Teams call, and I showed him how, with FieldPal, he could simply add the job into the portal, where it would appear in the Backlog as a job that didn’t yet have a specified date, time slot, or allocated resource. When it came time to book a slot and assign a service engineer, he could simply drag the job card from the backlog queue into the diary.

This worked really well for him, as he could even see how long a job had been sitting in the backlog waiting to be scheduled and make those a priority as resources became available.

Another business owner I spoke to used a whiteboard to book jobs in for his team of engineers. This was fine when he was in the office, but when he was out on the road, he had to rely on someone being in the office to take a picture and WhatsApp the image of the board so he could work out who was free.

So, without labouring the point, I just wanted to quickly run through the advantages of using the web-based resource and diary management that is part of FieldPal.

👀 1. Instantly See Who’s Available

No more peering at the board wondering if someone is free or simply forgot to update it. The Simple Diary gives you a clear view of who has space in their schedule, so you can plan jobs quickly and accurately.

✍️ 2. Book Jobs Straight Into the Calendar

Rather than writing a job down in one place, copying it to another, and texting it to confirm, you can just book it directly to a time slot and assign it to the right person in one step. Fewer moving parts. Fewer mistakes.

📂 3. Keep a Backlog Ready to Go

When a customer needs to confirm a date, you don’t have to leave a scribble on a piece of paper (that might later vanish). Simply add the job to the backlog and schedule it when you’re ready.

🔄 4. Reschedule Without the Hassle

Plans change. With FieldPal, you can reschedule or reallocate work with a couple of clicks, rather than wiping half the board and starting over.

🚦 5. See Job Progress in Real Time

If you’ve ever had to call round asking whether an engineer is on-site yet, you’ll appreciate being able to check progress instantly. You’ll know when someone’s on the way, when the job’s underway, and when it’s completed—all without picking up the phone.

🗂 6. Keep Every Detail in One Place

From photos to notes and signatures, everything related to the job is stored on the job card. So when you need proof of what was done (or what wasn’t), you’ll have it ready, without searching through old texts or emails.

Time to Move On?

Whiteboards and notebooks have their place (we still use them here from time-to-time), but they’re not built for running a modern field team.

FieldPal’s Simple Diary gives you a straightforward, dependable way to keep track of everything without adding complexity or losing the personal touch.

Book a Demo Today and see how it could simplify the way you work.