Not just any checklist

Wil Grace
 • 
Jul 2021
4 min read

There‘s no shortage of awesome task management apps out there — from Asana to Trello to Reminders, they come in all shapes and sizes. Most are designed to help just about anyone, from wedding planner to IT manager.

Trail is not for everyone. The three sides to the app — Checklist, Integration, Insight — are tightly focused on solving specific problems for organisations with operational standards to maintain.

So our task management is different.

Distributing tasks

Tasks on Trail app

One of the biggest differences between Trail and other to-do lists is hierarchy.

Tasks are cascaded down through an organisation, managed centrally, and reported back up the chain.

The right tasks for the right teams

  • Each team — or site — has their own trail: a timeline of tasks to complete through the day
  • Trails are organised into groups — or areas — to quickly add the right task to the right trails
  • Use tags to allocate a task to a department (Kitchen) or role (Chef), to help them focus on just their own tasks

And coming soon:

  • Break a single task into multiple parts for different trails. For example, a weekly cleaning checklist with extra actions for certain sites

Scheduling tasks

Scheduling tasks in Trail app

We spend a lot time exploring the balance between maintaining standards and autonomy. Our scheduling hits a middle ground.

We encourage allowing windows of time within which teams should get things done. Teams get to organise — and complete — their own days, and managers get their deadlines.

Just the tasks when they’re needed

The ‘Now’ section holds just what needs doing… now. No need to worry about ‘Later’ until… later :) When you’re done you’re done

Coming very soon:

  • Every task has a start & due date — even repeat tasks. So that weekly cleaning schedule can be started on Monday and finished on Friday
  • More control for teams to manage their own time, by snoozing and rescheduling a task within its permitted window
  • Not all jobs are time-critical. Tasks can now be scheduled for Any Time of Day or On Demand (i.e only when needed)

Finally, we’re completely overhauling the Task Planner, making it easier to create, schedule and distribute processes for all your teams. Watch this space…

If you’re struggling with growing sites, departments or teams, we can help!
Drop us an email at hello@trailapp.com and we’ll show you how.

What customers are saying

"I f****** love Trail, it's taking my businesses to the next level."
Josh Paterson
Owner
"We rarely provide training to our guys, they just bought into the idea straight away. I love that I have a full visual of everyone's activity in front of me."
Katrin Toots
Compliance Manager
“It’s not a paper diary that’s covered in barbecue sauce. We have clarity over what’s done in our sites and are confident going into our audits.”
Jay Brown
Operations
“The EHO visited almost every site last year and every store was given a five star rating."
Jay Brown
Operations Chef
"We turned our Costa Checks and various compliance forms into regular tasks on Trail, which has contributed to some of the best scores we have had."
Delroy Daniels
Operations Director
"Our teams love it, it gives our managers of all levels absolute clarity on what they need to achieve every day."
James Brown
Operations Director

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