September 27, 2026
Most of this week is about an order carrying what its route says. An order
created from a route now brings the route's stage locations with it, as it
already brought the materials, and setting a route on a component adds that
route's materials to the order, sized to the component's quantity and placed on
its stages. Change the route later and each stage moves to the new route's
default location, and wherever you make the change, it asks before replacing the
materials already on the order. A location you picked by hand, or a stage where
work has been recorded, keeps its plan.
Keeping progress current takes less work. Closed is a new status for work
that is not going to happen: it drops out of its order's progress instead of
holding it back, and never shows as late. Putting a crew on a task now marks it
Started and carries that up through the order, and a check mark on every
Planning row opens the Completion tab straight from the list.
Codes under Settings, Company lets you switch cost, union and per diem codes
on yourself, which until now was done for you on request. The Cmd+K search
walks from an order into its phases and components with the right arrow or Tab,
and AI Chat can pop out into its own window beside the app.
Smartsheet connections got a run of fixes. Due dates land on the same day they
have in the sheet, phases with nobody named pick up their default assignees,
large file imports finish each run and carry on at the next, and a sync no longer
sends a notification or an email for every row it brings in.
New
You can now mark an order, a phase or a component as Closed from its
menu, for work that is not going to happen. Closed work drops out of its
order's progress instead of holding it back: an order with three phases done
and one closed still reads Done, and closed work never shows as late or at
risk. Reopen it from the same menu if plans change.
Closed rows stay out of Planning and the Build board unless you pick Closed
in the Status filter, so dead work does not sit in the live schedule. Project
totals leave closed orders out, and a closed stage can no longer be assigned,
scanned in, or given a new form.
If you sync with Smartsheet, map your sheet's word for closed or cancelled
work to the new Closed outcome in the connection's status mapping. The sync
then carries it both ways: a closed row closes the work in Building Swell, and
work closed in Building Swell writes the word back to the sheet.
Maintenance
Setting a Route on a component now adds that route's materials to the
order's Materials list, sized to the component's quantity and placed on its
stages. Two components on the same route add up to one combined line.
Changing the route on an order that already has materials now asks first.
Confirm Replace materials and the order's current list is cleared,
including lines added by hand, and the new route's materials take its place.
Keep current route leaves everything as it was. On a component, only the
materials its previous route added are swapped; the rest of the order stays.
A component's Materials tab can now show just that component's materials.
Allocating from there reserves only the component's share, so you can stage
material one component at a time.
You can also move a material line to a different stage from its edit row. When
recording what was used fails, the message now says why, for example when an
item has no default location.
Switching an order to a route that shares a stage no longer leaves that stage
showing as ready ahead of its turn.
Maintenance
Creating an order from a route now brings the route's stage locations across,
the way its material list already did. A stage whose route marks a default
location, or lists only one, is planned there straight away. A stage with several
location options and no default arrives with those options listed, and a foreman
picks one on the order.
The order's Stage locations tab shows, for each stage, three things side by side:
- Options: where the route says the stage's work can happen.
- Assigned: where the work is planned. Assign location lets a foreman choose,
and it flags any other order planned at the same place over the same hours.
Conflicts are shown so you can decide; they don't block the assignment.
- Actual: where the work is happening, and since when. Edit actual location
sets it, with an optional time and reason, and the tab points out when the work
isn't where it was planned.
The table can be searched and sorted by any column. Dates outside the current year
show the year, a stage under a component or phase shows its name ("Floor Framing ·
Box panel #1"), and an actual location can't be dated in the future.
From the location's side. Scan a location's QR code and its Stage tab lists
the order stages working there now (with the order's number, since when, and the
reason recorded), the stages assigned there with any conflicts, and what worked there
recently. Scan QR Traveler reads an order's or a stage's QR Traveler (from Print QR Traveler) and records that
stage's work starting there: an order's traveler picks its stage planned at that
location, otherwise its current stage. Move records the work moving elsewhere. The
Foreman tab counts the stages working there, what's due there this week, and any
conflicts. Every tab on a location's page has its own link, so you can send someone
straight to the Stage tab.
Orders created before this change keep their existing plan. Stages that have none
can be assigned from the tab.
New
Settings then Company now has a Codes section with a switch for each
of the three code lists. Turn one on and its field appears where that code
belongs: cost codes on stages, projects, shops and work sessions, union codes on
crew members and work sessions, per diem codes on check-ins. Until now these
fields were switched on for you on request.
Each list switches on its own. A shop that tracks union codes does not have to
carry cost code fields on its stages and projects to get them. There is nothing
to set up first either: a code is created from the field itself the first time
somebody types it, and who can see or change one is still down to permissions.
If you already use codes, nothing changes. The fields stay where they were and
their switches are already on.
Improved
Planning rows now carry a check mark, next to the comment and attachment
buttons. Click it and that piece of work opens on its Completion tab, ready for
the update.
The check mark is on orders, phases, components and stages, so whichever level
you are looking at is the level you update. Before, the way in was to expand the
order, expand again to the phase you wanted, open its three dot menu and pick
Update progress.
It is the same button Build puts on its order cards, and it opens the same place
the menu always did. Nothing about how progress is recorded has changed, and
Update progress is still in the menu if that is where your hand goes.
Improved
Assigning a worker to a task now marks that task Started, and carries
Started up through its component, phase and order. The actual start date is
stamped at the same moment, so the order reads as underway from the point the
crew was put on it.
Until now the status only moved when somebody pressed Start on the task by
hand. A shop that staffs its work from the Build board and never touches the
button left every order sitting in To Do while the floor was building it.
It is the same start as the button, so a task waiting on an unfinished
predecessor starts too. Work that is already underway keeps the start date it
had, so putting a second crew on it will not push the date forward. A task that
is finished, on hold or closed is left alone, and the assignment still goes
through.
Planning a shift for someone who is not clocked in does not start anything. The
task starts when they clock in and their plan becomes a real session.
New
In the Cmd+K search, press the right arrow or Tab on an order to see its
phases, then on a phase to see its components, and keep going until you reach
the one you want. Enter opens it.
It works the other way too. Search for a component and it appears under the
order it belongs to, already highlighted, so Enter opens it and the order is
one row up. Press the left arrow to step up to the phase and order above it,
one level at a time, and all the way back to your search.
Add the order to your search to narrow it: "Order 1 milos" puts Milos under
Order 1 at the top. The path you are on shows in the search box, and clicking
any part of it jumps back to that level.
New
Pop AI Chat out into its own window with the new button at the top of the chat panel. Your conversation comes with it, so you can keep working in the app while chat builds forms, routes, or answers questions beside it.
Links in chat answers open in your main app window, so the chat window stays where you left it.
Each chat now shows its title at the top, so you can tell your chat windows apart.
Improved
Orders, assignments, statuses and attachments that come in from a connected
Smartsheet no longer send BuildingSwell notifications or emails. Connecting a
large sheet fills in your orders without an email for every row.
Changes people make in BuildingSwell notify as before, including on orders that
came from Smartsheet.
Maintenance
A due date that comes in from a Smartsheet connection now shows on the same day
it has in the sheet: in Planning's table, Gantt and calendar, and on the order
itself.
Maintenance
Changing a route on an order or a component now moves each stage's planned
location to the new route's default. Before, a stage both routes share kept the
old route's location, the new default only showed up as an option, and a
location both routes offer could be listed twice. A location you picked by hand,
or a stage where work has already been recorded, keeps its plan.
The Stage locations tab no longer lists stages that a route change retired.
They stay under Archived, and they no longer count as another order's
booking at a location.
The Default badge in the tab's Options column is no longer cut off.
When you confirm a delivery, each pack's delivered quantity now starts at what
was loaded instead of 0, so confirming a trip without editing records it as
delivered in full. A piece of something shipping in pieces now shows up in the
dialog with a Delivered tick, already ticked, so you can finish it from the
office instead of leaving it as not delivered.
After you change an order's Route in the Edit drawer and confirm Replace
materials, the drawer now shows the order as saved. Before, the change was
saved but the drawer still looked unsaved, so it seemed to need a second
Save.
In an order's Manage components, a row you add with Add child keeps the
name you give it, even when you start typing the moment the row appears. The
same goes for its quantity, route and due date.
When two components' routes produce the same part, the order now plans the
output of both, each at its own stage. Before, only the first component counted.
Clearing a component's Route now asks first, then takes out the materials
that route added. Archiving a component takes its route's materials off the
order too, and restoring it brings them back. Replacing materials on a route
change (or clearing, or archiving) now keeps anything already used or produced,
at the amount used and at the stage where it happened.
A component's Materials tab now names materials at a stage a route change
retired (for example "Kitchen wall › Framing (archived)") instead of "(unknown
node)", and Only [component]'s materials includes them.
Maintenance
Changing the Route on an order or component that already has materials now
asks first wherever the change comes from: the Edit drawer, the Planning Hub
Route column, Manage components, an Excel import, or a bulk update through the
API. An order's materials are replaced by its new route's, and a component swaps
only the share its previous route added. If the same save also changes a due
date that needs a form, the materials question comes first.
An Excel import that changes routes on several rows asks once for the whole
file and lists each row. Confirm Replace materials and import to go ahead,
or cancel and nothing is imported. A file that gives the same row two different
routes is refused, so keep one route per row. Integration Hub syncs keep the
current materials, as before.
Maintenance
A phase that comes in from a Smartsheet connection now gets the people set under
Default Assigned for that phase in Rules Engine > Phases, whenever
its row in the sheet doesn't name anyone. When the row does name people, the
phase gets exactly those people, as before.
This happens once per phase. Take everyone off a phase later and the next sync
leaves it that way. Phases the sync brought in earlier with nobody on them, and
nobody named in the sheet, pick up their defaults at the next sync.
When Assignees syncs both ways on the connection, the same sync also writes
those names into the row's empty cell, so the sheet shows who is on the phase.
Maintenance
When AI Chat edits an existing route, it now changes only what you asked for.
Dependency lags and start-to-start or finish-to-finish links stay as they are,
changing a stage's cycle time keeps its Float, and existing stages stay linked
to their stage templates.
Phases that chat adds to a route are now regular phases, and chat can edit
existing phases again.
Maintenance
If you add questions to a draft in the form editor and then ask AI Chat to
fill it in, chat now replaces or completes the empty questions instead of
refusing the whole form.
Questions with checks chat cannot set up yet, such as validation rules or
measurement units, stay exactly as you built them. Chat can keep or remove
them, and tells you when a change needs the form editor. Publishing names
each question that still needs a title or answer labels.
Maintenance
Import URL and Import files on a route's Documents tab work again, at the top
level and on every stage. What you add is saved to the level you have selected.
Maintenance
Typing a search into a dropdown takes spaces again, so you can type a name like
"Floor Framing" in full. That includes naming a new stage while you build a
route on the whiteboard.
New
The Department OKR Scorecard has a new Scheduled Past Due card. It counts open
work whose scheduled end lands after its due date, so you can move the date or the
work before it counts against on-time delivery.
Each late date counts once. If a phase has its own due date and is scheduled past
it, the phase shows up, not the whole order. Work without a due date of its own is
checked against the nearest date above it, so a job with only an order due date
still shows up once, as the order. On a department tab you see that tab's late phase
instead. The card sits on the Overview and every department tab, and each tab counts
the work in its own phases.
Click the card to see the list, worst first, with how many days over each item is
and a link to open it and fix the schedule.
Maintenance
A Smartsheet connection bringing in a sheet with thousands of attachments now
finishes each run once it has brought in its batch, and the run's entry in the
connection's Activity tab, tagged Documents, says how many files the next
run will bring in. The next sync carries on from there by itself, so a large
sheet catches up over a series of runs with nothing to restart.
Before, a large import could stay on Running for hours between batches.
Files over the 100 MB upload limit stay in Smartsheet, and the run lists each one
by name.
Improved
The Completions tab on your production dashboard now opens on Last Week,
the previous Monday to Sunday, instead of the last 30 days. The tab answers what
the shop finished last week, so that is the range it shows first.
Until now, getting to last week meant drawing the range by hand in the date
picker on every visit. The picker still offers every other range, and everything
on the tab follows whichever one you pick.
Only Completions changed. Hours, Plan vs Actual and Trends keep the
ranges they opened on before. The new default arrives when your dashboard is
updated to the revised report.
Maintenance
When your organization asks for a form before work is put on hold, the
Smartsheet sync now applies that status straight from the sheet. Nobody is
there to fill in a form during a sync, so it goes ahead and notes in the run's
activity which rows moved without one, so you can add the form in Building
Swell if you need the record.
The sync also leaves alone any status word it can't act on: a word your status
mapping doesn't list, or one you mapped to Ignore. The cell stays exactly as
you wrote it, and the activity names the words it has no mapping for, once per
run. Add one of those words to your mapping and the next sync applies it to
the rows already carrying it.
Maintenance
A record's own page kept showing what it loaded first. Starting a delivery's
transit left its header on Scheduled, with the Start button still offered,
until the page was reloaded, while the list beside it had already moved on.
A change now refreshes the record's page as well as its lists.
Read this online at https://changelog.buildingswell.com/notes/week/2026-w39