An area is a day's run. The twelve gardens the van does on a Tuesday are one area, and the area carries the schedule — how often it runs, which day, the season, which crew. Every round in it follows.
Areas are off until you switch them on: Settings → Features → Areas. Then they appear under Clients & work → Areas.
Setting one up. Create the area and give it the schedule the run works to — every week, Tuesdays, say. Then fill it two ways:
- Rounds you already have: go to Rounds, tick the ones that go out together and choose the area. There's a Select all matching if you've filtered the list, so a run of ninety doesn't get ticked ninety times.
- Sites with no round yet: on the area, Add sites to this run. Type the site name, pick it, and SwardOps builds the round for you on the area's schedule — no job wizard, no re-picking the day. Give the batch a name, and a saved task template if you have one.
Moving the day. Change the schedule on the area and every round in it moves with it, and their upcoming visits are rebuilt. So "Tuesday's run is going to Wednesday from now on" is one change, not twelve.
What it will not touch:
- Work already done, or started. Only future scheduled visits are rebuilt. A completed visit, its hours and its photos stay exactly as they are.
- One-off jobs, even if they're sitting in the area. A one-off has a date, not a rhythm, so it keeps its date — the area page says so against the round.
- Rounds that aren't active, and rounds whose contract has ended. Both are listed with the reason, so you're never left wondering why one round's day didn't change.
Taking a round out leaves it exactly as it is — it stops following the area and keeps whatever schedule it was last given. Same with removing the area: nothing is deleted and nothing is unscheduled.
Worth knowing: everything in an area shares one day, so a run that goes out Tuesday and Thursday is two areas. And if you set a crew on the area, every round in it goes to that crew; leave it blank and each round keeps its own.