Settings → Project Stages holds one or more presets (Post frame, Barndominium, Non-niche by default), each owning its own stage list. A stage has a stable id, a display name, a colour from a curated palette, a default duration in days, an optional description, and a list of checkpoints. Starting a project copies the chosen preset's stages onto that project.
Also called: stage presets · post frame stages · barndominium stages · set up my build stages · customise stages
Post Set, not Framing — the stages are named the way you build
Each building type carries its own stage list, colours, default durations and checkpoints. The post-frame preset renames Framing to Post Set; the barndominium preset also renames Concrete to Slab / Foundation. Rename, reorder, add or remove stages so a shed stops carrying a barndominium's stage list, and so the board reads in the words your crews already use.
The default order is the order you actually build in
You grade, fill and compact the pad, then you form and pour on it. The factory presets were corrected to say so; the earlier order put concrete first, which is backwards on every real site. It matters because the preset is what every new job is copied from, and a wrong default gets copied by whoever starts a job in a hurry.
Renaming a stage doesn't silently break what's attached to it
Every stage keeps a durable id behind its display name, so a notification rule or an email template stays bound to it through a rename. Before that existed, a renamed stage kept its old name in the definitions and a newly added stage had no id at all — so it could never carry a rule in the first place.
Write down what “ready for inspection” means once
Stages and checkpoints carry written descriptions any crew member can read from the item itself, so the standard travels with the checkbox instead of living in the explanation you gave a new hire in the truck. Correct the wording and it reaches jobs that are already running, the same day. New men can answer their own question without calling the office.
Twelve stage colours chosen so two bars are never confusable
Stage colour is data, not decoration — it is how you read the board from the far side of the office. Colours come from a fixed palette, and a custom or renamed stage keeps its own colour instead of falling back to grey. Where two same-status stages run back to back, the board shades them slightly apart so they don't merge into one block.
- 1Defaults load from project_stage_defaults; a brand-new org gets factory presets built from the platform's canonical stage list
- 2Presets deep-clone their stages so editing one preset never mutates another
- 3Post frame renames Framing to 'Post Set'; Barndominium renames Concrete to 'Slab / Foundation' as well — matching how those builds are described on site
- 4Saving mirrors the presets into the stage_definitions / checkpoint_definitions tables so each stage has a durable UUID that notification rules and email templates can bind to
- 5Legacy orgs whose stages predate presets keep their custom list verbatim as the 'Non-niche' preset
The default stage order put concrete before dirt work, which is backwards on every real site — you cannot pour a slab and then grade the pad underneath it — so every new job started from a plan the builder had to reorder by hand, and the ones nobody caught went out to crews wrong. Underneath, the stage and checkpoint definitions were a one-time load that nothing in the app ever wrote back to: rename a stage and the old name stayed behind, add one and it had no identity at all, so it could never carry a notification rule or an email template. Templates are real, editable records per building type, and a barndominium starts from a barndominium plan instead of a generic one.
- One rigid stage list for every kind of building
- Stage names that don't match how a crew talks
- Renamed stages silently losing their notification rules
See it on your own jobs
Twenty minutes, your numbers, no slide deck. We’ll build one of your real buildings in front of you and send you the estimate link at the end — yours to keep either way.
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