Turn a contractor contact into a tracked crew

A Contractor contact can be given labour tracking in one step, which creates and links an external crew so they get the portal, a pay model and job costing.

What it is

CreateSubcontractorCrew is idempotent: it returns the existing linked crew if there is one, otherwise creates an external crew carrying contractor_contact_id. getCrewForContractor resolves the link synchronously from cache.

Also called: set up labor tracking for a sub · link contractor to crew · sub in my contacts

See it
Turn a contractor contact into a tracked crew
Prepared for
Ivy Brubaker
1140 Ridge Line Rd · Fair Play
Shell package$29,828
Concrete & site$8,660
Doors & windows$5,773
Trim & finish$3,849
Total
$48,110
Signature
The crew header showing 'Linked to: Nolan Concrete (Contractor)' on a subcontractor crew card. Sample data — no customer information appears here.
How it works
  1. 1The contact card offers 'Set up labor tracking'.
  2. 2An external crew is created with the contact's name and linked by contractor_contact_id.
  3. 3The crew card shows the linked contractor as 'Both, linked'.
  4. 4Crew creation only references the migration-093 column when actually linking, so normal internal crew creation still works pre-migration.
Why we built it

A subcontractor already in the address book had to be re-entered as a crew before any of their work could be tracked, so most of them never were and their labour stayed off the job's costs entirely. Turning a contractor contact into a tracked crew is one action: it creates the crew, links it to the contact, and brings the portal link, pay model and cost tracking with it. Doing it twice returns the crew that already exists rather than creating a duplicate.

The problem
  • Subcontractors existing twice, as a contact and as a crew, with no relationship.
  • Duplicate crews created on repeated setup attempts.
Sound familiar?
What you get
One click turns a known contractor into a tracked labour source.
The contact and the crew stay the same entity.

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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