Lawn care customers and crew schedule in SharePoint

Keep a Customers list with service day, crew and a Status of 1 Active, 2 Paused or 3 Stopped, plus a Skipped visits list linked by a lookup. Make one saved view per crew, filtered on that crew and Status "1 Active", sorted by service day.

The Skipped visits list holds one row each time a visit did not happen, with the date and the reason. Exact names may differ on your screen.

Why one spreadsheet gets hard to run

A lawn care business can start with one sheet. It has a row per customer and a column for the day. It works for ten customers. At forty, the problems show:

Two people edit different copies, and a customer is on one copy only.
A crew lead does not know which customers were skipped for rain.
A customer who stopped service stays on the sheet, so the crew drives to the wrong address.
To plan Tuesday, someone sorts and filters the sheet again every week.

A list does not fix the habits behind these. It does give you one shared place, saved views and a record of who changed what. If you are new to lists, see "Replace a spreadsheet tracker with a SharePoint list". This guide does not repeat those steps.

What you are building

"Customers": one row per customer.
"Skipped visits": one row per missed visit.
One view per crew on "Customers", set to the service day you pick.

Our advice, not a Microsoft rule: start with one crew and one week. Add the other crews after the first week works.

Step 1. Create the "Customers" list

Microsoft's help page on creating a list says to choose "Blank list" and then "Choose to start a list from scratch." It then says to "Add a list Name, Description (optional)" and select Create. Name the list "Customers". Set up these columns:

Title (Single line of text). Rename the Title column to "Customer" and type the customer's name or the property name.
Street (Single line of text). Keep the street address only. Our advice, not a Microsoft rule: leave out gate codes and alarm codes, because anyone who can open the list can read them.
Service day (Choice). Number the choices: 1 Monday, 2 Tuesday, 3 Wednesday, 4 Thursday, 5 Friday.
Crew (Choice). Use short names, such as "Crew A" and "Crew B".
Visit pattern (Choice). For example: 1 Every week, 2 Every two weeks, 3 Once a month.
Status (Choice): 1 Active, 2 Paused, 3 Stopped.
Notes (Multiple lines of text). Keep it short, such as "Dog in back yard".

Add one row for each customer. Microsoft's page says that when the list opens you can "add an item to your list by either selecting + Add new item or Edit in grid view." Grid view is a fast way to paste a batch of rows from your old sheet.

Step 2. Create the "Skipped visits" list

Create a second blank list named "Skipped visits". Set up these columns:

Title (Single line of text). Rename it to "Entry". The Customer column carries the name.
Customer (Lookup). Microsoft's help page on lookup columns says: "In the list where you want the Lookup column, select Add column > Lookup." It then says: "Under Select a list as a source, select the source list to get information from." Pick "Customers" and, for the column, pick "Customer". Microsoft also says: "Lookup columns should be created and used within the same site." Make both lists on the same site.
Date (Date and Time, date only). The day the visit was missed.
Reason (Choice): 1 Rain, 2 Customer away, 3 Gate locked, 4 Crew short, 5 Other.
Make-up date (Date and Time, date only). Leave it empty until you pick a day.

Microsoft's page lists the column types a lookup can pull from the source list: Single line of text, Number, Date and Time, and Lookup (single value). The Customer column is a Single line of text, so it works.

Step 3. Build one view per crew

Our advice, not a Microsoft rule: use the classic view editor for these filters.

Open "Customers". Open the view menu, then choose "Edit current view" to open the classic view editor.
Create a new view named "Crew A".
Under "Filters", choose "Show items only when the following is true".
Pick Crew, then "is equal to", and type the crew name exactly as it appears in the choices.
Add a second filter with "And": Status is equal to "1 Active". Type it exactly as the choice reads, with the number.
Under "Sort", pick Service day first, then Street.
Show the columns Customer, Street, Service day, Visit pattern and Notes. Save.

Repeat for each crew. To see one day, add a filter on Service day, such as "is equal to" "2 Tuesday". You can also make a second view per crew and day.

Step 4. Record a skipped visit

When a crew skips a visit, the crew lead opens "Skipped visits" and selects New. They pick the customer, enter the date and the reason, and save. If you set a make-up date, enter it now.

Two habits keep the list useful:

Enter it the same day. A skip entered a week later is guessed.
Pick the reason from the list. Free text cannot be counted later.

Step 5. Look at the week

Once a week, the owner opens "Skipped visits" and sorts by Date. Count how many rows have the same reason. Repeated "Gate locked" rows for one customer mean you should call that customer. Repeated "Crew short" rows mean a staffing problem, not a customer problem. Our advice, not a Microsoft rule: review this list every Friday.

Then open "Customers" and look at the Paused and Stopped rows. Move a customer to Stopped as soon as service ends, so no crew drives to a closed account.

Crew leads in the field

The Lists phone apps for Android and iOS were retired in mid-November 2025, per Microsoft, so a crew lead opens the crew view in the phone's browser. Send each lead the link to their own view, such as "Crew A", and have them open it once in the yard before the first route day. For each tap, see "Microsoft Lists phone app is gone: what to use now".

Columns and a sample week

Customers: Customer, Street, Service day, Crew, Visit pattern, Status, Notes.

Skipped visits: Entry, Customer (Lookup), Date, Reason, Make-up date.

Sample week for Crew A: Monday has Customer 3 and Customer 4 (both 1 Active, 1 Every week). Tuesday has Customer 5 (2 Every two weeks) and Customer 6. Rain stops Customer 4 on Monday, so the crew lead adds one Skipped visits row: Customer "Customer 4", Date that Monday, Reason 1 Rain, Make-up date that Wednesday.

What to avoid

Do not keep the old sheet as a second copy. Pick one and close the other.
Do not put gate codes, alarm codes or payment details in the list.
Do not count on a crew view to keep other routes private. Switching views takes one click for anyone with the list. Access is set with permissions, so ask your admin.
Do not make Crew a free text column. "Crew A", "crew a" and "A crew" will not match.
Do not delete a customer who stopped. Set Status to Stopped, so the history stays.
Do not make the customer name a Choice column. Microsoft's lookup page lists Single line of text, Number, Date and Time, and Lookup (single value) as source types, and Choice is not on that list.
Do not add every idea at once. Start with the columns above.

Honest limits

A list holds the plan. It does not draw a map, find the shortest drive or tell a crew what is next when the day changes. If you need driving routes, that is a separate tool, and the street column here can be copied into it.

A list also does not repeat visits on its own. The "Visit pattern" column is a label that people read. If you want automatic messages, see "Late tasks nobody notices".

Finally, a person must type every skip. If the crew leads do not enter them, the list is wrong.

When to get help

You can build all of this yourself in Microsoft 365. If you would rather have it built and tested for your team, I do that. A tracker like this is a fixed price: $5,000 for one, built in 2 weeks. See "What a SharePoint tracker costs to build". Bring one example of the problem to a free call.

Tell me what's still manual

I am Al Davies. I run 250 High Street LLC and build SharePoint trackers and Power Automate flows for operations teams. I work remotely. The first call is free, and I will not try to sell you anything.

See trackers I built: Tools I built

FAQ

Is there a lawn care schedule template?

Not as a file. "Columns and a sample week" above has both column lists and one filled-in week for a crew.

Can a customer be on two days?

Not with a Choice column set to one value. One way to start is a second Customers row for the second day. Or allow multiple selections on Service day and test each crew view.

Is there a lawn care schedule app?

No separate app is needed. The Lists phone apps were retired in mid-November 2025, so crew leads use their crew view in a phone browser.

How do I keep stopped customers off the crew view?

Set Status to Stopped and keep the filter Status is equal to "1 Active" in each crew view. The row stays in the list for your records.

Can I paste my old spreadsheet into the list?

Microsoft's page on creating a list says you can add items with "Edit in grid view." Paste a small batch first and check the columns line up before you paste the rest.