A Crew is a collection of individual labor and equipment. There are two different ways to add crew in Planera, and the right way to do it depends on your specific needs.
Create crew as a resource: Add a crew with a specific name (e.g., Mike's Crew, Carpenter Crew #1) in the labor library. You can then assign this crew to individual activities.
Advantage of this method is that you can see the high-level usage of the crew in the labor usage graph and table.
Create a crew field and tags: Add individual labor and equipment and create a tag for the crew name (e.g., Mike's Crew, Carpenter Crew #1). Then you can filter the project and resource graphs using this tag.
Advatage of this method is that you can get detailed hours and unit counts of each labor and equipment for your estimate.
Helpful reading material before you decide which method to use:
Method 1: Detailed steps to add Crew as a resource
Add Crew to the labor resource library
Tip: Use the word 'crew' in the resource name for easy identification and search (e.g. Excavation Crew)
Optional: Describe the crew composition in the description.
Add the crew to Activity in the Table section.
Note: Using this method will display crew hours, and then you can manually convert that into labor and equipment hours based on the composition of the crew.
Filters can be applied when using this method. Use 'Labor = 'crew_name' in the filters to analyze the schedule
Crew names will also appear in the Labor Usage section and can be toggled on or off to filter the labor usage graph and analyze the resource curve based on crews. See this article for details about Labor Usage.
Method 2: Detailed steps to add Crew as a custom field and tags
Create a new field in the Table section. Name the new field 'Crews.' Learn more here.
Enter crew names (customer tags) you intend to use as options for the newly created field.
Add labor and equipment to activities with the desired quantity. Learn more here.
Now, add the crew name as a tag in the Crew field.
Note: Selecting a specific crew tag from the dropdown pick list will not automatically add resources to Activities. You will need to add individual labor and equipment that represent the crew.
Tags can be used for filtering and analyzing the schedule. For example, turn on the filters and set 'Crew = 'Crew_name' ... Read more here.