July 2024: customers and jobs working end to end for window cleaning
July 2024 was the month the customer list and the job list started to work together for window cleaning. Here is what that meant, what was missing, and what we learned from using it.
Part 9 of 39 of Building TradeYoke, the story of how the platform was built, from January 2024 to today. Previous: One codebase and offline-first: the early engineering decisions. Next: July 2024: a library for the paperwork, filed where you will look. See every part on the build timeline.
Quick answer
Quick answer: By July 2024 the window cleaning build had a customer list and a job list that worked together: you could add a customer, give them a repeating job at a price, and see it on a list. It was deliberately small. Invoices, quotes and maps had not started, because we wanted this foundation to be right first.
Key takeaways
- The first milestone was small on purpose: customers and repeating jobs, working together.
- A job list that spans trades has filters (trade, person, priority, round) so it stays usable as it grows.
- Using it on a real week showed what was missing before anything new was built on top.
The first milestone
The January rules said customers and jobs first. By July 2024 they worked together. You could add a customer, give them a window cleaning job with a price and a frequency, put it on a round, and see it on a list. That sounds modest, and it was. But it was the first time the pieces the previous months had designed (the round, the customer record and the repeating job) behaved as one thing.
What it did
- A customer directory you could search, sort and filter, with the customer's details, notes and jobs together.
- A job list showing the work across customers, filtered by round, person or priority.
- A guided way to book a job: what needs doing, where, how often, which round, in steps rather than one long form. It is still how jobs are booked today, in the job wizard.
What was missing
A lot. There was no invoice, no quote, no map and no reminder text. Money was still handled outside. We were comfortable with that, because the aim of the milestone was to find out whether the foundation was sound, not to impress anyone.
What using it taught us
- The "which round" step needs to be honest. A round list that shows made-up names is worse than an empty one. Today, if there are no rounds yet, the wizard says so and lets you add one on the spot.
- People look for the job from the customer. A job opened from a customer's record should take you back to that customer when you close it, and today it does. Small, but it is the sort of thing that makes software feel like it was built for the way you work.
- Lists get long. Filters are not a nicety once a business has a few hundred customers.
What came next
With customers and jobs holding up, the next question was how the diary should fill itself. That is August, in the next article.
Questions people ask
What could TradeYoke do in the first working version?
Hold customers with their details and notes, hold repeating jobs with a price and frequency, put them on rounds, and show them in searchable lists. Invoicing, quoting and maps came later.
Is the job wizard the same today?
The guided, step-by-step way to book a job has stayed, and each trade contributes its own steps.
Try it on your own week
30 days of Essentials free, no card. Bring your customers and see it against a real week.
