Work Breakdown Structure
One hierarchy of work, read through seven lenses, with a construction workflow that names its rules.
Hierarchy, workflow, and the numbers
Purpose-built work management for construction — not a generic project board with a hard hat on it.
A 4-level hierarchy with real WBS codes
Organize work as Phase → Activity → Task → Subtask. Every item's code — 1.2.3 — is generated by the server from the item's position, so the code follows the work rather than being a label someone maintains.
- Four levels: Phase, Activity, Task, Subtask
- Move an item and it, and everything under it, renumbers
- Delete one and its number is released — the live siblings close the gap
- The separator (., - or /) is a project setting
Status is a workflow, not a dropdown
Each item type walks its own workflow, and the status control offers only the moves that workflow allows from where the item is now. The construction task workflow runs nine statuses from Not Started to Complete, through Construction Complete, Inspection and QC.
- Nine purpose-built task statuses covering the construction quality process
- A move blocked on a lens names the rule in the workflow's own words; when the rule is open work beneath the item, a View items button opens that item
- A task cannot reach Construction Complete, nor a phase Complete, while work beneath it is open
- Every transition is on the record, with who and when
Spreadsheet-speed editing, without leaving the plan
The Table lens edits cells in place — title, status, assignee, dates, priority, tags — and adds a row exactly where you point, taking the type its position implies. The Outline is fully keyboard-driven: indent, outdent, move, rename, peek, zoom into a subtree.
- Edit in place — title, status, assignee, dates, priority, tags
- A ghost add row that takes the type its position implies
- Group and then sub-group; sort on several rules at once
- Search by title or WBS code
Cost and quantity on the work item
Budget and actual cost sit on Activities and Tasks with a computed cost variance; planned and actual quantity sit on Tasks and Subtasks with a unit, a variance and a quantity progress figure. These are the item's own numbers — progress and dates roll up the hierarchy, money does not.
- Budget against actual cost, with the variance computed for you
- Planned quantity against actual, in m³, tonnes, m², linear metres, numbers or kg
- Cost rate and unit cost, with a computed total cost
- Zone, floor, area and GPS on the item alongside them
More in the WBS module
The supporting register — everything else the module carries, on the record.
- A baseline you commit, per item or per subtree
- Commit the plan on one item or on a whole phase in one action. The Timeline then draws the baseline under the live bar, so slippage is a visible offset. Baselines do not roll up — read the slip off the children.
- Reschedules are staged before they land
- Drag a bar or an edge on the Timeline and the change goes to a review tray — Apply all or Discard all — so a planner reviews a reschedule before it becomes the plan.
- A short-interval view for the site meeting
- The Lookahead is the next N days as a day strip, with blocked-by and blocks relations on the row — and it is write-capable, so the meeting can change the plan from it.
- Workload against a real working day
- Capacity is hours per working day, set per person on the project. The Workload lens divides each person's assigned effort by their own figure and calls out who is over-allocated.
- The Board refuses an illegal move visibly
- Drag a card to a status the workflow does not allow and it springs back to where the server still believes it is, with the reason.
- The lens is in the link
- The lens you chose is written into the address, so a PM can send a colleague the exact view they are looking at. Filters, grouping, sort and search are shared by all seven.
Seven lenses on one breakdown
Not seven features and not seven copies — the same items, read seven ways, with the lens in the link.
The day-to-day workhorse — grouped rows, per-column filters, and cells edited in place.
How it works
Four steps from an empty project to a plan joined to its inspections.
Build your hierarchy
Define phases, activities, tasks, and subtasks. Server-generated WBS codes keep the structure straight, and renumber themselves when anything moves.
Why switch from spreadsheets?
Teams still using Excel or Google Sheets to track work items hit the same problems. Here's what changes.
The old way
- Manual status tracking — someone updates a cell, maybe. Nothing stops an impossible move.
- No sense of structure — a phase gets marked complete while tasks beneath it are still open.
- QC steps skipped to meet deadlines — nothing ties the plan to the inspection.
- Cost tracking is a separate spreadsheet that nobody updates until the monthly report is due.
- Multiple versions of truth — PM has one spreadsheet, super has another, client has a third.
With Construction Hub
- The status control offers only the moves the workflow allows — every transition on the record, with who and when.
- A task cannot reach Construction Complete, nor a phase Complete, while work beneath it is open. Dependencies are recorded as well — Blocks, Precedes, Follows and the rest, each with a lag in days.
- A task cannot be marked QC Passed while a linked inspection is unfinished or has failed.
- Budget against actual cost, and planned against actual quantity, sit on the work item itself, beside the work they describe.
- One breakdown, seven lenses — Outline, Table, Board, Timeline, Calendar, Lookahead and Workload, all reading the same items.
Frequently asked questions
Works with
Inspections
Quality inspections with customizable templates and multi-party review workflows.
Issues
Issue tracking from discovery to closure — quality, safety, and punch list categories in one register.
Reports & Analytics
Six pre-built analytics reports covering progress, quality, schedule, and cost — per project.
See WBS in action
See how teams plan, track, and deliver construction work from one hierarchy — with a workflow that names its rules.
Purpose-built for construction project management