What is CrewGrid?

CrewGrid is software for planning and running productions — film, TV, commercials, and events. It brings the parts of a production that usually live in separate spreadsheets, emails, and PDFs into one connected place: the budget, the schedule, the crew, and the call sheets.

This page explains the handful of ideas everything else builds on. It's worth five minutes before you dive in.

The two sides of CrewGrid

CrewGrid serves two kinds of people, and it looks different depending on who you are.

• Producers work inside an organization — a production company, agency, or studio. They plan the work and hire the crew.
• Freelancers work in their own personal space — they receive booking offers, respond to them, and manage their availability.

Many people are both: you might run productions for your own company and take freelance gigs from others. CrewGrid keeps those two hats separate, and you switch between them whenever you like. See Finding your way around.

The building blocks

Organizations

An organization is a company or team. It holds your projects, your team of collaborators, and your subscription. You can belong to more than one — for example, your own company and a studio that has added you to their team.

Within an organization, people have a role that sets what they can do: Owner, Admin, Producer, or Viewer. See Your team and roles.

Projects

A project is a single production — one shoot, one campaign, one job. Everything about that production lives inside its project: the budget, the timeline, the crew, the call sheets, and the documents.

When you create a project you choose which tools it uses — Budget, Timeline, Staffing, Call Sheets, and Locations — and you can add more at any time. See Choosing project tools.

Personal space

Every user also has a personal space — your own corner of CrewGrid, separate from any organization. If you're a freelancer, this is home: it's where you keep your profile, see the jobs you've been offered, respond to them, and (on the Pro plan) manage a calendar and share your availability. See Your freelancer account.

The production tools

Inside a project, producers work with a set of tools. Each has its own section in this help centre.

• Budget — the cost plan, built from chapters, sub-chapters, and line items, with rates, markup, and multiple currencies. See Budget basics.
• Timeline — a visual, editing-style plan of the shoot laid out over time, with streams for each department. See Timeline basics.
• Staffing — your crew: contacts, roles, and the booking requests you send to fill them. See Crews and roles.
• Call Sheets — the daily plans you send to cast and crew, built from sections and shared by link. See Call sheet basics.
• Locations — the places used in the production, kept in one directory and reused.

Plus Documents for files, and Settings for how the project behaves — both always available.

The one idea that makes CrewGrid different

Most tools that connect a schedule to bookings keep them in constant lock-step: change the schedule, and everyone's booking changes instantly. CrewGrid deliberately doesn't.

Your timeline is a working draft. It never changes your bookings or call sheets until you choose to push the change out — and when you do, you always see exactly what will change first. This keeps your planning free and stops your crew from being bombarded with half-finished ideas.

This is important enough that it has its own page. If you read one concept before starting, read this: How scheduling works.

Where to go next

• New to the app? Create your account.
• Comparing plans? Plans and trials.
• Want the lay of the land? Finding your way around.
• Curious about a word? Glossary.