Master Schedule Synchronization with Touchplan
Unify Master Scheduling and Production Planning
“The schedule is wrong as soon as we leave the trailer.” It’s a sentiment we hear across the industry. By the time crews arrive on-site, the master schedule is often already outdated due to shifting conditions such as weather delays, material shortages, and challenging site logistics.
Meanwhile, schedulers may be flying blind until the next weekly planning meeting or receiving critical updates through a patchwork of emails, texts, and phone calls.
Without a reliable way to synchronize the master schedule with the production plan, even small misalignments can cause avoidable delays, miscommunication, and a breakdown in confidence across the project teams.
These challenges are exactly why Touchplan’s Master Schedule Synchronization is designed to align long-term scheduling with real-time production planning. It connects Lean field planning in Touchplan with CPM tools like Primavera P6, Microsoft Project, and Oracle Primavera Cloud through a structured, human-in-the-loop process. This approach ensures that updates flow in both directions with clarity and control.
Why Human-in-the-Loop Matters
Fully automated syncing between the CPM tool and production planning platform overlooks the critical judgment needed in construction planning, increasing the risk of misalignment and errors.
Touchplan’s humans-in-the-loop approach offers a more deliberate alternative:
- Master schedulers can retain full control over what is accepted into the CPM schedule, applying expert judgment to field updates before incorporating them into the broader project timeline.
- Field leaders and Last Planners can review updates from the master schedule to ensure they are realistic, actionable, and aligned with actual site conditions and use on-the-ground insight to determine how those updates should influence daily planning.
Human judgment remains central to every key update, while automation supports speed and consistency in the transfer of information. The result is a synchronized environment where strategic long-term planning and day-to-day execution inform one another.
A Practical Example
During a daily huddle, the field team discusses that the “Overhead Fire Protection Rough-In” task will be delayed due to late arriving materials. This task is the final activity before the “Second Floor Overhead Complete” milestone—an interim milestone tied to the master schedule.
When this task is moved by the field team, Touchplan flags this as a logic issue and alerts the team that the milestone will be pushed. This real-time visibility prompts both field and office teams to reassess the broader project timeline and update the master schedule to reflect the changes in the plan. This ensures that small delays are acknowledged and addressed before they escalate into larger issues.
Proven in the Field
Astra Tower | Salt Lake City, UT
Challenge: Align planning and scheduling for constriction of Utah’s tallest building.
Solution: Jacobsen Construction used Touchplan and P6 together to:
- Align field-driven planning with the master schedule for tighter coordination
- Adjust rapidly to scope changes while maintaining delivery timelines
- Increase collaboration and accountability across trades and teams
- Minimize risk by using up-to-date production data to inform critical path decisions
- Double rentable units delivered in the first phase without extending the schedule
Combining Touchplan and P6 in this way is a boon to our planning productivity. It lets our experts spend more time managing project complexity, and less time managing project data.
Corporate Director of Scheduling and Planning, Jacobsen Construction
Set Your Team Up for Succes
CPM and LPS might seem like they are worlds apart and bringing them may feel like a daunting task. But Touchplan Customer Success has your back with the resources you need to get up and going.
Step-By-Step Guides
Regularly updated help articles, including a Master Schedule Synchronization Best Practices Guide, show you how to import, export, and update between Touchplan and P6 or MS Project.
Touchplan Academy
Touchplan Academy is an educational resource available to all Touchplan users that offers a Master Schedule Synchronization course to help teams fully leverage this capability.
Live Chat Support
Touchplan’s in-app Live Chat instantly connects all end users with a dedicated Customer Success team within seconds for real-time answers and guidance.
Have Questions About Schedule-Plan Synchronization?
We’re here to help. Learn how field teams and schedulers can get and stay aligned with Touchplan.
