How does CrewnetBeat check freelancer availability while respecting work calendar privacy?

CrewnetBeat (CNB) uses a complex algorithm that goes through a number of checks to see who is available, not available and most importantly, partially available. Obviously CNB will become more effective when more companies and suppliers join.
In the meantime, if some of your suppliers are not on CNB then ensure you use your Crewnet account to let those that do use CNB check your availability.

No one else but you is able to see the name of any other company or event you may be working on when the system checks your availability. What goes on outside of the requested availability check is your business only. No one but you gets to see how full or empty your calendar is.

CrewnetBeat will only display your name when you are fully available within, or on, the requested times.
Likewise, if you are completely unavailable within, or on the required times, your name simply won’t appear in the availability list, but rather as unavailable, except when Partially Available.

One of the tools the crew logistics person has is the ability to check for Partial Availability.
If for example you are requested for a 3 day event but you are not available during the requested times on day 2, the Partial Availability feature will display the days you are not available. The crew logistics person can then view what times you start and finish on that unavailable day. Only the start and end times are shown, nothing else.
This helps with the possibility of slotting you in around those unavailable times, giving you the choice of flexibility and dialog to move things around if needed.

Does CrewnetBeat create warnings for events that are very close to one another?

Yes. When a crew logistics person checks availability for their own internal staff, they will be very clearly shown a warning when any of their internal staff are finishing or starting another event within 6 hours of this one starting or ending. This is so management is aware of the wellbeing of their own staff.

When searching for Freelancers, the project manager will not be warned, or even be aware that the freelancer is cutting it fine between events.
In this case only the freelancer will be warned that they have little time between existing and requested events. This then leaves the freelancer responsible to choose if they need the travel time or rest between events before accepting this new event.

Can I request to withdraw from the event once confirmed?

Yes. Within the “My Schedule” section of your event overview page, there is a “Request Withdrawal” button. This will manage the process of requesting your need to cancel or withdraw from a confirmed event. The crew logistics person or PM will manually need to remove you.

Can I add my CrewnetBeat account to my existing Apple and Google calendars so I don’t have to use two apps?

No. The only way CrewnetBeat is able to check your availability is to check against our own application ecosystem. Pushing or pulling data into other calendars will only create confusion especially if you have multiple personal calendars.
Also, as more companies start using CNB you will be very rarely entering your own events into your CNB calendar. CNB will automatically be doing this for you.

Can I add my own event entries into my CrewnetBeat calendar?

Yes, very much so. This will be vital in the beginning stages of roll out. Some of your frequent suppliers might not yet be on CrewnetBeat, so you will need to manually add those events into your CNB calendar. This is so that your other suppliers who do use CNB will be able to automatically check your availability.

What checks do you have in place against any scrupulous company forming an account and gathering freelancer data?

No company would be able to form an account without our own admin team pre-approving their account. Before we authorise the company account we will do our due diligence to ensure the company abides to our privacy and fair use policies. This includes making sure they are well known and established within the industry.

Does CrewnetBeat allow for Local Crew scheduling?

We have integrated Local Crew scheduling and account logins but won’t be enabling this feature while in Beta. This is because the system is already very large and we need to ensure all bugs and feature requests are stable before releasing this vitally important feature.
Local Crew scheduling works very differently to the standard ‘daily’ scheduling most of the industry is based on.
But, we are very excited about releasing this account type and will notify everyone as soon as we are ready.

Is CrewnetBeat integrating into any cloud accounting systems?

Yes, we are in discussions with two large cloud accounting providers. This is another feature we are also very excited about. We will send out notifications when we are fully tested and integrated.

Are there any plans to integrate into any well known industry based stock control and CRM systems?

Yes very much so. We have already started building our API’s and will hopefully be starting integration into willing industry CRMs by the end of Beta.

How much will individual accounts cost after Beta?

At this point we have yet to decide on pricing. As you can imagine developing software and maintaining CNB is a very expensive and persistent undertaking. The only thing we can say is that it will be subscription based and pricing will largely depend on uptake. The larger the uptake the cheaper it will be for everyone.
We will send out notices well in advance of any changes in billing.
For now CrewnetBeat is free to use for everyone.

Where is CrewnetBeat currently hosted?

As CNB has been initially developed for the UK market our servers are solely based in the UK. As we adapt to different markets and countries, we will host those parts of CNB in those countries.