Sanjana's Room Ready Board

Give each cleaner her list of rooms for the day and mark them ready as she finishes, so the counter always knows what can be shown.

Who this is for

Sanjana Rawat runs a 44-bed women's paying-guest hostel off Karve Road in Kothrud, Pune. Three cleaning staff, two shifts, eleven rooms that turn over in a month. The moment she needs this is 11.20 in the morning, when a father and his daughter are standing at her counter with a suitcase, asking to see a room on the second floor, and Sanjana does not know whether Meena has finished 204 or is still in 207.

How the job is done today

There is a wire-bound diary on the counter with room numbers down the left side and a tick next to each one. The ticks are from yesterday, because nobody rubbed them out. There is a WhatsApp group called PG Staff where Meena sends a photo of a made bed at some point after she has made it, and sometimes at the end of the day for four rooms at once. Mostly Sanjana leans out from behind the counter and shouts up the stairwell, or walks up herself and leaves the counter empty. When a parent is waiting, she walks up.

The screens, in order

1. Today's board — This is what stays open on the counter screen all day, showing every room as a large tile in one of three colours so Sanjana can answer a waiting parent without touching anything.
2. Assign the day — Sanjana opens this once in the morning to hand each room to one cleaner for the day shift or the evening shift.
3. Meena's list — Each cleaner opens this on her own phone to see only her own rooms in floor order and tap one when she has finished it.
4. Room check — Sanjana taps a room that a cleaner has finished and confirms it is fit to show, which is the only thing that turns a tile green.
5. Staff and rooms — The rarely-opened page where she adds a new cleaner, marks someone on leave, or adds the room on the terrace she has just started letting.

What it keeps track of

• Rooms — room number, which floor, how many beds, whether it is currently let or empty
• Cleaners — name, phone number, which shift she normally works, working today or on leave
• Today's assignments — which room, which cleaner, morning or evening shift, the date
• Room status — which room, waiting or cleaned or ready to show, who marked it cleaned and at what time, who checked it

The one decision that matters

The one decision is whether a cleaner tapping finished turns the room green on the counter board, or whether Sanjana has to check it first. One tap is faster and honest to the person doing the work. Two steps means a room sits in an in-between state until she looks at it. Go with two steps. The whole reason this screen exists is that a parent is standing at the counter watching Sanjana's face. If she says a room is ready and it has a wet floor and yesterday's dustbin, she has lost the booking and the parent's trust in one walk upstairs. So a cleaner's tap turns the tile amber, meaning done but not seen, and only Sanjana's check turns it green. She can check five rooms in one trip upstairs, at a time she chooses.

What to leave out of the first version

Leave out photos of finished rooms. It is the first thing anyone asks for, and it is the thing that kills the habit: cleaners stop tapping because uploading feels like work, and Sanjana starts scrolling images instead of walking up. Also leave out attendance, salary and tenant rent records. This board answers one question at one counter. The day it also tries to be the rent register is the day nobody trusts either half of it.

How you would know it worked

A parent asks to see a room and Sanjana turns the counter screen around and points at it, instead of saying give me two minutes and walking up to the second floor. By the second week the diary on the counter has nothing written in it.

Build it

Paste this in and let it run.

I run a 44-bed ladies PG in Pune with three cleaning staff and I need a website that stays open on the counter computer showing all my rooms as big coloured boxes, grey for not touched, amber for the cleaner says she is done, green for I have checked it and can show it to a parent right now. Every morning I want to open a page and give each room to one of my cleaners for the morning or evening shift, and each cleaner should get her own simple page on her phone with just her rooms in floor order that she taps when she finishes one. Only I can turn a room green. Everything should reset to grey at the start of the next day, and I want a page to add cleaners, mark someone on leave, and add rooms.