How to use LookAhead Pro
LookAhead Pro turns the sequence of operations on your rig into a living look-ahead: plan each step, line up the vendors it needs, and get reminded to call them before the window closes. This guide takes you from a blank rig to a complete schedule that re-times itself as the plan changes. The first time through takes about ten minutes.
On this page
- The six concepts
- 1. Add your rig, pad & first well
- 2. Build the operation sequence
- 3. Tune each operation
- 4. Plan across a pad — moves & walks place themselves
- 5. Adjust on the live timeline
- 6. Save your vendors & rig contacts
- 7. Attach vendors to operations
- 8. Get reminders, orders, certs & to-dos — call or text in one tap
- 9. Reuse a program with templates
- 10. Bring your crew
- 11. Learn from your history
- Tips for the field
The six concepts
A handful of terms run through the whole app:
- Rig — your drilling or completions rig; the top of the plan.
- Pad — a site that holds one or more wells. Group wells onto a pad and LookAhead Pro handles the rig moving onto and off the pad, and walking between wells on it.
- Well — a borehole the rig works; it belongs to a rig (and, optionally, a pad) and holds a sequence of operations.
- Operation — a single step (Drill Surface, Run Casing, Cement, and so on) with a start time and a duration. Operations run back-to-back.
- Vendor — a service company you attach to an operation, with the lead time it needs to mobilize.
- Look-ahead — the whole contiguous schedule for a rig — operations, vendor calls, and the rig's own moves and walks — shown on a time-scaled Gantt.
1. Add your rig, pad & first well
Create a well, give it a name and target formation, then assign it to a rig — if the rig doesn't exist yet, add it right from the rig picker with a name and location. If the well shares a site with others, put it on a pad; wells are grouped by pad and rig on your home screen, so everything for a rig stays in one place. A well doesn't have to belong to a pad — standalone wells work exactly as before.
2. Build the operation sequence
Add operations to the well in the order they'll run. LookAhead Pro keeps them contiguous — each operation starts exactly when the previous one ends, because that's how a rig actually works. Set the very first operation's start time once; every operation after it falls into place automatically.
3. Tune each operation
Open any operation to set:
- Kind — pick from the full list of rig operations (Drill, Trip, Ream, Run Casing, Cement, Nipple Up BOP, and more); it drives color-coding and analytics.
- Duration — enter hours directly, or type a drilling rate (m/h) and let LookAhead Pro compute the time, snapped to the quarter-hour.
- Depth — record start and end measured depth (MD); the app tracks meters drilled per operation.
- Description — any notes for the crew.
If you've run the operation before, tap the recommendation to set a duration straight from your own history (see step 10).
4. Plan across a pad — moves and walks place themselves
When you sequence wells that sit on a pad, LookAhead Pro inserts the rig's own movements for you — you never place them by hand:
- Move On → Rig Up when the rig arrives on a pad, and Rig Down → Move Off when it leaves — the mobilization and demob at each end.
- Walk between two wells on the same pad — the short skid from one slot to the next.
These gates are derived from your chain and reconciled every time it changes: a pad move appears when the pad changes, a walk when only the well changes. They're order-locked, so an operation can't accidentally jump across a move or walk when you reorder — the rig can't be drilling and tripping down the road at the same time. Their durations come from your rig's defaults at first and sharpen from your own history as you log real moves.
5. Adjust on the live timeline
Switch to the timeline to see the whole rig as a Gantt — zoom between day, week, and month, and jump to any date. Drag an operation's edges to change its start or duration; everything snaps to 15 minutes and a live "now" line keeps you oriented. This is the self-healing part: move or stretch one operation and LookAhead Pro reseats the entire chain after it — the operations, the vendor calls, and the rig's own moves and walks — with no gaps, no overlaps, and no re-typing.
6. Save your vendors & rig contacts
Build the rig's contact book once: add each service company — directional, cementer, casing crew, the office — with a name, role, phone, and email. They're saved to the rig, not your phone, so they're a tap away to call or text, and ready to attach to any operation. Add a teammate and the whole directory shares with them instantly.
7. Attach vendors to operations
Open an operation and attach the vendors it needs. For each one, set two lead times:
- Heads-up — how many days before the operation to send an early warning.
- Firm notice — how many hours before to confirm timing.
Set them once per vendor and LookAhead Pro handles the timing from there.
8. Get reminders, orders, certs & to-dos — call or text in one tap
LookAhead Pro reminds you ahead of every vendor's window — the early heads-up days out, the firm confirmation hours out — with the operation, well, and rig right there. Reminders fire as lock-screen notifications on iPhone, iPad, and Mac, and show up in the in-app list on the web, so the call goes out wherever you are. Long-press the notification (or open the reminder) and the vendor is one tap away to Call or Text. When the plan slips, the reminders re-time themselves along with the schedule, so they never point at the wrong day.
Beyond the vendor notices, the Reminders screen has a Reminders & to-dos board for everything that supports the job but isn't a step in it — ordering casing, a 15-day BOP pressure test, or a plain "call this guy" note. Pin one to an operation and it rides the schedule: an order fires a set number of days before the operation starts, a cert fires after it ends, and both slide when the plan moves. Or add a standalone to-do with its own date. Each one fires once at its time, then keeps nudging on an interval you set until someone marks it Done — and because the board is live and shared, the next tour sees exactly what's still open and who already handled it.
Coming soon: text the operation straight to the vendor — they reply to confirm and the operation updates itself, so you're not chasing calls from the rig floor.
9. Reuse a program with templates
Most wells on a pad look alike. Copy a proven sequence from one well onto the next in seconds — operations, attached vendors, depths, and any pinned order or cert reminders come along — instead of rebuilding the program by hand. The copied plan appends after whatever the new well already has. Batch drilling? Stamp one hole-section across every well on a pad at once and LookAhead Pro builds the sequence with the pad move and the walks already placed.
10. Bring your crew
Invite your team and set roles — owner, admin, or member — so the right people can view, edit, or manage. Everyone sees the same plan, updating live across phone, tablet, Mac, and PC the moment anything changes.
11. Learn from your history
Every completed operation feeds back in. LookAhead Pro records how long each kind of operation actually took and how fast you drilled, then recommends durations for the next one — by job code and by meters. It learns your rig moves and walks the same way. The analytics view shows average, P50, and P80 per operation type, so your estimates get sharper every well.
Tips for the field
- Only the first operation in a rig's chain has an editable start — everything else is positional and follows the chain. To shift the whole plan, change that first start.
- It's built for low-connectivity sites: plan at the rig and sync when you're back in signal.
- Use the same look-ahead whether you're drilling or completing — the operation list covers both.
Need a hand?
Stuck, or want a walkthrough for your operation? Email hello@lookaheadpro.app — we read everything. Otherwise, jump in and build your first look-ahead.