Here are a few of the most frequently asked questions:

We apologize for any inconvenience the temporary outage may cause but are confident that the switch is of the best benefit to our users. Your patience and understanding is greatly appreciated during this process!

Step 1: View the details of an upcoming shift

Once logged in to ShiftPlanning, staff can see "upcoming shifts" in the upper right hand corner of the dashboard. Next to each future shift, there will be a 'details' button where to option for trade requests can be found. Likewise, staff members can view 'my schedule' and access trade requests by clicking on any future shifts.

Step 2: Select Potential Covers

After choosing the shift to put up for trade, staff members have the option to select the colleagues they would like to trade with. The list of potential covers will only be those staff eligible to work the shift (already assigned to the position).

Step 3: Shift Trade Settings

ShiftPlanning allows for shift trades to either be the full responsibility of employees or to be managed entirely by the scheduler with two levels of approvals. Managers are able to approve the potential covers and/or finalize the trade.

Step 4: Shift Trade Requests

Within the 'requests' tab, managers can see the tranactions needing approval and accept or reject collaborators and/or finalize the trade. Employees can view their trade requests.

Step 5: Shifts Available for Pick-up

Upon logging into ShiftPlanning, employees can see on the dashboard if there are shifts available for them to pickup. They can also view available shifts from visiting the 'requests' tab and navigating to "shift trades".

Step 6: Dashboard Alerts

Managers can see needed approvals upon login to the application. Alerts are visible next to a yellow bar.

Step 7: Reporting

Clients can track activity around shift trades in the "Shift Exchanges" section of the reports tab. The report will show the number of given, requested, or granted trades for each employee.

Managers interested in Shift Trades can learn more in the video and tutorial here. How is your organization using shift trades?

Happy Scheduling!

Default Wage & Currency

After selecting the appropriate staff profile, visit 'edit details' to see the wage field. Wages can also be bulk uploaded as part of the staff import. Payroll settings (Found under account setting in the admin tab) offer the option to set a default currency from a list of the most common.

Position Specific Wages

In ShiftPlanning, the payroll options allow for managers to change the wage and assign paycards for each position offering great flexibility. Therefore, if someone is paid more for example for closing the store than the general shift, the manager can specify the differential. Position specific wages are set by visiting the 'payroll' section of the staff profile.

Rate Cards & Overtime

Rate cards allow for managers to assign different levels of pay based on day and time. For example, if weekend hours are time and a half, the manager simply has to change the rate card to "150%" for these hours (the default is 100%). This will make the pay 150% of the base wage set in the staff profile. Overtime rules allow managers to set changes based on the number of hours (i.e, 150% of base wage after 8hrs worked).

The Scheduler

With the employee schedule maker, ShiftPlanning provides inline information for costing data that updates in realtime. Therefore, managers can keep up with wages totals while putting the schedule together. Inline costing totals can be see in both the employee and positions views.

Reports

As mentioned above, ShiftPlanning makes use of schedule, timeclock, overtime data and more and with wages in place has payroll-ready reporting available.

Do you currently have employee wage information in ShiftPlanning? What other wage-related information would you like to see in the application?

Happy Scheduling!

Default SSL Login

Managers now have the ability to enable Default SSL Login. The ShiftPlanning website requires user authentication to access the system. This requires data to travel back and forth between the servers hosting web applications and the clients and ShiftPlanning will encrypt this communication with SSL. So, you may be asking the question: why not default the "default SSL Login"? The answer is that heavy encryption causes slowed performance. So, given the performance trade-off, the ShiftPlanning team has made the setting optional. You can access 'login options' under the admin tab "account settings".

Customer Domains

You may have also noticed that upon login, you are now being directed to your customer domain (yourcompany.shiftplanning.com). We have domain specific features that are coming and will only by active from individual domains. The first of these will be an option for single sign-on (SSO). Other domain specific feature, will allow for more robust branding/white label opportunities as well as requested feature such as job boards and staff addition/account setup opportunities. Stay tuned for more news in this area!

Happy Scheduling!

ShiftPlanning offers administrators and staff members a number of setting to allow for a flexible system. In the staff profile under notifications, users are able to specify how often they would like to receive ShiftPlanning-related updates. We now offer great control by allowing employees to select not only how often they receive certain notifications but also to select the preferred medium (E-mail or SMS) and set independent frequencies for each medium.

Over the past months, we've added quite a bit of functionality to the "add filters" section of the scheduler which you can learn more about here and here. Among the requested filters was the option to segment employees by skill. This works for example if you want to just look at the schedules of all spanish speaking staff members. Filter by staff is an even more powerful feature when combined with other filters like "open trade requests."

Along with schedule related features, the team has also worked on areas relevant to payroll. One of the most asked for payroll/paycard elements was that of daily overtime. States like California have employment rules that regulate how overtime is handled on a day to day basis (for example, hrs worked after 8hr in a day are overtime etc). ShiftPlanning's daily overtime feature. We allow the flexibility to create as many of these overtime rules as suits client needs. These rules are reflected in payroll-specific reporting. Daily overtime can be set from the admin tab under 'rate cards'.

What features are you most looking forward to? Are there payroll-related rules that your organization requires?

Happy Scheduling!

SSecond Alarmers Association and Rescue Squad of Montgomery County, Incorporated (SARS) was founded in 1938 and has grown to respond to over 12,000 emergency 911 incidents each year in its region. SARS provides life saving Emergency Medical and Rescue Services to the over 130,000 residents through Paramedic Units, Rescue Truck, Marine Unit, Bicycle Team and Two State Strike Teams. The team provides such outstanding care with the help of over 70 volunteers who are scheduled with the ShiftPlanning application.

Before ShiftPlanning, the SARS team was scheduling manually with pen and paper and sometimes excel. This was not an ideal solution as the many volunteers work across five stations and have variable availability. ShiftPlanning allowed for more flexible staff scheduling and the busy team has benefited from the application's notification system. ShiftPlanning has already made scheduling less of a hassle and now the team is starting to take advantage of our timeclock functionality as well.

The ShiftPlanning team supports the outstanding service that the SARS team provides to its community.

You can see the full case study at shiftplanning.com/secondalarmersassociation.

Happy Scheduling!

Opening in February of 2008 just in time for Valentine's Day, Life's So Sweet Chocolates has quickly grown into a local favorite. Depending on the time of the year, the shop maintains 7 to 8 staff members. With a multiplying team, the store's manager faced the growning pains of employee availability and turnover.

Before Shiftplanning, the owner of the chocolate shop was using paper and outlook for scheduling, which was not only time consuming but also not very effective as a solution. ShiftPlanning presented a clear opportunity to streamline scheduling and manage availability and vacation requests.

With a young staff, the manager aims to teach gear employees with experience they can take as they graduate college and move on to career positions. ShiftPlanning has aided in teaching efforts as the program allows for staff members to take responsibilty and become a part of the scheduling process. As a web-based employee scheduling solution, ShiftPlanning is available at anytime via internet connected devices such as pcs, netbooks, tablets, and phones. This is especially beneficial to a younger employee-base who is always used to being 'connected'. The manager describes ShiftPlanning as:

ShiftPlanning hopes to remain easy-to-use and accessible to organizations of all sizes including small businesses like Life's So Sweets Chocolates.

You can see the full case study at shiftplanning.com/lifessosweetchocolates.

Happy Scheduling!

How to access the app?

You can access the application simply by navigating to shiftplanning.com/app/ipad/ on your tablet device.

What features will I have access to on my tablet?

• Dashboard:

  Send messages to the team, see upcoming shifts & more.

  

  [*]
  Schedule:

  The scheduler is richly featured and allows for shift creation in each of the four main views. Like the web application, managers have access to the 'shift edit' window which will allows them to set needed shift details.

  

• Time Clock:

  Staff has the ability to clock times (given appropriate admin settings) while schedulers can approve timesheets on the move.

  

• Staff:

  Within the tablet app, managers are capable of viewing staff and their information, updating profiles, adding staff, and assigning positions and skills.

  

• Reporting:

  The reporting tab currently gives managers read access to payroll specific reporting for scheduled, confirmed, and clocked hours.

  
  

How much does this cost?
The tablet app comes free with a regular ShiftPlanning subscription.

What if I have additional questions?
As always, we look forward to your feedback and you can send any questions, comments, or concerns to info@shiftplanning.com

Happy Scheduling!

Temple University Emergency Medical Services (TUEMS) is a recognized student-run organization that provides Basic Life Support to the area around Temple's Main Campus. The students who participate in TUEMS are certified EMTs who also undergo training at the Temple University Hospital Emergency Department and through the International Police Mountain Bike Association. Each staff member is scheduled for 16hrs of service per month and the team as a whole has responded to more than 670 incidents with an average response time of 2 minutes 14 seconds. The Temple University EMS has grown since its 2005 founding from 8 to 47 staff members. Previously scheduling by email and excel, they faced the common scheduling issues of many other student based organizations.

The student staff members have responded positively to ShiftPlanning and enjoy being able to see their work schedule in real time from anywhere they are connected to the internet. They also benefit from being able to enter and change their availablity, so they can meet their commitment at a time that is most convenient in the ever-changing and often packed schedule of a student. Staff members have described the scheduling software as "cool."

Getting the students more involved in scheduling processes and having flexible permissions that allow for multiple schedulers, have allowed the EMS managers to save time and focus on other areas of operations the help them to serve the university and save resources of the Philadelphia Fire Department Medics.

The ShiftPlanning team believes the service the EMS provides to the Temple community is "awesome" as well, and we're glad to be of help.

You can see the full case study at shiftplanning.com/templeuniversityems.

Happy Scheduling!

The Windham County Sheriff's department is a constituent part of their Vermont community and requires 36 sworn officers and additional civilian staff to fulfill the various community needs the department supports. As an emergency responding agency, the sheriff's department wears a wide range of hats which can sometimes make scheduling a daunting task. Moreover, as a public-facing organization, it is of the utmost importance that hours are allocated fairly and overtime limited.

Prior to ShiftPlanning, the sheriff's department was using paper and sometimes excel for their employee scheduling needs. Given the inconsistant nature of law enforcement scheduling, the department needed a flexible schedule maker that would allow them instant access to the vital information needed to make the best judgements on resource allocation.

For supervisors, the Shiftplannign platform allows the team to better manage overtime and conflicts as well as have a centralized location for storing staff information, coordinating vacation, and managing the movement of their cruiser fleet saving the organization transportation costs. For employees, having access to the schedule anywhere anytime saved time previously spent on trying to contact supervisors to verify the schedule or request time off.

The ShiftPlanning team is a proud supporter of the services the Windham County Sheriff's Department provides to their community.

You can see the full case study at shiftplanning.com/windhamcounty.

Happy Scheduling!

Check out the TimeClock settings below:

• Time Clock Module is on
  The timeclock module is an optional section of the ShiftPlanning software. If your organization does not use ShiftPlanning for clocking, you can hide all timeclock related features by un-checking this option.

  

• Employees must use webcam when they clock in & out
  The webcam aspect of ShiftPlanning gives managers the option to prevent buddy clocking into our virtual time and attendance solution. If this option is selected, mangagers will have the option to view the biometric timestamps left by their staff during punch times.
  

• Employees can import Time Sheets
  ShiftPlanning allows for timesheet imports which are specifically helpful for users with physical timekeeping hardward. The uploads allow for the schedulers to import third party information for comparison with scheduling data. Managers have the ability to restrict staff from likewise uploading timesheets.

  

• Employees can manually add time clocks
  While staff members can clock in via terminals or by clicking the "clock in" and "clock out" buttons on this virtual timeclock, time sheets can also be entered manually by completing the necessary fields. This is particularly useful for users who collect timesheet information after the fact (i.e, those with contractors)

  

• Lock time-clocking to specified locations
  ShiftPlanning offers 'clock locations' which allow managers to record clocking at particular locales based on ip address. This option allows managers to restrict clocking to these locations to encourage good clock behavior.

• Round time clock totals
  This option related to time clock related reports and especially comes in handy with payroll reporting.

• Round Clock In times up/Round Clock Out times down
  The two options above allow for managers to push clock time to the nearest hour, 15min etc. based on the setting options. For example, if an indivdual clocks-in at 9:07am, the manager can force the time to 9am even.

  

• Only allow time clocks within X of the start/end of a shift
  This option is particularly helpful for those organizations who have more strict attendance rules. It will restrict extra late or extra early staff members from clocking until the appropriate time.

  

Are there any additional TimeClock-related settings that you'd like to see in the application? Are you currently using the timeclock module? Let us know at info@shiftplanning.com.

Happy Scheduling!

The University Book Store has been part of the Iowa state community for over 130 years! The Book Store is an integral part of the university and requires over 130 full-time and part time staff to keep operations running smoothly. Many of the staff-members are part of the student community and due to their studies and extracurricular activities, scheduling for the Book Store is an academic-worthy challenge.

Prior to ShiftPlanning, the Iowa State University Book Store was using another software for scheduling that required them to print schedules. Given the constantly changing nature of student-based scheduling, that solution was not very environmentally friendly. The rigid structure of the previous software didn't bode to well with the managers either.

ShiftPlanning’s user friendly interface made it easier than ever for the book store staff to manage the variable student schedules. While the previous solution required printed schedules, as a web-based staff scheduling application, ShiftPlanning is available at anytime via internet connected devices like pcs, tablets, and smartphones which are all more popular options for student populations. The managers found the new scheduler in ShiftPlanning to be a good match for the book store's scheduling needs and have benefited from the flexibility of the platform.

The ShiftPlanning team is equally as enthused to work with the team at the Iowa State University book store.

You can see the full case study at shiftplanning.com/universitybookstore.

Happy Scheduling!

Vancouver-based 'Trees Organic Coffee' has 4 locations, each with an ever-changing amount of visitor traffic. As a service organization, the coffee house realized the importance of having the right amount of staff the right amount of time. Given the variable volume, coffee shop scheduling can often be quite a hassle.

Before Shiftplanning the managers were using paper and excel for scheduling, which was time consuming and laborious. With its easy-to-use scheduling and staff notification features, ShiftPlanning was able to help streamline the daily operations of the coffee shop as well as help the staff prepare for traffic fluxes.

As a web-based employee scheduling solution, ShiftPlanning is available at anytime via internet connected devices such as pcs, netbooks, tablets, and phones. The managers found this to be a great benefit:

The ShiftPlanning team is happy to be of help to the hard working team at Trees Organic Coffee keep the tradition of great coffee alive in the Vancouver area.

You can see the full case study at shiftplanning.com/treesorganiccoffee.

Happy Scheduling!

Below you'll find 5 ways that ShiftPlanning users are making the best use of 'skills':

1. 1. Skills as 'Skills' & Certifications

   As a scheduler, it is likely that your shifts may require a very specific skillset at times. In ShiftPlanning, it's simple to identify available staff who meet one or multiple criteria. Skills can allow you to specify employee qualities such as: Spanish Fluent, Excel Expert, or Project Management

   Along the same lines as above, skills can be added to specify certain employee certifications and/or course and training completion such as: CPR, PMP, or even in-house training (i.e, "intro to company")

   
   

2. 2. Skills as Positions

   In ShiftPlanning, Locations represent the highest level of organization with skills as a tertiary level. The most common structure in our system is for positions to be analagous to actual positions such as chef, dishwasher, and waiter and for location to represent an actual location such as "Main St." However, some organization need extra level of organizations. For example where location would remain "Main St", Positions = depts, and skills take the place of positions.

3. 3. Skills as Seniority

   In some scheduling situaions, it is important to give scheduling preference to more senior staff. Skills can help schedulers manage this task with titles such as: Level 1, Level 2, etc

   Another example of skills being used for seniority (and as a position as well) would be where there are different levels within a position. For example, within a "customer service" position there may exist: 'associate', 'manager', and 'team lead'

   

4. 4. Skills as Employment Type

   In ShiftPlanning, skills serve as a filter within reports, including payroll specific reports. Often times, finance staff will need to segment staff into different payroll-related types. Skills can be used to tackle this need with titles such as: Salary & Hourly, Full-Time & Part-Time, or Employee & contractor

   

5. 5. Skills as 'Tasks'

   Skills can be used as part of task management as well. Want to get a view of the schedules of your store 'closers'? What about looks at the clock-in times of your 'openers'? These are just some of the ways skills can be helpful as tasks.

   

Is your organization making use of skills? If so, how? Do you have any suggestions for how we make skills more useful in the application? If so, please let us know at info@shiftplanning.com.

Happy Scheduling!

ShiftPlanning allows managers to easily add new staff to their accounts. Furthermore, our disable feature allows schedulers to simply mark certain staff members as inactive while keeping relevant information available for accurate reporting.

Now, schedulers can find a new feature in the application: delete employees. So, How is 'delete' different from 'disabled'?

• De-activate disables employee login and moves the staff member to the de-activated list. De-activated staff member can be re-enabled and all information is maintained within the application (staff profile, reporting history, etc.). 'Disable' is a good option for seasonal businesses, student workers, or those that need to report retro-actively.
  

• Delete also disables login, but allows their email address to be free for re-use. Moreover, 'deleted' staff are not able to be visualised within the application. 'Delete' is more of a final action.
  

What other improvements would you like to see in the staff tab? Please let us know at info@shiftplanning.com.

Happy Scheduling!

The customer service team at Louis Armstrong New Orleans Ariport (MSY) has at least 5 locations that are managed from 5AM to 9PM daily assisting close to 700 passengers every day. MSY Airport takes customer service quite seriously and was recently ranked 4th in travel experience of the 47 busiest United States.

With a fast growing team, the manager of the service operation knew that it would be important to use software to aid in schedule management & creation. With its flexibility and ease-of-use, ShiftPlanning has allowed the manager to scale the operation and add staff and volunteers without adding scheduling man-hours ensuring that he could continue his focus on superior client care.

The ShiftPlanning team is happy to be of help to the hard working customer team and contribute to keeping MSY passengers satisfied and well serviced.

You can see the full case study at shiftplanning.com/aviationboard.

Happy Scheduling!

Drag & Drop Shifts Across Employees

We have an exciting update. We've been making the scheduler's drag/drop capabilities more robust over the past few releases, and one of the more requested Drag/Drop features was the ability to move shifts between employees. This helps users save time in navigating the employee scheduler and switching the shifts from one employee to another without having to spend time accessing the 'shift edit' window and changing checkboxes.

• Before:
  

• Drag & Drop:
  

• After:
  

Publish Button Now Hides If Draft/Publish Mode is OFF

The 'Publish' button gives managers control over when the schedule is available for viewing to their staff. However, some users prefer that their schedule always be live. Now if in admin settings the option "Use the Draft/Publish schedule method" is unchecked, the 'Publish' Button will disappear from the scheduler.

• With Publish Option:
  

• Without Publish Option:
  

Recurring Shifts Extended

Previously, shifts could be set to repeat for up to a year. That limit has been increased to three years. Additionally, the date selection can now be made by year for quicker navigation.

Saved Shift Length in Visual View

Now, the default shift length in visual view is 8hrs. However if you create a shift of a certain length, the scheduler will hold state for subsequent shifts.

If you have any questions, concerns, or ideas for the application, please feel free to let us know at info@shiftplanning.com

Happy Scheduling!

The Geek Squad is North America's largest and most recognizable tech support company. Geek Squad agents provide in-store, in-home, and remote support.

Before ShiftPlanning, the organization's default scheduling tool was Outlook Calendar. Schedulers had to manage appointments & shifts for staff members in locations across the country. Keeping shift trades and staff communications organized and up-to-date was a major hassle.

Using ShiftPlanning as their employee scheduling tool has enabled them to view their entire department schedule in realtime, sync and access employee schedules from mobile platforms, and manage shift swaps easily and efficiently. ShiftPlanning has helped to ease the load of managers and allowed staff members to take a more active role in scheduling processes.

In the words of, Geek Squad 'Covert Agent' Josh Ussery, ShiftPlanning has offered “Huge improvements over our previous system.”

You can see the full case study at shiftplanning.com/geeksquad.

Happy Scheduling!

Date Formats

We've recently added the ability to adjust date format in the admin settings section of the application. Date formatting is quite dynamic across locations around the globe. Though each 'date format' displays the day, month, and year, presentation order and separators vary greatly even within the same country and/or region. Flexible date formatting was often requested by our users and we're glad to have the new addition.

Multi-Timezone Handling

One of our most popular feature requests related to globalization is around muti-region timezone handling (clients wish to assign varied time zones to locations or to positions). There will be key updates in this area in the next few weeks so stay tuned!

Multi-Lingual Platform

In the near future, our work schedule application will be available in many world languages. We also look forward to extending native language support to our international userbase.

Are there any languages that you'd like to see ShiftPlanning in? How would you like to see timezones supported in the applications. If you have any comment or concerns in this area, feel free to reach out to us at info@shiftplanning.com.

Happy Scheduling!

Kovac's is a successful multi-location Missouri area grocer that has been family owned and operated since 1941. Before ShiftPlanning, the store was doing their employee scheduling the traditional way: with paper, pen, and a lot of white-out. This was quite inconvenient as their staff count tallies at around 90 and employee scheduling is needed at a number retail locations. Adding to the difficulty was the fact that most employees were students with very unpredicatable and dynamic availability.

ShiftPlanning's edit/publish features as well as conflict management system make it easy to say goodbye to white-out

Since ShiftPlanning, staff scheduling has become much easier for their retail stores. The staff have responded positively to moving the schedule online and are far more likely to keep track of their shifts. The ShiftPlanning team is glad to hear about the success Kovac's has had with the software and grateful to help the Kovac's team continue to serve the St. Joesph, Missouri community.

Today's staff enjoy being always 'connected.'

You can see the full case study at shiftplanning.com/kovacs.

Happy Scheduling!

• ADP

• Ceridian

• Paychex Preview

• Paychex Online

• QuickBooks

• Millenium

• SurePayroll

• Wells Fargo

• Compupay

*New*

• PayMaster

• Allied

To get started with online payroll exports, access 'admin' settings. There you will see a section for "payroll settings". The payroll settings give options for overtime and currency as well the ability to set a default payroll provider and enter options such as 'company code' and 'batch ID.' (Additionally, at the staff level, managers have the ability to input employee IDs).

With the settings in place, managers can access "payroll reports" in the 'reports' tab of the application.

After selecting the necessary report, an 'export' section will be available to the right of each report. In the export section, managers will be able to select which provider (if a default hasn't been set) and click "export" to download. The exported report will be formatted for direct transfer to 3rd party systems.

In the future, we aim to make this process even easier by directly integrating with providers for "one-click" data transfer. Are there any providers that you would like to see added for exports? Please let us know at info@shiftplanning.com.

Happy scheduling!

Clients who use either or both of these functions have requested a report to track activity around these functions. They can now find this information in the "Shift Exchanges" section of the reports tab.

For 'Shift Trades', the report will show the number of given, requested, or granted swaps for each employee. Moreover, the amount of requested and granted shifts will be displayed for 'open shifts'. This report is a great reference to make sure 'open shifts' are being filled equitably.

Are there any other reports that you'd like to see?

Happy Scheduling!

Please see the list below for an overview of ShiftPlanning shortcuts:

Copy Shifts

• Click & Drag Shift to Desired Date

• c: to copy

Quickly Explore Date Ranges

• Ctrl+Up: go to previous date range

• Ctrl+Left: go to previous date range

• Ctrl+Right: go to next date range

• Ctrl+Down: go to next date range

Easily Change Date View

• t: view today

• w: view week

• m: view month

• y: view year

• d: view day

Control Scheduler Views

• e: employee view

• p: position view

• v: visual view

• l: list view

Are there any shortcuts you would like to see? Let us know at info@shiftplanning.com.

Happy Scheduling!

• In the employee view of the ‘schedule’ tab, staff can now be dragged and dropped to shifts to assign them to those hours. This is complementary to our current check box system and should save schedulers using the employee view time.

• Also, when clicking on a name in the employee view, managers will be taken to the staff profile allowing for easier navigation.

• Using the drag feature with the hotkey ‘c’ will allow users to copy and paste shifts

• We have introduced an ‘undo’ option for deleted shifts and/or cleared schedules

• We've also made several updates to our clict handling system to include: red shift borders for visualization, inline red text in the 'shift edit' window to indicated conflicted staff, and a 'conflicts' filter.

Do you find the new changes helpful? Is there anything else you would like to see? Please let us know at info@shiftplanning.com.

Happy Scheduling!

Previously, wages were assigned to each employee in the 'staff' tab of the software under "edit details". Because wages were a staff attribute, different wages for overtime or different positions could not be entered into the systems.

Rates cards and the staff level 'payroll' setting have changed this. Rate cards allow for managers to assign different levels of pay based on day and time. For example, if weekend hours are time and a half, the manager simply has to change the rate card to "150%" for these hours (the default is 100%). Additionally, in the system, managers can create multiple paycards.

There is a new 'payroll' section in the 'staff' tab. The payroll options allow for managers to change the wage and assign paycards for each position offering great flexibility.

In the 'reports' tab, the 'payroll' reports now feature the multi-wage/rate card data. The new columns of regular, special & overtime have been added to the reports for more accurate exports and bookkeeping.

We will be working in the coming weeks to introduce this functionality across the system, beginning with reports. Does the Rate Card fit your costing needs?

The Current Color Palette

In our next update, the color palette for positions in the scheduler will be updated so that the text on each shift is easier to read. The color of each of your existing positions will be updated to use the closest possible color from the new palette so that they will remain familiar to managers and staff.

Along with the color changes, we will also be introducing new icons on the shifts to indicate certain shift properties like recurring, published, open etc. Moreover, we'll be 'locking' past approved shifts. This means that those shifts will not be able to be moved on the schedule and will be faded as a visual cue on the calendar. Shifts with conflicts will also be more easily identifiable by a red border on the shift.

In addition to the shift updates, we will also be adding inline information about costing to the schedule. This infomation will be seen alongside the current icons for total hours and total staff.

Existing Inline Totals

We hope that the updates to the scheduler will make ShiftPlanning even easier to use and save managers and staff more time on scheduling related tasks. Please feel free to let us know your thoughts on this. Are their any visual updates that you would like to see?

Happy Scheduling!

We hope that everyone enjoys the addition. What are your comments on the new video?

Happy Scheduling!

Click on "Address Book" to be presented with the log-in form. We've recently expanded our system to accept address books from over 100 online e-mail providers, including:

• Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, ICQ Mail, Lycos, Indiatimes, m@il.com, LinkedIn plus tons more
  

We will never:

• Store your e-mail address/password

• Contact your contacts without your permission.

Once you have entered in your login information, we will search for your contacts and provide you with a list where you can select the names of the contacts that you want to add to your ShiftPlanning account. Once you have selected the contact names, click on 'Add' at the bottom to create the staff member in your account.

Note - Invitations aren't sent to the contact automatically; this can be done easily from their profile page

For more information on setting up your ShiftPlanning account, reference the guides below:

• The Getting Started Guide for Employees
  

• The Getting Started Guide for Managers

Happy Scheduling!

• Schedule Import:
  Importing an offline schedule into ShiftPlanning is the easiest/fastest way to bring in employees, schedules, and shift times all at once. The schedule importer is now a part of the new version and can still be found under the gear-shaped action icon.

  

• In-Line Shift Requests:
  We’ve recently made requests more easy to find and manage with the addition of the ‘requests’ tab. Now, users can also approve or reject requests from within the ‘shift edit’ window directly in the ‘schedule’ tab. Shift requests can be found in the "who's working" area.

  
  

• Filters:
  Schedule filters are an easy way to quickly zone in on specific shifts within the timeline. Schedule filters are found by clicking "add filter" in the schedule tab. This will bring up a new side bar which will allow for filters to be selected.

  

  Schedules can now be filtered based on shift completion, locations, and employees. Shift Notes and Titles are also searchable allowing for managers to hone in on the view that they need.

  Additional filters have been added to the menu including the ability to channel unpublished shifts and those with open shift and trade requests.

  
  

• Schedule Overview:
  In addition to the filters described above, users can also find a new sidebar for the "schedule overview" section of the schedule tab. In the "schedule overview" bar, users can easily change the timeline via the calendar along with select positions for the view along with find the vacation calendar.

  
  

If you were still primarily using the ‘old scheduler’ and need training or support on the newer aspects of the application, please don’t hesitate to contact us!

We apologize for any inconvenience the temporary outage may cause but are confident that the switch to the standard platform is of the best benefit to our users. Your patience and understanding is greatly appreciated during this process!

These items previously lived within the schedule tab in the action menu, which was hard for some users to find. On the overview section of the 'Requests' tab, employees will easily have access to "request time off".

On the 'requests' tab, there will also be visible a notification bubble to alert managers of the number of issues that need to be resolved.

The employee scheduling application has gotten more flexible as well! The ability to draft schedules in monthly view is now available. Similar to the daily and weekly views, shifts are created by clicking within a date field and entering shift time information.

As always, please feel free to let us know of any questions, comments, or concerns. For more information, reference the guides below:

• The Getting Started Guide for Employees
  

• The Getting Started Guide for Managers

Happy Scheduling!

The new referral program is designed for users who are advocates of ShiftPlanning system to receive monetary commissions for recommending the software. Users will receive a generous 20% commission for the lifetime of referred accounts. Signing up for the referral program is simple and can be done directly from the 'dashboard' tab of the software.

• Interested parties can sign up for the referral program by visiting the "Do you enjoy using ShiftPlanning?" area on the right column of the dashboard.

  
  

• After signing the reseller agreement, users will be taken to the referral portal. users can access the referral section at any time in the left navigation of the 'dashboard' tab.

  
  

• At the top of the referral section, users will see a summary of referral action. This summary will list the number of referrals who have signed up for a trials and indicate if that trial has converted. This area will also be where users can keep track of their referral revenue.

  
  

• Spreading the news about ShiftPlanning is easy. In the "Get the Word Out!" section of the portal, it's easy for users to send messages via facebook, twitter, email and more! With less than five minutes of work, users could be generating cash.

  
  

• Users can also choose from a library of web banners, text links, and email templates to help market and refer the product to their contacts.

  
  

We're excited to be able to reward our users for their contributions and look forward to hearing any feedback or suggestions about the ShiftPlanning Affiliate Program.

Happy Scheduling (and Sharing)!

Find out more about our directors below:
[:div style="background: url(http://cdn.spgrab.com/23_07_11_18_04_36.png) center no-repeat;":]

• REAS KONDRASCHOW - CHAIRMAN
  http://www.3rhospitality.com

  Reas is the founding partner of 3R Hospitality and a partner in Aedificium Capital. He has a wealth of international development expertise having worked in senior positions on global brands including Holiday Inn Worldwide, Burger King Corporation, Marriott International and Wyndham Hotel and Resorts.[:br:]
  

• CHRISTOPH JANZ - DIRECTOR
  http://www.pointninecap.com

  Christoph is a co-founder of Pageflakes and has more than ten years of experience in designing software applications and Internet services for consumers. Back in 1997, Christoph co-founded German Internet startup DealPilot.com, one of the first comparison shopping services which got funded by Bertelsmann and has later been acquired by Shopping.com. Before and after that he was involved in various software projects and Internet startups.[:br:]
  

• HUGO BONJEAN - DIRECTOR
  http://www.hugobonjean.com

  A critical thinker with an MBA and a bestselling Author on the topic of sustainability and social justice with over 15 years executive experience with global Fortune 500 companies where he was a leading negotiator and mediator in international business initiatives. Hugo has extensive experience in business development, strategy and market positioning around the world.[:br:]
  

• RADEK BURKAT - DIRECTOR
  http://www.pinkbike.com

  Founder and CEO of Pinkbike.com. Pinkbike is the largest single sport online community in the world with over 1 million users every month.

[:/div:]

Most businesses still use paper or spreadsheets to manage employee work schedules which is complex, time consuming, and resource heavy. Founded in 2009, ShiftPlanning has already been able to generate results for employees and managers with consistency, saving up to 80% of previous time and dollars spent on scheduling. Such efficiency has allowed ShiftPlanning to already have hundreds of satisfied customers including franchises of Days Inn, T-Mobile, and Subway. The ShiftPlanning team is currently acutely focused on reaching, servicing, and meeting the needs of even more employees and managers.

“By taking work scheduling to the Cloud, Shiftplanning brings much-needed efficiency and convenience to a tedious business process which hasn’t seen any innovation in a long, long time”, said Christoph Janz, an early investor and advisor at Zendesk and several other successful Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) companies. In addition to Christoph, a number of veteran business leaders participated in the investment round and joined the company’s Board of Directors, including: Reas Kondraschow, Founding Partner, 3R Hospitality; Hugo Bonjean, Entrepreneur and Business Coach; and Radek Burkat, Founder and CEO, PinkBike.

The company’s latest release features an updated user interface to reduce the learning curve of managers new to the software. ShiftPlanning's new auto-scheduling tool the ‘schedule wizard’ makes employee scheduling easier than ever and improvements in application speed allow companies to save even more time on scheduling-related tasks. The familiar and flexible scheduling options found throughout the application make the software more intuitive to employee managers, who already describe ShiftPlanning as "invaluable".

"With a winning positive attitude, and a great framework that is constantly being updated with new features, ShiftPlanning is definitely going to be, if it is not already, the ultimate shift scheduling software available. It is completely in-valuable to our business and operation", said Kyle Nordman, Managing Director of Savoury Chef Foods, a catering & event management provider from Vancouver, which has been using ShiftPlanning for more than a year.

"The majority of businesses today still use spreadsheets or pieces of paper to manage their business's scheduling needs," said Ryan Fyfe, founder and CEO of ShiftPlanning. "This is a system that is inherently inefficient and problematic."

"We're excited to be working with such an experienced group of advisors. The funding will allow us to accelerate growth and reach more businesses with our intuitive and powerful application," he added.

About ShiftPlanning:

ShiftPlanning's proprietary online software tackles the problem of employee scheduling head on by providing a centralized platform to both schedulers and employees. In fact, the company has reduced scheduling-related busy work by up to 80% for it’s average client -- allowing managers to focus on growing their business and not on managing it. ShiftPlanning's biggest advantage is that it's available from any web browser and widely used mobile platforms to schedulers and employees alike. The company has created a straightforward solution that provides both managers and employees with the information they need to make better shift-related decisions. ShiftPlanning users benefit from streamlined communication flow and file sharing, open shifts that allow employees to select when they want to work, extensive reporting options, real-time schedule conflict avoidance, 3rd party integration, employee shift swapping, and online time-clocking; and, that's just the start of our useful features.

Our notifications go out via e-mail and sms and abide by notification settings both setup by the business as well as by the individual employee.

We've just released 2 features which will help to streamline your communication as well as make it much easier to keep staff in the loop during your employee scheduling process.

Branded Notifications

Starting this morning we now include your business logo on all notifications that go out vs. the previous ShiftPlanning logo. This will help improve communication to your staff, and help them to immediately recognize why they're receiving these notifications. If you haven't uploaded a corporate logo you can easily add one from ‘Admin' -> ‘Business Details'.

Available Shifts Included in Published Schedules

Up until now notifications only went out to staff that were actually scheduled, and there was no convenient way for ‘publishing' open shifts. Alongside scheduled shifts we now also take a look at which shifts in the timeline have open slots and send out a convenient reminder to your staff (that are available to work at those times) to let them know their are shifts that they can request to pick-up.

Open shifts have been an incredibly popular component of our employee scheduling software, and we are excited for the improved communication that this added functionality will provide.

Here is a preview of both of these new features in action:

(The ShiftPlanning Rocket Logo is our custom account logo)

You've always been able to filter quickly be location/position through the schedule change menu, but you can now apply a different set of rules on-top of this.

Here is a look at what this new filter option looks like, and below we've outlined the different individual options as well as how you can best take advantage of them.

Filter by Employee

The most useful filter is the ability to narrow down on individual employees or employee. This will allow you to quickly navigate through the scheduler only viewing their staff specific data.

Filter by Secondary Location

You can now filter by secondary locations allowing you to quickly visualize/group shifts that are assigned to that location. With our broad platform we have clients in all different types of industries and it's exciting to see how this filter is being applied across different industries. Here are a few examples that we've seen from our clients.

• Food & Beverage / Catering
  Secondary locations are being used to assign locations, or ‘jobs' to shift times. With the new location filter you can now quickly group these shifts together.

• Job Sites / Projects
  Another unique use we've seen for our secondary locations is assigning them as job sites & projects to then assign different staff against them. For example a client ‘install', or ‘construction project' might require a group of different staff positions to get the job done. With this filter you can now group these shifts together to more easily view/manage these projects/jobs.

• Assets
  This is one of my favorite use cases, as it truly illustrates the flexibility of our platform. Using secondary locations to assign an ‘asset' to a shift. For example our clients in industries like limousine / delivery / etc, are using the secondary location to assign ‘vehicles' to shift times. With the new filters they can now quickly filter in this case based on ‘vehicle', knowing how many hours that vehicle has been scheduled, etc.

Filter by Shift Type
ShiftPlanning now provides the ability to quickly filter shifts on the scheduler based on the following criteria:

Filter by Search Term

The Shift Notes & Title field are also a flexible option in our application that allow clients to communicate different details alongside shift times. You can now add a filter to the schedule based on a search term across these two properties. This will help you quickly zone in on shifts of a certain series, or that match different different search terms.

Visibility

Whenever a filter is on, we're essentially ‘hiding' shifts from display. We felt that it was important to communicate this visibility to you when you're within the scheduler. This is increasingly important once filters are turned on, and you are navigating through the scheduler. We'll let you know how many shifts are being filtered out from the display, with the option to click on the new ‘status bar', to open up the filter options, to turn them off for example.

In the effort to improve visibility even when filters aren't turn on, we now display a similar status message when you're in the ‘employee' mode. The employee mode shows shifts that are already assigned to a staff member(s), which means that any ‘un-assigned' shifts will be hidden from view. We now will show you how many shifts that we couldn't display in this mode. Clicking on this message will bring you to the ‘position' view where you can quickly see these empty positions.

Known Limitations & What's coming

We're aware of two limitations that are currently being worked on by our development team:

1. Copy Schedule - Doesn't adhere to this second filter level, and currently works like before on the location/position filter.

2. Print schedule - Doesn't adhere to this new filter level and will operate the same as before.

We're working to resolve these two limitations as well as rolling out a more robust print experience over-all to include new views, and better consistency between the print views and the actual schedule views themselves.

--

We hope you enjoy these updates! As always, please feel free to let us know of any questions, comments, or concerns. For more information about setting up a ShiftPlanning account, reference the guides below:

• The Getting Started Guide for Employees
  

• The Getting Started Guide for Managers

Happy Scheduling!

Automatically Round clock times

From listening to our clients we found that a key way to improve both clock behavior as well attendance is to 'force' employee clock-time behavior by restricting their ability to 'ride the clock'. The two new settings are applied within the time clock software at the time of clock in/out. If these settings are enabled we will communicate to staff at clock time what their 'actual' clock-time will show-up on their time-sheet based on current time and rounding rule.

For example if you have staff that frequently come late, or leave early you can now adjust the round times to deflect this:

The effect that this will have on your staff clock behavior is significant as they will now be 'penalized' for showing up late, or leaving early, as well as gain no benefit from trying to 'ride' the clock to jump them up over the next time increment.

For example if an employee is meant to start at 9am, and you have this set to 15mins. Unless they show up BEFORE 9am, their clock-time will automatically be rounded up to 9:15, so they've essentially lost a quarter of an hour from their pay, as well as their 'late' presence is clearly noted in your Time Sheet attendance reports.

We've tried to make this communication as clear as possible within our time clock software, so when staff clock in/out we provide full visibility of what is going on. For example:

Break Deductions from Timesheets

A long awaited, and highly requested of our online time clock software was the ability to apply 'break rules' to employee time sheets. A number of our clients were using 'clumsy' work-a-rounds for this. For example having employees clock in/out before/after lunch, or manually adjusting time-sheets to deduct the break times.

Break-Rules can now be applied to time-sheets at the time of reporting saving all of these headaches. For now this is available in the 'time sheet summary' report, and is an option that can be set at the top-right. Here is an example of what this looks like:

Setting: (top-right)

Before/After:

Updates to Reports:

A small update has been made to the entire reports module which will greatly improve performance and workflow when switching between reports. All timeline/options will now be 'held' when switching between different reports. This makes reporting significantly faster when switching between report types with different options/staff selected.

Employee’s ID On Profile:

Rolled out this morning is a baked in 'employee id' field on all ShiftPlanning user profiles. This field will be used for improved integration with payroll & other 3rd party applications, and is already available through our API.

To all users that were previously using a custom-field for this we recommend migrating the id's into our 'native' employee id field, as this is the field that will be included across all future reports/exports.

--

We hope you enjoy these updates! As always, please feel free to let us know of any questions, comments, or concerns. For more information about setting up a ShiftPlanning account, reference the guides below:

• The Getting Started Guide for Employees
  

• The Getting Started Guide for Managers

Happy Scheduling!

For more information about setting up a ShiftPlanning account, reference the guides below:

• The Getting Started Guide for Employees
  

• The Getting Started Guide for Managers

Happy Scheduling!

Step 1: In the schedule tab, go to the date range and the view that you'd like to fill with employees.

Step 2: Access the gear-shaped action icon, and click on 'schedule wizard'.

Step 3: The wizard will automatically detect the empty/open unfilled shifts. Click on the option ‘Fill these shifts’, if you want to fill the empty slots/shifts.

Step 4: You have the option either to fill both the open and empty shifts or to uncheck the open slots option to only fill the empty shifts.

For empty shifts you can specify the number of employees required.

Step 5: Wizard will show unavoidable conflicts. Take care of any specified conflicts

The shifts are now automagically filled!

You also have the ability to auto fill a specific shift. Click on the option ‘Auto-fill shift’ at the right bottom corner of the shift management screen.

Select the number of employees you want to fill the shift with.

--

As always, please feel free to let us know of any questions, comments, or concerns. We have a dedicated forum for feedback about the the autoscheduler and other features of our latest release.

Happy Scheduling!

The importer can be found by accessing the gear-shaped action icon on the scheduler under the schedule tab. Previously, the importer accepted only two common schedule formats both of which required staff assignments.

But now, we've made available a new upload format that lacks the staff requirement and can be used to upload shifts as templates that can be staffed later or used for open shifts.

Are there any other formats that you'd like to see our importer accept? If so, leave a comment below. For more information about setting up a ShiftPlanning account, reference the guides below:

• The Getting Started Guide for Employees
  

• The Getting Started Guide for Managers

Happy Scheduling!

This is accessible by employees viewing their own profile with managers having access to all profiles. This feature gives managers the ability to view an individual employee's recent and upcoming schedule for the next ten shifts in the future or ten in the past.

Along with shift times, employees and managers can also use the "details" button to change availability or request shift trades for the particular shift time.

The desktop application will allow users top performance independent of browser capabilities and can promote greater employee productivity as a stand-alone application. ShiftPlanning's desktop employee scheduling application incorporates all of the functionality of the web-based application allowing all workforce management needs to be taken care of without ever opening a web-browser.

The desktop version comes with all of the great features employees use on web and mobile including:

• requesting time off,

• setting availability,

• trading shifts with other employees

• and clocking in & clocking out

Along with continuing to provide managers with a centralized location to:

• manage and create schedules

• view and manage vacation requests, shift trades & timesheets

• share files and communicate with employees

• pull reports & print hard copies of your schedules

Our Desktop application is available for managers and employees at http://www.shiftplanning.com/desktop for download on Windows, Mac, and Linux systems.

The best part about the employee scheduling desktop app is that it's 100% free with a normal ShiftPlanning subscription!

*Note: Internet Connectivity Still Required For Application Access

• Step 1: In the schedule tab, go to the date range and the view that you'd like the completed shifts to belong to. This view should be cleared of existing shifts.
  
  

• Step 2: Access the action icon, and click on 'schedule wizard'.
  
  

• Step 3: Select the timeline that you'd like to use as a shift template
  
  

• Step 4: Select the wizard method. The wizard method allows for flexibility in how staff is assigned based on previous staff assignments and conflict checks.
  
  

• Step 5: Click the 'start the wizard' button to auto-generate a schedule
  
  

• Step 6: Take care of any specified conflicts
  
  

• Step 7: Finished Schedule!
  
  

You've now effortlessly created a complete employee schedule. We hope the 'Schedule Wizard' helps save managers even more time in their scheduling activities. As always, please feel free to let us know of any questions, comments, or concerns. We have a dedicated forum for feedback about the the autoscheduler and other features of our latest release.

Happy Scheduling!

Quickly Explore Date Ranges

• Ctrl+Up: go to previous date range

• Ctrl+Left: go to previous date range

• Ctrl+Right: go to next date range

• Ctrl+Down: go to next date range

Easily Change Date View

• t: view today

• w: view week

• m: view month

• y: view year

• d: view day

Access Scheduler Icon Menus

• p: open print menu

• a: open action menu

Happy Scheduling!

• Shift approvals allow Managers to confirm worked hours as a follow up to scheduled shifts. Shifts can be approved on an individual level from within the employee scheduler as part of the 'shift edit' window.

  

• In the scheduler, approved shifts willl display a green check mark icon.
  

• ShiftPlanning now also offers a list view of all shifts needing approval that is accessible from the dashboard.

  

• Along with 'shift approval' list view, users can now also find a 'vacation' view as part of the employee scheduler. To access 'vacation' view, click the 'schedule overview' link on the scheduler bar and check 'vacation schedule'. In the 'vacation' view, users can visualize which employees are spending time off in a calendar format.

  

Happy Scheduling!

• Notification Settings
  ShiftPlanning's notification system is an essential part of the employee scheduling application. The software's realtime notifications keep staff up-to-date with scheduling-related events and encourage prompt action to be taken toward items needing attention.Under notifications settings you are able to select if you want notification of the shifts set in the schedule maker to be release via sms, via email, or using both. Employees can also specify their preferences under staff profiles.
  
  

• Login Options
  Our online employee scheduling software permits customizable logins. Login options allows you to choose if you want to enable Google and/or Facebook credentials for login. Otherwise, users will login with a Shiftplanning username.
  
  

• Schedule Settings
  Users with manager permissions have control over what employees can take action on and/or view within ShiftPlanning accounts. This includes the ability to limit the shifts that employees can see as well as the ability to require shift trade and open shift approvals. Under schedule settings, employees can also designate how far in the future schedules are published. This allows managers to create and edit schedules at their leisure without having to worry about employees have access to all of the feature shifts. Now, as highly requested, schedulers can decide on which date the weekly schedule begins.
  
  

• Staff Settings
  Staff settings give managers even further control over what viewable to employees within their shiftplanning account. While reports are already limited to employee specific information within each profile with employee permissions, managers can choose to disallow reports in their entirety. They can also prohibit staff members from editing their employee profiles and/or viewing profiles of other staff members.
  
  

• Time Clock Settings
  ShiftPlanning's time clocking comes as a complimentary feature to our scheduling & workforce management features. We offer location-specific time clock terminals in addition to an in-app online timeclock and the ability to upload existing timesheets. Within Time clock settings, managers can activate/deactivate the time clock module as well as control aspects of the virtual time clock, imported timesheets, and time clock terminals.
  
  

• Vacation/Availability Settings
  The ability to set accurate availability is an important part of ShiftPlanning's process to eliminate scheduling conflicts. Managers have the ability to limit how and when employees can set weekly, future, and vacation availability.
  
  

• Message Wall Settings
  ShiftPlanning's Message Wall provides a venue for casual and formal communications alike. The feature is a great way to share messages and announce new items and happenings among staff, managers, higher management and schedulers. Managers can permit or prohibit employees the ability to post messages and/or comments. Alternatively, the wall can be disabled in its entirety.
  
  

• Payroll Settings
  Payroll settings offer the option to set a default currency as well as a default weekly overtime. Overtime can also be individualized within staff profiles.
  
  

For more information about setting up a ShiftPlanning account, reference the guides below:

• The Getting Started Guide for Employees
  

• The Getting Started Guide for Managers

Happy Scheduling!

For most managers, it is important to maintain balance in scheduling hours across employees. However, it can sometimes become a Herculean task to keep track of who's working when, especially when an organization has dynamic shifts. This is further complicated when considering employee overtime and undertime. It is for this reason that we'd introduced overtime/undertime handling as part of our conflict notifications. To take advantage of this feature, managers can edit details an employee profiles in the 'staff' tab of the application. There Max and Min weekly hours can be set. The software will then take the aforementioned into consideration in calculating schedule conflicts.

• 
  Go to 'edit details' in the employee profile
  

• 
  Enter Max and Min weekly hours
  

• 
  Access 'schedule conflicts' under the action icon
  

• 
  Notifications show who is under or over-scheduled and clicking on the notification will automatically navigate to the affected shifts
  

Shiftplanning offers a number of reports aimed at better helping managers to keep record of schedule related activity. Our newest report is the 'schedule summary.' The schedule summary is a report that will list all staff and hours per day with both start and end times. This report is easily grouped by location or other filters set in the application and also includes totals for key metrics. The report is also available in printable format or downloadable as a CSV.

We hope that the above features help save managers even more time in their scheduling activities. As always, please feel free to let us know of any questions, comments, or concerns. We have a dedicated forum for feedback about the latest release. For more information, reference the guides below:

• The Getting Started Guide for Employees
  

• The Getting Started Guide for Managers

Happy Scheduling!

1. 1. The List View of Calendar
   The new list view can be found in the schedule tab of the application. The list view offers a clean way to get an overview of scheduled shifts and provides information such as position, shift time, and employees scheduled. The list view can be generated by day, week, or month.
   
   

2. 2. Shift Icons(Envelope, Glasses and Lock)
   The shift icons help schedulers to quickly and easily get an overview of key information about published shifts. They have been reintroduced into the scheduler. The envelope and glasses icons can be found in the visual and to list views. The lock icon can be found not only in the visual and list views but also in employee and position view while in week mode. In case you've been wondering, you can find out what the small icons next to your shift time mean below:
   

3. Envelope: this icon lets you know that assigned staff has been notified of the shift

4. Glasses: this icon shows that the employee has logged in since the shift has posted

5. Lock: this icon signals that the shifts have been published
   

6. 3. Tab of Requests & Approvals (Trade, Vacation, Open Shift)
   Of the most highly requested features to be re-implemented into the software, were those around requests and approvals. Requests for a shift trades, vacation time, and open shifts can now be found in the dedicated area labeled "requests & approvals" located under the action icon. We're going to be working alot on this section over the coming weeks to both re-integrate some of the functionality that was available inline from the scheduler itself, as well as to more tightly integrate these actions with, for example, our notification system.

As always, please feel free to let us know of any questions, comments, or concerns. We have a dedicated forum for feedback about the latest release. For more information, reference the guides below:

• The Getting Started Guide for Employees
  

• The Getting Started Guide for Managers

Happy Scheduling!

Items Covered Include:

• How to Make Use of the New Views

• Date Range Navigation

• Finding Scheduling Conflicts

• & Much More!

Check out the video and let us know your thoughts on the updated interface. We have a forum dedicated solely to the new release and look forward to hearing your comments!

Also, for more detailed guides of the application, please check out the following:

• Getting Started Guide For Managers

• Getting Started Guide For Employees

Happy Scheduling!

We apologize for any inconvenience the temporary outage may cause but are confident that the switch is of the best benefit to our users. Your patience and understanding is greatly appreciated during this process![:/div:]